LISBON.- In 2026, MAAT will celebrate its 10th anniversary, a period during which the museum has consolidated its ambitions, strengthened its presence among diverse audiences, and established a central presence among the main highlights and reviews of cultural and artistic life.

The symbolic achievement of this decade is the definition of the programme for 2026: we will present Portuguese artists of recognised international prestige and foreign artists of unquestionable relevance in the field of contemporary art. Individual and collective exhibitions—accompanied by a reinforced public programme—will address themes essential to understanding our times, ranging from reflection on the common future of humanity to a critical revisiting of our collective past.

The programme begins with an extensive exhibition dedicated to the EDP Foundation Art Collection, considered one of the most important Portuguese institutional collections of the 21st century.

In March, MAAT will present a significant exhibition by Anna Maria Maiolino—an anthology, but with an essential set of original works created in situ—and host an exhibition by Christian Marclay that addresses urban culture.

In a national context, but with clear international resonance, MAAT will present projects by Pedro Cabrita Reis and Paulo Furtado, also known as The Legendary Tigerman, which explore different languages of painting, sculpture, cinema, sound, and virtual reality. In parallel, the photographic work of Margarida Correia will offer a unique perspective on the final history of the Portuguese empire and the visual memory that remains of it.

In October, MAAT will host an exhibition that takes an innovative approach to the presence and impact of artificial intelligence in the arts and society.

February

EDP Foundation Art Collection
February 11, 2026–January 25, 2027 (Part I/II)
Curators: João Pinharanda, Margarida Chantre and Sérgio Mah

Established in 2000, the EDP Foundation Collection is one of the most extensive and diverse institutional collections of contemporary art in Portugal. An important repository for understanding the artistic trends and transformations that have marked the last few decades in the country, the collection comprises around 2,500 works by more than 340 artists: figures who stood out in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as more recent generations, particularly artists born after the 1974 Revolution.

Artists: Gabriel Abrantes, Luisa Cunha, Ana Jotta, Joana Vasconcelos, José Pedro Croft, João Pedro Vale + Nuno Alexandre Ferreira, among others.

March

Christian Marclay
March 25, 2026–August 31, 2026
Curator: Sérgio Mah

Christian Marclay's (b. 1955, USA) artistic practice has been characterised by his exploration of the intersection between the visual arts, popular culture, and contemporary sound expression, particularly in the field of experimental music. The exhibition at MAAT takes as its conceptual axis a set of works that address themes of urban culture—works in which the city, the street, and everyday life are transformed into spaces charged with visual and sound signals. The exhibition features approximately 15 works, including video installations, photographic series, collages, and publications. Two of the works will be presented for the first time.

Anna Maria Maiolino: Terra Poética
March 25, 2026–August 24, 2026
Curators: João Pinharanda and Sérgio Mah

Anna Maria Maiolino (Italy, 1942) is a Brazilian artist. Her work is part of the reaction to the abstraction and concretism that dominated Brazilian art in the 1950s, taking the subjectivised body, represented or performative, and the materiality of natural supports, worked mechanically or manually, as the axis of creation. This exhibition features a selection of drawings, photographs, and videos from the 1970s and 1980s. Maiolino will create a dozen of these clay sculptures modelled on site, the largest she has ever produced, with which she will populate the vast space of the room, defining the paths of the public and leading them to establish a strong sensory and poetic relationship with the materiality of the pieces.

April

EDP Foundation Art Collection
April 29, 2026–January 25, 2027 (Part II/II)
Curators: João Pinharanda, Margarida Chantre and Sérgio Mah

Artists: Jorge Molder, Rui Sanches, Paulo Nozolino, Fernanda Fragateiro, Francisco Tropa, Ana Hatherly, Helena Almeida, among others.

Margarida Correia: Mais Alto
April 29, 2026–August 31, 2026
Curator: João Pinharanda

The Portuguese artist investigates, with a special focus on photography, personal and institutional archives of specific communities. In Mais Alto ("Higher"), her proposal addresses a transcendent issue in contemporary art related to historical questions of post-colonialism. Through interviews and material collections, Margarida Correia literally portrays a group of female paratrooper nurses from the Portuguese army who served in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. Scenes from their professional and daily lives in Africa.

September

Life is the Game
An immersive experience by Paulo Furtado, aka Legendary Tigerman
September 16, 2026–February 22, 2027

Life is the Game is an immersive Extended Reality (XR) experience (using a mixed-reality headset) that takes participants on a timeless journey through the rite of passage between death and rebirth. This drift explores universal themes of consciousness, identity, memory, and transcendence, proposing interaction with soundscapes and spaces that challenge the perception of the self in its relationship with collective life. Paulo Furtado is responsible for the direction and sound composition of the project (technological development by Yolanda Correia, script and creative concept by Eduardo Brito).

Pedro Cabrita Reis: com o coração livre de cuidados*
September 16, 2026–February 22, 2027
Curator: João Pinharanda

Pedro Cabrita Reis is one of Portugal's most internationally renowned artists, with numerous works featured in European museums. Discovered in the 1980s, his work quickly expanded from painting to sculpture and installation, always taking into account the architectural or urban spaces in which it is displayed. His creative process is omnivorous in its desire to recover/integrate the signs of urban or rural life, whether they come from "high" or "low" culture. Using debris, discarded fragments, and banal and anonymous objects, he associates them in unexpected and effective ways, aiming to magnify, through grand gestures of discursive imposition, signs of what could be seen as a decline in civilisation.

October

Energies of IA
October 2, 2026–March 8, 2027
Curator: Antonio Somaini

The exhibition will present a series of very recent works, many of which will be presented for the first time, by artists who tackle the "energies of AI" from a double perspective: on the one hand, the energies that power AI technologies (electricity, water, critical minerals, computation, human labor, capital); on the other, the energies that AI releases across cultures, societies, and environments, in terms of data analysis and data generation, prediction, surveillance, attention capture, mind control, etc. Many of the artworks will be turned towards the future, helping us imagine where AI is headed. With works by Hito Steyerl, Kate Crawford & Vladan Joler, Trevor Paglen, Grégory Chatonsky, Fabien Giraud, among others, Portuguese and international artists.

Permanent exhibition: The Electricity Factory

The Electricity Factory is situated in the MAAT Central building, a former thermoelectric power plant that supplied power to the Lisbon region. Its production activity spanned from 1909 to 1972. The exhibition showcases original machinery in a state of perfect conservation, telling the story of this historic plant, as well as the evolution of electricity up to renewable energies. It features an exhibition space titled "The History of Energy," which invites visitors to explore the history of energy, with a focus on the challenges of the energy transition and sustainability.