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Press release

Part of the programme line that shapes the concept The House of Private Collections, this exhibition focuses on the extensive body of photography within the private collection of Américo Marques. The interest of this Portuguese collector in a specific medium of the visual arts has brought together a set of works that reflects the breadth of thematic approaches and traces some of the most significant shifts in contemporary photography, from the late 1950s to the present day. The curatorial proposal is grounded in a poetics of relationships, bringing together different generations, geographies and sensibilities, and affirming photography as a field for critical reflection and for the conceptual construction of the image. The exhibition features a wide range of key international artists in contemporary photography, including Andreas Gursky, Andres Serrano, Bernd Becher & Hilla Becher, Candida Höfer, Cindy Sherman, Edgar Martins, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Helena Almeida, Helmut Newton, João Penalva, Jorge Molder, Martin Parr, Nan Goldin, Richard Prince, Thomas Ruff e Wolfgang Tillmans, among many others. Curated by Adelaide Ginga Biographical note - Américo Marques dos Santos Américo Marques dos Santos was born in Beira, Mozambique, on 31 October 1957, where he lived until the end of 1974. He later moved to South Africa, where he studied Architecture. In 1978, he settled in Portugal, in Cascais, beginning his professional career in the fields of construction and real estate — an activity to which he remains connected, currently serving as director of the family business group. He began collecting art in the late 1980s, initiating a continuous and singular collecting journey. Over the past decades, he has assembled a diverse collection comprising around one thousand works, including painting, photography, drawing, video, sculpture, and installation. His interest in photography emerged in the mid-1990s, initially focusing on Portuguese artists and later expanding, in the early 2000s, to international artists. Long attracted to the medium, he found in contemporary photography a field of particular fascination, which today represents around one third of the collection as a whole. Within this nucleus, the presence of the human figure stands out as a recurring theme, one that the collector himself recognises as especially significant in shaping his gaze.