iMAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and TechnologyBelém
Turn Around. A Look at the EDP Foundation Art Collection
Around 90 works by 58 leading Portuguese contemporary artists, from Helena Almeida to Julião Sarmento, drawn from a collection of some 2,500 works from the 1960s to today.
More in Lisbon
Rui Sanches's Infinitos looks like three pinball machines: heavy blocks with rubber balls scattered over them and mirrors that multiply you as you pass. At the press view the artist said the balls follow Lisbon's night sky as it was in 1994.
It's one of around 90 works by 58 artists from the EDP Foundation's own collection, across two halves of MAAT Central. You walk in to Luisa Cunha's recorded voice telling you to turn around. The first half holds the big pieces, including Rodrigo Oliveira's version of Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim, built from the aluminium marmitas Lisbon packs its office lunches in. The second, added in April, is painting, photography and video, hung by affinity rather than date.
It's a broad survey of Portuguese art since the 1960s, with Helena Almeida, Julião Sarmento and Paulo Nozolino among the names. Entry comes with the MAAT ticket, €16 or €12 for residents in Portugal; closed Tuesdays. A small part isn't accessible to visitors with reduced mobility.
Look for
Infinitos, Rui Sanches (1994)
Three heavy blocks like pinball machines, their rubber balls placed after Lisbon's night sky, with mirrors that catch you walking by.
Untitled (SUN 2500), João Onofre (2010)
On the mezzanine, an eight-minute video in which a sailing boat is craned over Lisbon's rooftops and lowered into a house's swimming pool.
Construir é destruir é construir, Fernanda Fragateiro (2009)
A huge, perfectly mirrored container in the middle of its room, filled with rubble from urban demolitions.
Marmitex, Guggenheim ibérico, Rodrigo Oliveira
A monumental piece based on Frank Gehry's sketches for the Bilbao Guggenheim, assembled from aluminium lunch tins.
Hero, Captain and Stranger, João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira
The faded cabin of an old whaler, the set of a film of the same name that rereads Moby Dick as homoerotic.
Good for
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Skip if
You want one clear theme: 58 artists are hung by affinity, not by theme or date.
With kids
Teatro Praga runs a Portuguese-language workshop here for ages 8 to 12, turning the works into a performance (€8, 11:00 to 13:00; remaining dates 25 October, 8 and 22 November, 13 December).
Free in the same building
Plan a visit to MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and TechnologyAlso at MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
9
- Turn Around. A Look at the EDP Foundation Art CollectionPhotos: Bruno Lopes
- Mostra Espanha 2026: Guest Works by Maruja MalloColección Centro de Arte Fundación María José Jove / VEGAP
- Paradise, Today.Courtesy of MAC/CCB – Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture Centre
- Ângela Ferreira: Here I StandLaurent Lecat
- MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and TechnologyStefan Bethke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museu Nacional dos CochesBosc d'Anjou / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- MAC/CCB – Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture CentreHerbert wie, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museu Nacional de ArqueologiaJose Luis Filpo Cabana, CC BY 3.0
- Museu de MarinhaNan Palmero, CC BY 2.0