This public contemporary art collection, initiated in 1976 by the Secretary of State for Culture, consists of works in assorted media (painting, drawing, engraving, photography, sculpture, video, and installation). Throughout its history, it was managed by several public institutions. The previously designated SEC Collection was assigned to the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage in 2017. In 2019, it was renamed The State's Contemporary Art Collection (CACE).
Throughout more than four decades of existence, CACE, taken as an instrument for valuing Portuguese artistic contemporaneity, assisted the promotion of several initiatives and played a major role in providing a structure and securing the feasibility of cultural projects of national scope.
Between 2000 and 2019, CACE remained a closed collection, meaning that institutions under its custody did not acquire or incorporate new works. The recent history of CACE is therefore inseparable from the creation, in 2019, of the most ambitious, participated and significant public project for the acquisition of contemporary art ever created in Portugal. This is an annual program, whose proposals are analysed by the Commission for the Acquisition of Contemporary Art, a group of people bringing together different agents, curators, university professors and artists, with the mission of identifying works by contemporary visual artists for future integration into CACE.
Between 2019 and 2022, 239 works by 209 artists were integrated, a global investment of 2 million and 250 thousand euros, thus reinforcing and streamlining the Collection and significantly supporting the Portuguese artistic ecosystem. In 2023, 50 works by 35 artists were proposed, a €800 thousand investment. Adding up to this amount are the recent acquisitions of the works "O Impostor", by Paula Rego, and "O Bordel", by Graça Morais. In addition to the Miró Collection and the BPN Collection, incorporations into CACE of the Ellipse Collection (858 works) and the BPP Collection (385 works) were announced at the end of 2022.
It is worth mentioning that CACE has lent several works from its collection to national and international institutions, namely to the National Museum of Contemporary Art of Chiado (for the occasion of the celebrations of the centenary of the birth of writer José Saramago, thus promoting a natural dialogue between CACE and the MNAC collection), Serralves Museum, Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, MAAT – Museum of Architecture, Art and Technology, Culturgest, Nadir Afonso Museum, Contemporary Culture Center of Coimbra, Eugénio de Almeida Foundation, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, MAC/CCB, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen (Germany), Picasso Museum (Barcelona) and Beaux-Arts Mons (Belgium), among others.
This visibility is behind the significant reinforcement of CACE since 2019, enabling the national and international circulation of works from its Collection and the development of an ambitious exhibition program of its own, designed in dialogue with a vast network of cultural institutions scattered across the Portuguese territory.
Commission for the Acquisition of Contemporary Art (Biennium 2023-24)
António Olaio, Fernanda Fragateiro e Luísa Abreu (artists)
Luís Silva e Miguel von Hafe Pérez (curators)
Emília Tavares (representative of the Secretary of State for Culture)
David Teles Pereira (representative of the Secretary of State for Culture)
Sandra Vieira Jürgens (curator da CACE)
