New Acquisitions: Currently Active Artists (2025)

Spanning the period from 1983 to the present day, Stories of the Collection summarises key moments in the formation of the Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) Collection. Across distinct points and through the presentation of its most important acquisitions, we follow the desires, tastes, policies and circumstances of each specific moment of the collection’s development: The Decorative Collection (1983-1989); The Art Collection (1990-1997); Diversification (2000-2004); Photographs (1991 and 2005); Precision (2004-2008 and 2014); Prints (2007); Donations and Bequests (1967-2021); Resuming Acquisitions (2020-2021); New Acquisitions (2022-2025); and Caixa Contest for Young Artists (2022-2025).

Pedro Diniz Reis’ work Dictionary (2004–2010) expands the artist's presence in the CGD Collection, reinforcing the premises of his work developed under the influence of conceptualism. In this piece, the artist used an app to generate letters in alphabetical order, going through all the words from a dictionary. This process lasts 51 minutes, establishing a space and time precisely determined by the artist. This work dialogues directly with his work AA-ZZ (2011), also part of the CGD Collection, expanding the reflection on systems, language and organisation structures.

Belén Uriel's works reside in a particular relationship between domestic objects and sculptures, particularly in how they invoke the body and suggest a functionality that is merely apparent. It is through the human scale of the pieces, often replicating everyday gestures and actions, that the artist explores opposing tensions, as if looking for the precise balance of her artistic practice in this dialogue between everyday objects and works of art. Glass is one of the media she has most developed, working with this material with particular acuity thanks to the support of the VICARTE – Glass and Ceramics for the Arts Research Unit, at the Faculty of Science and Technology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, within which some of her most recent works are included.

The acquisition of Susanne Themlitz's work Dentro/Talvez (2019–2022) reinforces the artist's presence in the CGD Collection, which already includes Ambivalências Preguiçosas (1997–1999), Galeria dos Solitários, Carrancudos e Ensimesmados (1997–2001) and Oh la la, ...oh la balançoire / Microcosmos tentacular (2004). While these works consist of large installations and an artist's book, on a domestic scale (a cupboard with doors that open) Dentro/Talvez reveals the essence of her artistic practice through the gleaning of various pictorial and sculptural elements that the artist combines in delirious narratives.

The set of Bruno Pacheco's works belonging to the CGD Collection is reinforced with the acquisition of the painting Sizing / Flirting (2024-2025). Attesting to his versatility as a painter, and notwithstanding his production of sculptures and videos, his practice always remains implicated in the issues raised by the discipline of painting. In this case, an action that has taken place is recorded on the exhibition wall itself through the marking of the dimensions and contours of the painting, as if it had moved. But the irony persists: is this an approximation or a distancing?

First exhibited in 2009 as part of the Ich bin ein Baixinher exhibition at Chiado 8 – Arte Contemporânea, curated by Bruno Marchand, this sculpture, together with the installation Mapa orográfico do território português, à escala 1:625000, sujeito às condições luminosas do dia 25 de Abril de 1974, às 08h00 [Orographic map of Portugal at a scale of 1:625000, subjected to the light conditions of 25 April 1974, at 8 a.m.] (1999 – 2009), also belonging to the CGD Collection, was part of a set of unfulfilled promises of modernity. If this work offered a reflection on the failure of democracy, the sculpture now acquired – Edifício moderno paradigmático, à escala 1:25, construído em espelho [Modern Paradigmatic Building at a scale of 1:25, built in mirror] – questions the ambition of modern architecture, reinforced by the reference to Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona chair, on which the viewer is invited to sit.

The works acquired from Francisco Queirós expand the existing set of videos in the CGD Collection. On the one hand, the paintings and drawings add to the videos the artist has been developing since the beginning of his career in the 1990s; on the other, the videos now acquired reveal a clear technological update. Um sonho no qual subitamente tudo colapsa sem qualquer razão aparente [A dream in which everything suddenly collapses without any apparent reason] (2020) is a good example of this evolution. Through digital simulation, the image changes as it is generated in real time.