Art Deco, 85 years later

Bringing together a remarkable set of more than 150 porcelains, ceramics, glass, paintings, drawings, sculptures, jewellery and furniture designed to evoke the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris, in 1925, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon presents the excellent show Art Deco 1925, paying homage to an artistic style that confirmed itself from the 1920s onwards. The show runs until January 3, 2010.
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Lisbon’s Alma Africana

Lisbon was the first European city to develop trade and cultural ties with Africa, bringing the art and culture of different civilizations to the Old Continent. To see how European and specifically Portuguese culture influenced African art and vice versa, you should visit Lisbon’s African Soul (Alma Africana) exhibition at Páteo da Galé, a space in Praça do Comércio, through the arches next to the city’s main tourism office. The exhibition is open every day except Mondays until February 7 and offers free entries on Sundays and Wednesdays.
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Ben Hur Live!

Fifty years after the first screening of the legendary film starring Charles Heston, Ben Hur dazzles the audiences once again with a breathtaking combination of light, sound, water, wind and pyrotechnic effects in a show performed in the round, like an ancient arena. Ben Hur Live, the major arena extravaganza continues its European tour with thirty-five shows in the UK, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, France, Spain and Belgium selling out fast. Check out when and where the show performs until the end of January 2010 and book in advance.
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Remembering Amália…

Amália Rodrigues left a mythical image never achieved by anyone. On the tenth anniversary of her death, a double exhibition in Lisbon explores the life, art and impact of the legendary Portuguese Fado diva, through documents, paintings, films, and other objects. Until the end of January 2010, the exhibition Amália, Coração Independente -titled after a famous verse of fado song Estranha forma de vida, which she wrote after music by Alfredo Marceneiro- will be on show at the Berardo Museum of Contemporary Art at the CCB and the nearby Museu da Electricidade in Belém.
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Paula Rego’s stories housed in Cascais

A brand new museum in Cascais, at the outskirts of the Lisbon, has just been opened to enrich the cultural map of the country and pay tribute to one of the most important contemporary artists ever born in Portugal. The official opening of Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, designed by architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, took place on September 18 and naturally it is marked by an exhibition of a significant collection of works by Paula Rego, as well as some by her husband, artist and art critic Victor Willing (1928-1988). The new museum’s virgin exhibition will be on view until March 2010.
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Diana Krall’s Quiet Nights in Europe

With a Canadian and US tour now behind her, international jazz superstar Diana Krall is focusing on her remaining European trek behind her latest album, the Brazilian bossa nova-flavored Quiet Nights. The remaining part of her European leg in October and November 2009 is a hectic 37-date tour that spans 33 cities in 19 countries: France, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, FYRoM, Serbia, Romania, Czech Rep. and Russia. If you’re anywhere close where she performs do not miss the opportunity.
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Lisbon welcomes the new opera and ballet season

Portugal’s two top performing arts institutions are completing the country’s cultural calendar for the 2009/2010 season with some of the year’s most important events. Lisbon’s main opera house, the famed Teatro Nacional de São Carlos is bringing nine opera productions onstage this year and 22 concerts performed by the Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa –seven of which at the Centro Cultural de Belém and one at the Teatro Municipal São Luiz. At the same time, the country’s main ballet company, the Companhia Nacional de Bailado presents 8 ballet productions at the Teatro Camões.
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Portugal’s art panorama in the 70’s

An overview of the artistic production of the 70's, a period that was especially rich for the history of culture and the visual arts in Portugal, can be seen in the exhibition 70's – Crossing Frontiers, which will be running for one year, until October 3, 2010 at the Modern Art Centre of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. The exhibition brings together 200 works by 80 artists, originating from the Modern Art Centre José Azeredo Perdigão (CAMJAP), the Serralves Foundation, the Chiado Museum, the Berardo Collection Museum, Culturgest and several private collections.
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On board Titanic in Lisbon

Continuing its European tour, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition presents a vast collection of artefacts dramatically rescued from the ocean floor, two and a half miles below the surface of the North Atlantic. The show, which opened in Lisbon’s Espaço Rossio in August is running until October 11, for those who want to know the story behind the legendary Titanic’s short journey.
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Moments in Dulce Pontes’ life

Two mesmerizing evenings with Portugal's most precious voice is a proposal you can’t miss in Cyprus this September. When Dulce Pontes goes onstage at Nicosia’s D’Avila Moat on September 24 and Paphos’ Castle Square on the following day, she will flood her audiences with emotion, longing, seductiveness, bravado, desperation and strength. Her new album Momentos wraps up her 20 years long career and comes with a world tour, which started in the Spring of 2009 in celebration of the event.
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Depeche Mode touring the Universe

The English electronic band Depeche Mode returns to Europe to continue the Tour of the Universe 2009, after a long leg in the Americas. The trek is in support of the group's 12th studio album -Sounds of the Universe, released in April 2009- and takes them to 36 cities in 17 countries (Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, UK, Hungary, Czech Republic, Norway, Russia, Poland, Croatia) from October 31, 2009 to February 27, 2010.
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It’s all about Allgarve!

It is definitely the biggest event of the year outside Lisbon. Allgarve 2009 –whether you call it festival or promotional extravaganza- is a massive and complex series of artistic and entertaining events that promise to bring the southern Portuguese region of Algarve into the cultural map of Europe. It includes various independent festivals with top names from the international music scene, carefully planned line-ups, an art exhibition spree, sport and gourmet events, you name it. And all this in a span of an amazing 8-month period, from April 2 to October 25.
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How Portugal globalized the world

Two years ago, the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington DC put together a special exhibition titled Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries. It explained “how Portugal brought the world together” during the Age of Discovery and its pioneering role in global trade. It then travelled to Brussels in 2008, and now, from July 16 to October 11, at last it is shown in Lisbon, at the Ancient Art Museum, where you can also see some additional treasures not shown in the previous exhibitions.
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Art Deco has enemies?

Art Deco at its most successful and its strongest critics sit comfortably side by side in the exhibition of José Berardo’s large collection of furniture and objects that we can see at the Berardo Museum in Lisbon’s Praça do Império. This very interesting exhibit, titled Art Deco and its enemies, showcases objects made by famous designers in the 20s and later, restored to the context of the 1925 Exposition in Paris. Visit it until September 20 and learn some more on that current that is so often misunderstood.
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