BANCO ESPÍRITO Santo has launched an Art Lounge in Lisbon’s city centre to showcase examples from its art and photography collection.
BES Arte e Finança is a modern two-storey exhibition centre with sushi and go-natural bars, temporary and permanent exhibition spaces, BES Group outlets including a travel agency and seminar rooms.
The centre, at the company’s property at Lisbon’s Marquês de Pombal roundabout, is designed to showcase pieces of contemporary art and photography from the bank’s private collection.
It also has an exhibition tracing the history of Portugal’s oldest independent commercial banks since its foundation in the 1860s as well as a collection of antique typewriters and other machines used in the bank since its foundation.
At the inauguration ceremony last week, attended by the President of the Lisbon Câmara, the President of the financial watchdog regulator, Carlos Tavares, Tourism Minister, Bernardo Trindade and Minister of the Economy and Innovation, Manuel Pinho, invited guests and VIPs including fashion designer Fátima Lopes, perused the city’s first-ever ‘Business Lounge Entertainment Centre.’
The Chairman of BES, Ricardo Salgado, was unable to attend because of a family bereavement.
The space also includes a series of retail and financial services from the group including BES, Banco Best, and a Top Atlântico travel agency spread out over the entire 4,000 square metre site.
The new business and art lounge will be open between 9am and 9pm daily Monday to Friday. where members of the public will be able to see photographic works of art, 451 in all, by both Portuguese and international photographic artists from the bank’s collection which have never been seen before.
The exhibition is simply called Bes Nº 1 and includes work by Portuguese artists such as Filipa César, Augusto Alves da Silva, and international photographers like Irving Penn, John Baldessari, and Stan Douglas.
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