2023Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation - Special Folder

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Modern Art Centre (CAM), which is celebrating its 40th anniversary, was created according to the idea of Doctor José de Azeredo Perdigão, then president of the institution and committed to its mission, as a centre of art and culture, holding a collection of modern and contemporary art that included the largest representation of Portuguese artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. It fell to Sir Leslie Martin and his team to design a multifunctional building to house the collection, a space of creation and presentation of new artistic forms and the exhibition of works by new artists, which is now reopening after remodelling works. Inaugurated in 1983, the CAM became the base of ACARTE, an innovative multidisciplinary programme launched a year later by Madalena Perdigão (1923-1989), whose centenary of birth is celebrated this year and who played a very important role in the reform of artistic education in Portugal and at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in the areas of music, dance, cultural creation, and artistic innovation.