VERA CORTÊS

In 2003 Vera Cortês began to produce exhibitions in different spaces of Lisbon through her agency, whose "two great objectives were to give visibility to young artists and to create new collectors". In 2006, it established itself in its own space and began to represent artists, creating the Vera Cortês Gallery, one of the most dynamic and international Portuguese galleries.
In conversation with Sérgio Parreira, Vera Cortês outlines here a personal and professional journey, revisiting these 15 years of work always with a look in the future.

Interview by Sérgio Parreira

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Sergio Parreira (SP): Some background is always extremely helpful to understand how you got to where you are today. Would you like to explain how Vera Cortês Art Agency started and when your passion for contemporary art began?

Vera Cortês (VC): My passion comes from the artists, of interacting and knowing them. After working with the gallerist Luis Serpa, I decided to open my own project that was not a conventional model of a gallery. I did not have an exhibition space and did not represent artists at that time. The main goals were to give visibility to new artists and show them to new collectors; show that art could be a common place and accessible to everyone in all means. To be a young artist in 2003 was not easy, and the galleries were quite limited in Lisbon; there were no grants, prizes, fellowships, or the access to media that we have today. I had a really small office space close to Chiado and we were looking for spaces to do the shows.

SP: How does the transition from Vera Cortês Art Agency to Gallery Vera Cortês happen? What were the factors that determined that change?

VC: This change happened in January 2006 when we started to represent artists and presented a regular program of exhibitions throughout the year in our own space where we moved in September 2005. Between 2005 and 2006 we still had a mix of agency and gallery. We were doing two exhibitions per month mostly of artists that we were not yet representing.

SP: Would you like to reveal a bit of your work process with the artists?

VC: It is teamwork. The collaboration focuses on defining career strategies that obviously include internationalization, positioning their works in relevant museum collections, in special book editions, and also production and set up of exhibitions in and outside the gallery. That is basically what I love, the side-by-side work with the artists.

SP: I am sure that you visit artists’ studios too, at least the ones which are geographically accessible to you.

VC: Absolutely! I do it quite often. And with the ones that are not living in Portugal we do a lot of Skype sessions and such, so that we can keep in contact, and I can know what they are creating and producing. It is part of our working process.

SP: A gallery space is obviously a different exhibition space from other non-commercial spaces. However, the gallerist also works as a curator and a programmer of a space that is fundamentally cultural. Do you agree with this?

VC: What I can tell you for sure is that the ultimate desire of the gallerist is that the artist’s shows and works are successful, attract attention from the right audience and achieve a deserved visibility, with everything that comes along with that. As gallerists we will do everything in our power to make them achieve the recognition that we believe they deserve from curators, institutions, collectors, and the press. Our vision has to be wide and encompass their process as a whole, we can call it to “make it happen no matter what….” Ultimately, the success of a commercial gallery comes from its artists. The gallery will not exist without them, but they certainly can live without a gallery.

SP: Simultaneously with the daily gallery work you do several art fairs, which are part of the gallery project. Your participation in art fairs has been a kind of a process of figuring out which one might be the best shot for the work you have to show and present. You are still loyal to ARCO Madrid since 2007, and have participated for precisely eleven years in a row. What does ARCO have that other fairs don’t?

VC: Art fairs are extremely important for our strategy of internationalization of the gallery and our artists. It is obvious that they are a huge investment, but it is also at the art fairs that we have the chance to show our artists to new collectors, curators and international institutions that would not be able to know them any other way. Today, we have all the lights turned to Portugal, but it was not always like that and this contact in the art fairs somehow always pays off. Even though, it may not have an immediate impact, ultimately it does. ARCO Madrid was the first international fair where we were represented. The Spanish market has been well aware of the Portuguese galleries and their artists since the very beginning, and every year there is a Portuguese gallerist on the Selection Committee of the fair. Since 2016 I have had that position. It is also the international art fair where more Portuguese galleries are represented, which also clearly shows our place in the global market. Thus, ARCO is one of the most important art fairs and the closest, and we cannot deny that we always feel like we are at “home.”

SP: You were present just once at the Art Basel Miami week in 2007 with PULSE. Can I ask you why you did not return to the busiest and trendiest December art week worldwide?

VC: We cannot be present in all the art weeks and in all the contemporary art fairs, first for calendar reasons, and logistically as well as related to programming. For those reasons we choose according to what makes more sense at each moment in time.

SP: Do you believe that there are significant differences between the European and North American art market?

VC: Besides Miami that you already mentioned, my experience is only with the previous three editions of The Armory Show in New York. We agree that the North American market is much more than just art fairs. It is extremely broad but is way more dynamic than any other region.

SP: The Armory Show, and I would risk saying parallel to Frieze (in May) are the two strongest art fairs by all measures in New York. This year you were the only Portuguese gallery participating. Is that commercially advantageous?

VC: It is never good to be the only Portuguese gallery present. More representation is better, it brings more awareness, visibility, and empowers the presence of the Portuguese representation.

SP: During the days of the fair, I saw several posts on Instagram with the work of Alexandro Farto aka Vhils in Styrofoam from the series “Highlight.” What do you believe to be the importance of Instagram today for the promotion and commercialization of art works?

VC: Today, from a strictly commercial point of view, we cannot ignore the power of social media platforms. We have an intense presence in all of them. It is mandatory for the promotion of our artists and to target new audiences as well.

SP: For the past couple of years Portugal has had the attention of the international media, which is showing a lot of interest in artists, curators, collectors and other cultural agents. Is Lisbon becoming a new center for the international art market? Is this just a vision from the outside or do you think that it is actually real?

VC: First, I think that it is quite fair and deserved. It is also a result of several social-economic circumstances which happened to allow all of that. Lisbon has earned a longtime deserved place in the European scene. As I had the opportunity to say in other interviews, when someone asked me what has happened with the Portuguese art scene in the past couple of years, I always say, nothing changed, it has always been extremely interesting and intense, the difference is that the international market started taking notice.

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