Art, Creativity, Connection: Casa70 Lisboa is your artsy meeting point based at Le Consulat, Lisboa.
Elisangela Valadares, founder of ArtRio - the biggest art fair in Latin America - is the creator and director of Casa70 Lisboa. In 2015, she opened her house in Rio de Janeiro to the general public, displaying the extraordinary collection she has acquired as one of Brazil’s most prominent collectors of contemporary art. This hugely successful event marked the beginning of a new journey in Elisangela's life and relaunched Rio’s contemporary art scene.
After the impact of the initial launch, Elisangela wanted to re-imagine the project to create an intimate, creative and open space for all to enjoy in Lisbon. Her move from Brazil to Portugal, was intrinsically linked to her desire to forever change the Lisbon art scene.
“Unlike the movement I created in Rio, in Lisbon I want to open our space to the public and show how much interesting things we have to share”
After a lot of investigative research, the LX Factory - one of the leading centers of art, culture and gastronomy in Lisbon - made the eyes of the natural entrepreneur shine. "Unlike the movement I created in Rio, in Lisbon I want to open our space to the public and show how much interesting things we have to share", explains the director of Casa70.
Parallel to the Arcolisboa fair, Casa70 was opened in May 2019 in soft opening format. The gallery has more than 300 artworks and the artists represented are: Agostinho Moreira, Antonio Bokel, Caio Marcolini, Camile Sproesser, Carolina Ponte, Daniel Lannes, coletivo MUDA, Derlon, Diogo Almeida Martins, Fernando de La Roque, Gustavo Mendez-Liska, Giovanna Nucci, Henrique Neves, João Dias, Juliana Sícoli, Lair Uaracy, Luiz Martins, Marcelo Carrera, Maria Lynch, Miguel A. Rodrigues, Pedro Besugo, Pedro Varela, Ricardo Varela, Vitória Frate, Xevi Solá e Zé Carlos Garcia - in addition to the concept brands (Arrivals Gate e MOR Design), which encourage dialogue between art and design in a multidisciplinary space.
Anyone who thinks that Casa70 Lisboa only lives by exhibitions is mistaken. Following the vocation of the carioca début, the artsy meetings are the keynote of the place, which promotes workshops, laboratories, guided tours, movie sessions and even launches of fashion collections and design products - all to strengthen that space is not just a gallery, but a place of meetings, exchanges and visibility for accessible art.
Elisangela Valadares
A journalist specialized in Art History, Architecture and Museum Management, Elisangela Valadares has been in the art market since 1998, when she took over the direction of the Toulouse Gallery in Rio de Janeiro. She was 12 years ahead of all projects, including international fairs. Concerned, she wondered why her own city still did not host a fair of large proportions, as in most capitals of the world. She discovered that the biggest challenge was in taxes that raised up to 48% the value of a single work of art when nationalized the purchase. But as a born entrepreneur, she saw in the obstacle a great opportunity.
In 2010, she created the biggest art fair in Latin America until then. ArtRio became viable by obtaining an exemption from the ICMS, a tax that would annul all others. The benefit brought a record of sales and audience results. In the second edition of the event, galleries such as Gagosian, White Cube, Marian Goodman, Victoria Miro and David Zwiner consolidated the forerunner brand of the fair in Brazil. Over the years, international curators, awards and exhibitions agitated the Brazilian art market irreversibly.
Eternal passionate about art and always in search of the new, Elisangela began a more intimate project that met her personal aspirations. She made her own home, number 70, in the street in the charming neighborhood of Gávea, a curatorial point, meetings, performances and exhibitions. The resounding success called for an encore.
In Lisbon, the idea of Casa 70 responds to the desire to return to an ideal and personalized size, but in a more democratic way, in direct contact with the active public that attends the LX Factory. In core business are new names from the contemporary scene and open dialogue between disciplines such as design, fashion and cinema. All this with borders open to countries and cultures around the world.
