Paper short abstract:

I would like to call the attention to the ways in which the Gulbenkian Foundation, since 1958 until the Eighties worked as the Portuguese main institutional 'scenario' to modern practices and consumptions - or even to a certain idea of progress and cosmopolitism.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I would like to call the attention to the ways in which the Gulbenkian Foundation, since its appearance in 1958 until the late Eighties (with the opening of other big cultural institutions), worked as the Portuguese main institutional 'scenario' (Diana Taylor´s) to modern artistic practices and consumptions - or even to a certain general idea of progress and cosmopolitism.Due to Salazar's conservative, nationalist and traditionalist politics, modernity and cosmopolitism were almost institutionally inaccessible in the country. As so, Gulbenkian Foundation's activity (a private international Foundation in Portuguese territory) continuously staged the encounter with the progressive, modern and civilized Other. The opening of its headquarters and Gulbenkian park, in 1969, as well as, in 1983, the opening of its Modern Art Center materialized this idea of scenario, by creating a concrete place to locate this encounter with modernity.