The last round of exhibition opened at MAAT in 2018 coincides with the Lisbon Web Summit and includes three major shows and a pop-up event, as well as the launch of MAAT’s Video Room exhibition series on expanded video.
Image: Haus Wittgenstein: Art, Architecture and Philosophy, Courtesy of EDP Foundation, photographed by Bruno Lopes
The last round of exhibition openings at MAAT in 2018 coincides with the Lisbon Web Summit and includes three major shows and a pop-up event, as well as the launch of MAAT’s Video Room exhibition series on expanded video.
In the first exhibition featured in the MAAT’s Video Room program, American duo Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe present Scenario in the Shade, a surprising multi-environment installation that culminates in a monumental 75-minute-long video piece. In the Main Gallery, the group show Haus Wittgenstein gathers artists and architects that revisit philosophical issues surrounding the house built by the famous Viennese philosopher. Finally, the Project Room series of new solo proposals by Portuguese artists will host João Louro, who represented Portugal at the Venice Biennale in 2015.
MAAT’s Video Room new series with Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe.
New York-based duo Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe bring us the last European presentation of Scenario in the Shade, an immersive environmental installation that was originally created for the Istanbul Biennale 2017, curated by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, and had its second appearance at the Kunsthal Charlottenburg, Copenhagen, during the Summer of 2018. Conceived as a multi-space environment, the exhibition is an architectural and cinematic scenario portraying the youth subcultures of the San San Metroplex, an urban corridor that exists along the coast of California, USA. The San San originates from an idea put forth by futurist Herman Kahn in his book “The Year 2000” (1967). He speculated that the coastal area between San Diego and San Francisco would grow into one giant metropolis, a region he called San San. Based on this fiction, Freeman & Lowe build a mysterious, parallel world articulated through a variety of objects, ephemera, architectural scenarios and a trilogy of films. The cinematic work at the center of the show opens MAAT’s Video Room curatorial programme dedicated to expanded video practices.
Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe, Scenario in the Shade Courtesy of EDP Foundation, photographed by Bruno Lopes
Curated by Pedro Gadanho and Rita Marques | Until Feb. 25, 2019 | Video Room [MAAT]
Other Exhibitions opened:
Haus Wittgenstein: Art, Architecture and Philosophy is a group show that celebrates the 90th birthday of the Haus Wittgenstein in Vienna. A selection of works from several institutions and artists, including a group of new artworks from several Portuguese artists, explore the genesis of the only house built by Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), in articulation with the influent ideas that this thinker introduced during the advent of modernity.
Haus Wittgenstein: Art, Architecture and Philosophy, Courtesy of EDP Foundation, photographed by Bruno Lopes
Wittgenstein’s project began in 1926 and came to its conclusion two years later, in 1928, giving rise to a house with an eventful history where art, architecture and philosophy intercross and interconnect. Following a historic narrative filled with conflict, anecdotes and relationships that would inspire artists, architects and writers, the exhibition takes us back to Haus Wittgenstein through a series of new artworks commissioned for the occasion, all of which engage in critical dialogue with the house as both a piece of architecture and a contradictory expression of the philosopher’s legacy. Adding to the new pieces, there’s also work from artists that in one way or another experienced the “Wittgenstein effect” and the philosopher’s enthrallment with language, sense, and the world.
Artists featured in this show include: Art & Language, Leonor Antunes, John Baldessari, Mel Bochner, Robert Barry, Nuno Cera, Luísa Cunha, João Paulo Feliciano, Ângela Ferreira, Ceal Floyer, Horácio Frutuoso, João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva, Gil Heitor Cortesão, Sabine Hornig, Dereck Jarman, Joseph Kosuth, João Louro, Luis Lázaro Matos, Paulo Mendes, Bruce Nauman, Pedro Cabrita Reis, and Julião Sarmento, among others.
Curated by Nuno Crespo | Until Feb. 25, 2019 | Main Gallery [MAAT]
Linguistic Ground Zero is a new installation specifically created by Portuguese artist João Louro for MAAT's Project Room. A conjunction of sculptural objects and text pieces, the project reflects on moment of historical inflection in which art and society seem to coincide in the willingness to put an end to everything, as it happened with the emergence of artistic vanguards around the two World Wars. Louro’s proposal consists of a reproduction of ‘Little Boy’ – the first atomic bomb in history that razed the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. Like most bombs on which soldiers wrote messages, this reproduction also carries inscriptions. In this case, however, the texts refer to art, politics, culture and the avant-gardes. The result is simple and forceful: destruction, graffiti, poetic and written references come together, providing one of those moments in which art and artists carry out an exercise of complex thinking.
Curated by David G. Torres | Until April 22, 2019 | Project Room [MAAT]
Parallel to the openings of the exhibitions Scenario in the Shade, Haus Wittgenstein, and Linguistic Ground Zero, the mobile exhibition Nothing matters – Icons of the void will be shown at MAAT, presented by the NO SHOW MUSEUM.
The NO SHOW MUSEUM is the world‘s first museum dedicated to nothing and its various manifestations in art history. Its collection includes some 500 works by more than 150 renowned artists such as Marina Abramovic, Maurizio Cattelan, John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein and Andy Warhol. Following the success of its exhibition tours across Europe (2015), North America (2016) and Central America (2017) with 70 exhibitions in 30 countries and the participation in the Venice Biennale, the mobile museum is back on track, pursuing its mission to spread nothing, this time in Western Europe (2018).
The museum has a mobile presentation space setup in a restored and customized postal car. The new special exhibition entitled Nothing matters – Icons of the void was developed in collaboration with Slovak artist Stano Masar. On display will be 20 iconic works of art history from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day, which promote the dematerialization of art and in various ways illuminate the concept of nothingness.
Also On View:
The Oval Gallery hosts a special project by Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata. Over Flow is a truly immersive installation of monumental scale that offers a visceral warning about the proliferation of plastic debris in our oceans. The large-scale commission at MAAT integrates both plastic residues and abandoned boats collected on Portugal’s shores during beach cleaning campaigns by volunteer organisation Brigada do Mar. Developed along one year of research and field work in Portugal, Kawamata’s project culminated in a workshop involving the local community, with artists and architects led by architectural collective Os Espacialistas.
Tadashi Kawabata, Over Flow Courtesy of EDP Foundation, photographed by Bruno Lopes
Over Flow exhibition - Curated by Pedro Gadanho and Marta Jecu | Until April 1, 2019 | Oval Gallery [MAAT]
The Power Station’s Ashpit 8 Gallery hosts Elefante by Portuguese Photographer André Príncipe. In his first solo exhibition in an institutional context in Lisbon, the artist continues his exploration of the photographic medium as a mechanism to perceive, capture and construct the ‘real’, gathering a set of unpublished photographic works and a video installation specifically designed for this exhibition. This new work reaffirms his concern with the themes of life and death, space and time, permanence and ephemerality, poetry and politics, and ascension and decline.
Curated by Ana Anacleto and João Pinharanda | Until December 31, 2018 | Ashpit 8 [Central]
A new edition of Artists’ Film International, the programme initiated by the Whitechapel Gallery that brings together films by artists from around the world, takes shape in the monumental Boiler Hall. In a moment where veracity of information is questioned on a daily basis, Truth was the theme chosen for this edition. Selected artists featured in this show include Rosa Barba, Danielle Dean, Patrick Hough, Tom Ireland, Musa Paradisíaca, John Skoog, Juan Sorrentino, and Munem Wasif.
Curated by Maria do Mar Fazenda | Until April 22, 2019 | Boiler Hall [MAAT]
Germinal – The Cabrita Reis Section at the EDP Foundation Art Collection is the first big exhibition on Pedro Cabrita Reis’s collection, which was acquired by EDP Foundation in 2015. The exhibition, which was first installed at Porto’s Municipal Gallery, covers a vast and significant array of works, focusing particularly on the initial and founding moments of the careers of important contemporary Portuguese artists – the 90s generation, but also including artists from earlier and later generations – disclosing the attentive eye of artist and art collector Pedro Cabrita Reis.
Curated by Pedro Gadanho and Ana Anacleto | Until December 31, 2018 | Central 1 and Central 2 [Central] Power Station Tour – Permanent Exhibition | Central
The Power Station building is a unique example of Portugal’s historical, industrial and architectural heritage from the first half of the 20th century. The building has been listed as a Building of Public Interest, and today it has been fully restored, including the original machinery. The new Power Station Tour brings together both the technological heritage and future energies. Boasting the largest collection on the history of electricity in Portugal, and a selection of exhibits which portray the evolution of electricity up to the age of renewable energies, the building offers a fascinating insight into the subject of electricity.
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
ArtDependence Magazine is an international magazine covering all spheres of contemporary art, as well as modern and classical art.
ArtDependence features the latest art news, highlighting interviews with today’s most influential artists, galleries, curators, collectors, fair directors and individuals at the axis of the arts.
The magazine also covers series of articles and reviews on critical art events, new publications and other foremost happenings in the art world.
If you would like to submit events or editorial content to ArtDependence Magazine, please feel free to reach the magazine via the contact page.
