1 and 2 Floor

entry: General Conditions

Let's talk about houses

When Art Speaks Architecture:Building, Unbuilding, Inhabit

2010-10-16
2010-11-21
Curatorship: Delfim Sardo

At various times, in a world that has been successively destroyed by global conflicts, art has reflected the need to think about the meaning of dwelling, the affective construction of space, the cocoon, and the minimum conditions required for survival. In many ways, art seems to be speaking of architecture, constructing fields that are almost nameless in the place where sculpture, film, and architecture intersect.

The exhibition aims to present works which are located in this intermediate space, and which stem from the need to work with the deconstruction of space and the appropriation of architectural languages by artists in a way that also tries to find corresponding movements, with a diverse range of origins, in this interface.


Artists:

Ângela Ferreira; Bruce Nauman; Carlos Bunga; Carlos Garaicoa; Carlos Nogueira; Catherine Opie; Cildo Meireles; Damian Ortega; Dan Graham; Ed Ruscha ; Elmgreen & Dragset; Fernando Brito; Fernanda Fragateiro; Gabriel Orozco; Gordon Matta-Clark; Hans Haacke; Jimmie Durham; John Bock; Jonas Dahlberg; Jorge Macchi; José Bechara; José Pedro Croft; Juan Araújo; Julião Sarmento; Julian Rosenfeld; Luísa Lambri; Marcelo Cidade; Marcius Galan; Marepe; Mark Dion; Mateo Lopez; Miguel Ângelo Rocha; Miguel Arruda; Miroslav Balka; Nuno Sousa Vieira; Olafur Eliasson; Rita McBride; Rivane Neuenschwander; Robert Gober; Rodney Graham; Stan Douglas; Thomas Scheibitz; Thomas Schutte; Thomas Struth; Tom Sachs; Vangelis Vlahos; Wallid Raad/Atlas Group.

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