The Sonnabend Collection: Half a Century of European and American Art. Part II / Zéro de conduite: Works from the Serralves Collection

The Sonnabend Collection: Half a Century of European and American Art. Part II
The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art presents the second part of its major exhibition devoted to the Sonnabend Collection. Curated by António Homem, the exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia (MUVE), Ca’ Pesaro in Venice, and the Sonnabend Collection Foundation, and follows the first presentation in 2016.

Created by the influential art dealer Ileana Sonnabend (1914−2007), the Sonnabend Collection is one of the most important collections of American and European art of the second half of the 20th century. Reflecting the support for and astute understanding of the artists with whom Sonnabend worked in her galleries in Paris and New York, this exhibition focuses on the use of photography within conceptual art since the early 1970s, and the generation of American artists in the mid-1980s whose work relates both to pop and conceptual art. The exhibition includes works by Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Lawrence Beck, Ashley Bickerton, Christian Boltanski, Carlito Carvalhosa, Elger Esser, Fischli and Weiss, Gilbert & George, Beate Gütschow, Philip Haas, Candida Höfer, Jeff Koons, Bruce Nauman, Luigi Ontani, Anne and Patrick Poirier, Ryan Roa, Andrea Robbins and Max Becher, Clifford Ross, Matthias Schaller, Haim Steinbach, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Meyer Vaisman, Boyd Webb and William Wegman.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a programme of artist-led tours and a fully-illustrated catalogue, featuring a conversation between António Homem and João Ribas, Director, Serralves Museum.

Zéro de conduite: Works from the Serralves Collection
Incorrigible, undesirable, unmanageable—what conduct does the museum repress? Zéro de conduite presents artworks from the Serralves Collection that suggest gestures of refusal or resistance, either to normalising institutions such as the school or the museum, or forms of suppression, control, or convention. From irony and subterfuge, to the disrespect for the rules of proper taste or good behaviour, the exhibition looks to acts of disobedience, theft, amateurism, and anti-virtuosity, as well as the political potential of moving, acting, and making against the grain. Drawing its title from the 1933 film by French director Jean Vigo in which a group of children rebel against their school’s repressive rules, the exhibition includes works by more than 60 artists, including Eleonor Antin, David Askevold, John Baldessari, Pedro Barateiro, Lynda Benglis, Christian Boltanski, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brouwn, Chris Burden, Isabel Carvalho, Rui Chafes, Marlene Dumas, Alexandre Estrela, Valie Export, Robert Filliou, Mario García Torres, Gilbert & George, David Goldblatt, Dan Graham, Guerilla Girls, Raymond Hains, Thomas Hirschhorn, Pierre Huyghe, Jörg Immendorff, Emily Jacir, Ana Jotta, Joseph Kosuth, Piero Manzoni, Enzo Mari, Paul McCarthy, Cildo Meireles, Matt Mullican, Juan Muñoz, Antoni Muntadas, Bruce Nauman, Blinky Palermo, A.R. Penck, Adrian Piper, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Sigmar Polke, Martha Rosler, Dieter Roth, Thomas Schütte, Tino Sehgal, João Pedro Vale, Danh Võ and Hannah Wilke.

A fully-illustrated catalogue includes essays by João Ribas and Ricardo Nicolau, and texts by Maria Isabel Barreno & Maria Teresa Horta & Maria Velho da Costa, Hannah Black, Pierre Gabaston, Jean Genet, Luiz Pacheco.

Zéro de conduite is organized by the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art and curated by João Ribas and Ricardo Nicolau, Deputy to the Director, Serralves Museum. 

About Serralves
The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art is the foremost museum for contemporary art in Portugal, and one of Europe’s most renowned institutions for contemporary art and culture. Uniquely sited on the grounds of the Serralves Foundation in Porto―which also comprises an 18-hectare Park and the Serralves Villa, a landmark art deco building―the Museum designed by Álvaro Siza opened in 1999. Through its exhibitions, collection, publications, performing arts, and public programmes, Serralves fosters the understanding and appreciation of contemporary art and culture in Portugal and around the world.