On Saturday 28, A Ala da Frente, Vila Nova de Famalicão's municipal gallery dedicated to the visual arts and promoting the work of renowned national artists, celebrates a decade of existence with the launch of a commemorative publication and the opening of a new exhibition.
The presentation of the publication ‘10 Years - A Timeline and Sensitivity’ is scheduled for 5pm, followed at 6pm by the opening of the exhibition ‘Smoke and water dripping between the fingers’, with works by artist Pedro Calapez, who will be present at the inaugural session. Both events will take place at the Palacete Barão da Trovisqueira (Bernardino Machado Museum), in the city centre.
Curated by António Gonçalves, the Ala da Frente Gallery is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2025, a timeline built up by holding solo exhibitions by national artists with established careers, making a significant contribution to the dissemination of contemporary artistic creation in the national context.
‘These are 10 years of a cultural reference space and Famalicão's commitment to contemporary culture and the affirmation of our territory as a must-see, but also for the people of Famalicão who have had a series of reference exhibitions here,’ says the Mayor, Mário Passos, about the importance of this space for the community.
Throughout its existence, the Front Wing has hosted exhibitions of works by various Portuguese artists, including: Adriana Molder, Alberto Carneiro, Alexandre Conefrey, António Olaio, Francisco Tropa, Gil Heitor Cortesão, Ilda David, Pedro Tudela, João Queiroz, Jorge Martins, Jorge Pinheiro, Jorge Molder, Jorge Queiroz, José Pedro Croft, Manuel Rosa, Maria Capelo, Miguel Branco, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Pedro Casqueiro, Pedro Chorão, Pedro Proença, Pedro Tropa, Rui Chafes and Rui Sanches.
Each exhibition is accompanied by a book that illustrates it, making it a reference bibliographic resource for the study of fine arts at a national level.
As part of the 10th anniversary activities, a commemorative edition, ‘10 Years - A Timeline and Sensitivity’, will be launched in collaboration with Editora Documenta. The publication brings together 24 postcards with images of works by the 24 artists who have exhibited at the municipal gallery.
The 25th exhibition at Ala da Frente, by Lisbon artist Pedro Calapez, entitled ‘Smoke and water dripping between the fingers’ will be on show from 28 June to 11 October 2025, with free admission.
"Pedro Calapez's work has been developed with painstaking coherence, a demanding and subtle oeuvre in a careful renewal, maintaining an identity and authenticity. This exhibition is another unique moment and opportunity to revisit his universe of work, where drawing is developed as thought and painting as a sense of the realm of the sensible," says curator António Gonçalves about the works on show.
Pedro Calapez began participating in exhibitions in the 1970s, consolidated his career as a painter in the 1980s, after working as a photographer, and set designer. His work has been exhibited in various galleries and museums, including the Secretary of State for Culture, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Luso-American Foundation, the Serralves Museum, the Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid, Spain) and the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró (Mallorca, Spain).
The Ala da Frente Gallery is located in the Barão da Trovisqueira Palace, where the Bernardino Machado Museum is housed, in Rua Adriano Pinto Basto in Vila Nova de Famalicão. It can be visited from Tuesday to Friday, from 10 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. and at weekends from 2.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m., closed on Mondays, national holidays and 24th and 31st December. Admission is free.
