José Berardo is one of the wealthiest individuals in Portugal. He’s also known for a) being under regular investigation for dodgy financial dealings, and b) having a spectacularly large collection of modern art.
The collection is so spectacularly large that he’s done a deal with the Portuguese government whereby the best of the collection is housed in a publicly owned, purpose-built gallery, yet he retains ownership. The finer points of this arrangement escape me, but I do know the deal expires in 2022. Meanwhile, Lisbon has one of the major modern collections in Europe.
The Berardo Collection Museum is located in Belém, a half-hour tram ride from the centre of Lisbon. There are other museums and galleries here, some of which I may visit.
The collection is one of those “grand tours” of everything from Dadaism to Pop Art. Names include Duchamp, Mondrian, Picasso, Krasner, Rothko, Pollock, Warhol, Man Ray... you get the idea. Sadly, there’s a lack of depth here. Whether that means Berardo is a collector rather than an art lover is hard to ascertain. It might be the curators trying to educate the public by taking a strictly chronological approach. It might be that after six weeks of chasing the best that Western Europe has to offer, I’m just a jaded dilettante. Or perhaps the stuff on show is a bit B-movie. Whatever the truth, not one work from the (semi) permanent collection floated my boat.
The place was eerily empty. A couple of school groups were getting long lectures in front of particular works, but otherwise, I had the place to myself. There is no seating in any of the rooms (what Fascist made that decision?) so there was no chance to enter into communion with an artist. Maybe that’s the mundane reason why I didn’t get excited.
There were several temporary exhibitions. A couple of chaps from Macao taking photography to new levels of camp, and some drawings that might be good, but are probably beyond my capacity to interpret.
Palma’s schtick runs the whole gamut from whiz to bang. Motors, fans, sudden noises, screens, devices and machines, things hanging, things clunking, things that scare babies. Palma is the ultimate 21st Century artist, knowing that to compete with the cyber age you need the Grand Guignol without the blood but twice as sinister. Goya it ain’t, but it got my attention.