It is the first time that the works of the Luso-American Foundation for Development's (FLAD) collection are exhibited in the Azores.

The exhibition is entitled "Festa.Fúria.Femina – Obras da Coleção FLAD" and opened in Archipelago - Centro de Artes Contemporânea, in the city of Ribeira Grande.

The exhibition, which can be visited until September 4, consists of 146 works by 66 artists, mostly Portuguese, representing several generations and the evolution of art in Portugal in recent decades.

Sometimes in dialogue, sometimes in confrontation (an essential element in art, whether between works or between them and the public), the exhibition displays drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures with different views. They show the diversity of modern Portugal, born after the revolution of April 25, 1974, from Paula Rego, internationally, the best-known Portuguese artist, to young Isabel Madureira Andrade, the only Azorean artist represented in the exhibition.

 
The exhibition's curators are António Pinto Ribeiro and Sandra Vieira Jürgens, who selected the works after an intense research project on a collection that has gathered more than a thousand works since it was started, in 1986, by Manuel Castro Caldas; it was then a courageous project, with a view to enhance the art produced in Portugal.

In a statement to journalists after a guided tour to the exhibition, curator Sandra Vieira Jürgens explained that the title emerged “very intuitively” after the analysis of FLAD's collection, which deserves to be ‘celebrated’ (Festa – Party) in its “diversity of works” by many names that have built art in Portugal in recent decades; but also because of its 'provocative‘ side (Fúria – Fury), namely its “critical thinking”, and also because of the strong presence of women in this collection (Female –
Femina).

The exhibition runs along a parallel program, which will include guided tours and workshop visits for students of all teaching levels, in addition to drawing workshops with artists, open classes with the exhibition’s curators and a Summer School for high school and higher education students.

Regarding this formative side of the exhibition, curator António Pinto Ribeiro stresses that "art is not evidence", but rather "a history of riddles", even when addressing realistic figurative painting.

Therefore, he concludes, "many of the reasons why people do not approach contemporary art and art in particular is because they do not find the 'key', the form, the middle or the way to establish a relationship with the works of art... Hence this central work of mediation, not by giving a homogeneous reading to all people, but by arousing, on the one hand, curiosity and, on the other, the idea of a 'comfort' that may come from approaching a museum of contemporary art".