The liquidation process of the Fundação de Arte Moderna e Contemporânea Coleção Berardo (FAMC-CB) has ended with the publication of an order in the Diário da República, the Ministry of Culture announced this Wednesday in a statement.
The order approving the final liquidation report is signed by the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Culture and the Secretary of State under the President of the Council of Ministers, determining the end of the liquidation process of FAMC-CB.
The FAMC-CB Liquidation Commission, active since April 2023 and chaired by Deputy Attorney General Carlos Sousa Mendes, presented its final report on December 6, and the final liquidation reports were published on October 31, 2023, accompanied by the opinion of the supervisory board.
According to the order and the ministry’s statement, the liquidation commission must publish a “summary of the final liquidation report” on the Fundação Centrocultural de Belém (CCB) website by Friday.
The closure of FAMC-CB, the foundation that 15 years ago initiated the creation of the Berardo Collection Museum, located at the CCB in Lisbon, was approved by the Council of Ministers last December to complete the transfer of management of the museum space to the CCB Foundation, following the denunciation of the agreement between the parties by the Ministry of Culture.
The members of the committee were Maria Edite Baptista dos Santos, financial inspector, and Luis Urbano Afonso, art historian and professor at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon.
The commission’s mandate remains in force until January 31, 2024, with the exception of Maria Edita Baptista dos Santos, who ceases her duties on Friday.
The order published on Wednesday recalls that this liquidation commission was responsible for taking the necessary measures to liquidate KUAC-CB, namely ensuring the management of assets until they are fully transferred, conducting an inventory of assets and liabilities and deciding on the allocation of funds. your contractual obligations, costs and fees.
The official document approves the final account of the liquidation of the FAMC-CB, including the final accounts, and designates the Belém Cultural Center Foundation as depository of the books, documents and other accounting elements of the defunct foundation, becoming its financial representative.
In a statement from the Ministry of Culture, Minister Pedro Adan e Silva considers that the end of the liquidation of FAMC-CB coincides “with a turning point” in the CCB, which “restored control of module 3, allowing it to open In October, the MAC/CCB will begin interaction between its three cores: the center performing arts, an architectural center and a museum of modern art,” he emphasizes.
This procedure was initiated in May 2022, when the Minister of Culture denounced the loan agreement, followed by the approval of a decree-law that led to the closure of FAMC-CB.
The guardianship body also recalled that in November the government was notified of the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court, which decided to reject the appeal of the preventive process regarding the closure of FAMC-CB, filed by Associação Coleção Berardo and José Berardo.
“This new cycle also coincides with the start of the duties of the new CCB President Francisco Carneiro Fernandez, as well as the decision to increase the financial allocations of the CCB in 2024 to a total of 11.5 million euros,” he said. Minister of Culture in the same statement.
Works from the Berardo collection have been seized since July 2019 in a lawsuit brought in court by Novo Banco, Caixa Geral de Depósitos and BCP, which are claiming a debt of about 1 billion euros.
In June this year, the Minister of Culture announced that the CCB Foundation remains the court-ordered custodian of the Berardo Collection, which will continue to be part of MAC-CCB’s new “interpretive discourse”.
The Berardo Collection Museum, opened on June 25, 2007, was created as a result of an agreement signed in 2006 to provide the state free of charge for ten years with a collection of 862 works of art by the collector and businessman José Berardo, valued at that time at 316 million euros, from the international auction house Christie’s .
In 2016, after 10 years of agreement with the state on the creation of the Berardo Collection Museum, an addendum was signed between the parties to extend it for another six years, with the possibility of an automatic extension from 2022, unless terminated by one of the parties. party six months before the end of the protocol.
In total, as a result of the legal proceedings initiated by the banks, about 2,200 works of art by José Berardo were confiscated.
The collection includes works by artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Joan Miró, Yves Klein, Piet Mondrian, Duchamp, Picasso, Chagall and Andy Warhol, as well as Portuguese artists such as Rui Chafes, José Pedro Croft, Jorge Molder and Fernanda Fragateiro.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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