MNAC - Rua Capelo

entry: General Conditions

Metamorphoses of Humanity

2019-03-22
2019-06-02
Curatorship: Jorge da Costa e Emília Ferreira

A collection of over eighty drawings and paintings on paper make up the exhibition Metamorphoses of Humanity, by painter Graça Morais.  Reflecting on the multiple faces of human nature, with its weaknesses and frightening predatory attitudes, these recent drawings by Graça Morais (carried out in 2018) offer us, as if in a broken mirror, multiple reflections of our many everyday fears: war, exclusion, absolute loss, hunger and death. In each of the works on display, like in small pieces of a fragmented world, we recognise emotions that are familiar to us.  Greed, the ability to destroy, the will to refuse another their humanity and dignity, and the desire for control — all of these are present. But there’s more. Alongside the suffering of the victims, also depicted here, in their silent and ultimate act of resistance, irrepressible in their demand for dignity, the obstinate path towards hope is seen to emerge. Empathy for the victims, the ability to give a voice to the voiceless, is felt and heard in these works that put a magnifying glass up to the great tensions of our time, condensed in disturbing and moving images.

In addition to the works that featured previously, in 2018, at the Graça Morais Contemporary Art Centre in Bragança, the MNAC exhibition now includes other recent works. After Lisbon, it will be Porto’s turn to host Metamorphoses of Humanity, in the Soares dos Reis National Museum, from 25 July to 29 September.



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Activities

    2019-03-21 19h00
    Opening
    2019-04-13

    16h00
    17h00
    Guided visit
    2019-05-17

    18h30
    20h00
    not available
    2019-05-18 18h00
    Guided visit
    2019-05-30 18h30
    not available
All Activities 3

On Exhibition

Loops.Expanded 2026

2026-07-14
2026-10-03
Curatorship: Irit Batsry
MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art – Chiado and DuplaCena present, for the 11th consecutive year, an exhibition dedicated to the loop as a seminal form of the moving image.
Temporary Exhibition

On Gestures and Forms

A dialogue between collections

2026-06-18
2026-09-20
Curatorship: MNAA e MNAC
Works from the collections of Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea, and Fundação Millennium bcp, engage in a dialogue across different periods, materials, and approaches to artistic creation.
Temporary Exhibition

Alice Geirinhas

Sycorax

2026-05-29
2026-09-20
Curatorship: Lúcia Saldanha e Rui Afonso Santos
Sycorax is an installation of drawings that summons the absent and silenced figure of Sycorax, the witch and mother of Caliban, characters from "The Tempest" by William Shakespeare.
Temporary Exhibition

Ultratremor

Group show

2026-05-29
2026-09-27
Curatorship: Germano Dushá
Between the visible and the invisible, the exhibition brings together artists who explore states of transformation, apparition, and resonance, bringing matter, imagination, and spiritual experience into dialogue.
Temporary Exhibition

Maria José Oliveira

I who once was I

2026-05-15
2026-10-04
Curatorship: Paula Parente Pinto
Maria José Oliveira transforms everyday materials and discarded objects into territories of memory, ritual, and metamorphosis, where time itself becomes a living material of artistic creation.
Temporary Exhibition

Impressões Digitais. MNAC Collection

2024-12-12
2026-12-30
Curatorship: Ana Guimarães, Emília Ferreira, Maria de Aires Silveira e Tiago Beirão Veiga
Consisting of founding works of contemporary Portuguese art historiography, from 1850 to the present day, the MNAC's collection holds several national treasures.
Permanent Exhibition