According to the director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Penelope Curtis, in a statement to Lusa, the building known as the Modern Art Centre is set to close in August, as part of the project to expand the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's garden because of the works in the new Urban Park in Praça de Espanha, but the museum's Modern Collection will "continue to be used".

"Not only here [at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum] - we will put pieces in the founder's collection [on display in another museum building] - and we will continue, as before, to make loans. [There will be] works everywhere, in Portugal and abroad as well," Penelope Curtis told Lusa, on the fringe of a press visit to a new exhibition route for the Modern Art Collection.

According to the director, the museum already has "almost 500 loans [agreed] next year" and "several exhibitions" are already scheduled outside, in cities like Lisbon, Culturgest and the National Museum of Contemporary Art - Museu do Chiado, Coimbra, Chicago (United States), Nice (France), Brussels (Belgium) and Valencia (Spain).

The route "Departures and Arrivals - artists on the move", inaugurated today, is thus the "last change" in the exhibition of the Modern Collection before the closure of the building.

Penelope Curtis pointed out that, in this new route, as in previous ones, "it is fundamentally important to show the idea of the museum". "We have a collection and we need to change it, to use it well," she said.

The new route includes several works shown for the first time at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, some of which have been included in the collection for several years, such as a series of engravings by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, and others recently, such as the works of João Louro and Eugénia Mussa, which are new acquisitions by that institution.

According to Patrícia Rosas, curator of "Departures and Arrivals - artists on a journey", the creation of this path "started a lot from Vieira da Silva's work", with a room dedicated only to the painter's prints, "which are shown for the first time in the Modern Collection".

The works included in the course are by "artists on a journey, but also artists from the diaspora". And although Vieira da Silva gave the motto, the work chosen to open the new route was "Hidden Pages, Stolen Bodies", by António Ole, "considered the greatest Angolan artist" of today.

It is an installation "on colonialism, repression and violence". "It has to do with the issue of the bodies that are hidden and have been exploited," explained Patrícia Rosas.

The work of António Ole, who works between Lisbon and Luanda, was acquired by the museum in 2015, during an exhibition at Gulbenkian dedicated to him.

The pieces included in "Departures and Arrivals - artists on the move" are arranged throughout the space, but identified by an icon, a small plane, which establishes the route.

Besides works by Vieira da Silva, António Ole, João Louro and Eugénia Mussa, the new route also includes works by João Cutileiro, Lourdes Castro, Ângela Ferreira, Mónica de Miranda, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Menez, Malangatana, David de Almeida, Edgar Martins, Maria Gabriel, Fernando Lemos and Augusto Alves da Silva.

The course, which includes 69 works by 31 artists, will be open at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum - Modern Art Collection until the building closes for works.