At the Rua Da Alegria 598, the highest part of the city, is the Gallery Nuno Centeno situated. The extremely large and iconic building dates from 1939, originally founded by stoneworkers. From this place most of the stones were cut to build Porto. About five years ago Nuno Centeno transformed this building into a venue where the contemporary art in Porto could flourish by means of an international program for emerging artists. Mauro Cerqueira, whom we met yesterday, is one of the first artists Nuno worked with, and has a show in the gallery. Mauro’s work is about telling the story of the city by collecting all sort of objects to be found in the street where his studio and art space is. These items like mobile phones, chains, mirrors, padlocks, and jewelry are melted on a black surface, a cheap isolation material that represent the disillusion of oil paint.

Porto was not an easy city, it was before a ghost town, no one dares to come. But now it is transforming, also thanks to persons like Philippe Vergne of the Serralves and Pargue de Serralves and Filipa Ramos of the Municipal do Porto, the venues we visited earlier today. About 15 years ago Nuno set his first steps into the gallery world. After studying art in Brazil he came back to Porto, and noticed that he actually want to bring people together.

His gallery can host several shows at the same time, which can be regarded as a form of interaction. At this moment he is 100% self-supporting and has the perspective to rent the place for at least 25 years. He sees the future brightly and continues to move forward. After a long journey in which he participated at almost every major art fair it all stopped because of the pandemic. After that he looks from Porto to the world and receives an increasing audience at his venue which makes it much more easy.

This morning it is time to discover Barcelona, the city where we arrived the evening before. We started today reasonably early at 9 AM with a visit at MACBA – Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona. This day the venue is closed for visitors and preparing for the opening of a new exhibition about the Colombian artist Maria Teresa Hincapié: If This Were a Beginning of Infinity. It is the first exhibition dedicated to the artists practice of ‘the poetics of everyday life’ in the way of transforming routine actions into symbolic acts.

The building consists of three floors, to be encountered by walking an enormous construction, best to be described as a staircase without steps which makes this very available for invalids, that leads us past the front made of glass that connects the outside with the inside. However, the surroundings are mostly new there are still some traces to be found of the modest apartments that surround the square. The exhibition spaces are used for temporarily exhibitions except the ground floor where the collection of the museum is shown.

In 2007 MACBA started the Program for Independent Studies named PEI. It is meant for generalizing knowledge and critical thinking in the arts, politics, and social field so the program is also meant for participants without an explicit artistic practice. Capitalism has reduced art to a structure of aesthetics’ for which these studies give a counterbalance which also includes conferences and open seminars for a broader audience where a mix-up can be found of artists, curators, and students because new generations also bring a different view.

As for the staff of the museum, there have been a lot of recent changes in the organization. Because of an unhappy situation in 2015 about a work with a complex meaning, a scenario of censorship occurred.

We end our visit with a preview of the exhibition of Maria Teresa Hincapié, which will be open to the public tomorrow evening for which we are all invited. Maria Teresa as being a Colombian artist is not well known in Europe and passed away in 2008. The exhibition is curated by Claudia Segura, who we meet before entering and still busy with the last things before receiving the press.

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