Initiative of the P’la Arte platform and VIC Properties aims to promote the work of artists, in a space where they can sell their creations.

P’LA ARTE platform and VIC Properties will inaugurate the Mercado P’la Arte on May 8^th , at 10am, an innovative experience that will allow more than thirty artists to present and sell their work in a creative and attractive way, in a car park still under construction, at Prata Riverside Village, in Lisbon.

The Mercado P’la Arte, which will take place on the first Saturday of each month, between 10am and 6pm, will exhibit and sell works of visual artists in a car park in Prata Riverside Village, in which identical stalls made up of small scaffoldings or supports will be placed to facilitate the exhibition of the works and give visual and aesthetic coherence to the market.

Each artist will have a space to display their works and to interact with the public and other artists. All safety requirements will be guaranteed, and the social distancing rules defined by public authorities will be respected.

There will also be an area for the sale of artist’s books aimed at independent publishers and a parallel programme with various actions, namely, conversations about art.

The selection of the artists who will be present at the Mercado P’la Arte was made through applications that took place between 8 and 19 April.

In 2020, the calendar of exhibitions and fairs was completely turned upside down by the pandemic. Cancelled, one after another, contemporary art market events were victims of an earthquake that no one was prepared for. Online exhibition rooms, implemented during confinement as a fallback solution, are already being questioned, as buyers, curators, directors, or art lovers feel the need to see the works for real and to discuss with their authors. Thus, how can the fair model be reinvented in the current context?

Through a less formal format, blurring the boundaries between art fair and exhibition, with a collaborative, alternative approach, escaping from a rigid plan, concretising a daring, non-profitable scenographic concept, surprising.

The Mercado P’la Arte, which will have the artist at its centre, will also promote stimulating dialogues between painters, sculptors, illustrators, draughtsmen, ceramists, designers, photographers, an art-loving public, and curious visitors.

An opportunity to meet artists, understand by themselves their creative process and artistic approach, acquire a work of art or request an original creation. An inclusive occasion, which will increase the dissemination and sale of artistic products in the city of Lisbon, providing a boost to the local economy and reinforcing the Braço de Prata as a strategic hub for contemporary art in the city.