Fernando Cruz 75 years - Appropriation​,​ Art & Law

Fernando Cruz was born in Vila Nova de Gaia in 1942 and completed the Advanced Course in Painting at the Oporto School of Fine Arts (E.S.B.A.P.) in 1968. Throughout a career marked by a consistent presence in both solo and group exhibitions, he established himself as an active figure in the Portuguese visual arts scene. Among his most notable participations are exhibitions at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes in 1985, prefaced by Eurico Gonçalves, at the Cooperativa Árvore in Porto in 1986, and a significant international presence at the 8th International Impact Art Festival at the Kyoto City Museum in Japan in 1987. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, an institution with which he has maintained a long-standing relationship. In 2017, at the age of 75, Fernando Cruz presented the exhibition "Appropriation, Art & Law" at the SNBA in Lisbon, marking not only a biographical milestone but also a mature reflection on the boundaries and freedoms of contemporary artistic creation. The theme of appropriation — central to art since the avant-gardes of the twentieth century — is here articulated with questions of copyright and intellectual property, opening a dialogue between the artistic and legal fields that reveals the conceptual and critical dimension of his practice. The choice of the SNBA as the venue for this celebration is also a symbolic gesture: an institution with which Cruz has had a relationship spanning decades, and which represents, in the Portuguese context, a space of freedom and renewal in the visual arts.