MAAT presents its 2024 annual programme

For 2024, MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology is preparing 14 exhibitions that will take place in the various spaces of its two buildings: MAAT Central and MAAT Gallery. It is a diverse and eclectic programme that aims to strengthen MAAT as an institution that promotes encounters, dialogues and fruitful declinations in the relationship between artistic practice and the complex realities of our time, but also as a place of articulation between different geographies and domains of the cultural spectrum, from the popular to the erudite, from everyday matters to the fundamental challenges of current criticism and thought. In this sense, ecological phenomena or the circumstances of our relationship with nature should be highlighted, as well as the attention to other socio-cultural, spiritual, and mental imaginaries, also understood within a framework of critical discourse in relation to the historical paradigms of Western art, as themes that will be evoked or explicitly addressed in several of the exhibitions and public programmes. It should be noted that a large part of the exhibitions will include activations, which in themselves constitute a programme that aims to reach the museum’s diverse audiences offering different formats of performance, thinking and debate.

The programme of exhibitions includes prominent names in international contemporary art scene, such as Ernesto Neto, Vivian Suter, William Klein, Anthony McCall, Nicolas Floc'h, or some of the participants in the group exhibition that will bring to Portugal the work of artists from Africa and the African diaspora (Americas and Europe), deepening the reflection on themes such as racial and historical justice and the hierarchy and geography of contemporary creation.

In parallel, there is the continued commitment with Portuguese artists, both emerging and established, materialised in exhibitions like Três Moscas, a project by André Maranha, Francisco Tropa, Jorge Queiroz and Pedro Morais, or the solo shows by Daniel Blaufuks, Luísa Jacinto, and Catarina Dias. Also, within this strand, the EDP Foundation Art Collection is the basis for the selection of works included in Hoje soube-me a pouco, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Portuguese democratic revolution of 25 April 1974.

In 2024, MAAT will continue to address the themes of mental health, well-being and caring, partnering with Manicómio, a space for creation in Lisbon, for the exhibition Procissão: Louvar e Santificar and the Open Therapy appointments, and with Leonorana, a magazine based in Porto, for We Care a Lot, a series of conversations (already available online https://ext.maat.pt/bulletin/we-care-lot).