LISBON.- Bringing together major international figures and leading Portuguese artists and architects, the MAC/CCB—Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture Centre at the Belém Cultural Centre presents a diverse programme of exhibitions for 2026. As one of Portugal's reference museums, it reaffirms its commitment to artistic and critical reflection, historical awareness, and experimental practice, positioning the institution as a vital platform for contemporary art and architecture.
“May I Help You? Posso Ajudar?": Arts and Artists from the 1970s Onwards
Curators: Nuria Enguita and Marta Mestre
Curatorial adviser: Raphael Fonseca (Denver Art Museum)
Opening February 25; permanent exhibition
The ever-evolving relationship between museums and audiences is central to this large-scale permanent exhibition, featuring works by 90 international artists alongside new commissions. By bringing together iconic figures and diverse practices drawn from major long-term collections, it showcases the museum as a space of communication, tension, and transformation. It takes its title from Andrea Fraser’s seminal performance, turning this familiar interrogation back onto the museum itself and questioning the forms of connection and engagement possible in an era of fragmentation and impermanence.
Living in Portugal
Curators: Alexandra Saraiva, Célia Gomes, and Rui Leão
February 12–April 26
Revisiting the Habitar Portugal project, this exhibition continues a lineage of Portuguese architecture exhibitions initiated in the 1980s. A partnership between MAC/CCB and Ordem dos Arquitectos, it is guided by three key ideas: architecture as a political gesture, as rupture, and as memory. The 7th edition presents 100 architectural works across a range of scales, programmes, and geographies, including Portuguese-built projects abroad.
José Pedro Croft: Reflections, Enclaves, Deviations
Curator: Luiz Camillo Osorio
April 30–September 13
Prints, drawings, and reliefs interact with a group of sculptures along the longitudinal axis of the exhibition space. This solo exhibition reflects one of Portugal’s most relevant artists’ ongoing exploration of body, scale, space, and architecture, as well as the subtle thresholds between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional. The sculptural rigour invites viewers into a slow, perceptive experience that resists the acceleration of our times.
Multiple Eyes
Ines Doujak, Lubaina Himid, and Patricia Domínguez
Curators: Nuria Enguita and Rafael Barber Cortell
May 14–October 25
Storytelling as a political and collaborative practice is at the heart of the work of these three artists. In a world increasingly shaped by algorithms, screens, and control systems, the exhibition positions narrative as an intimate, polyphonic space for shared knowledge. Drawing on ancestral, symbolic, popular, and spiritual registers, the artists challenge singular and binary narratives, demonstrating how art can open spaces for dialogue, empathy, and recognising different ways of knowing and imagining the present.
Frida Orupabo: Cloud of Confusion
Curator: Marta Mestre
June 4–November 1
Frida Orupabo’s first solo exhibition in Portugal explores the circulation and instability of images in the digital age. Drawing on an extensive image archive compiled via social media, colonial photographs are juxtaposed with ethnographic material, family portraits, pop culture references, and digital fragments. Structured as a linear sequence echoing continuous screen scrolling, the exhibition exposes the tensions between intimacy and violence embedded in visual archives.
Raw Earth
Curator: Madalena Vidigal
June 25–November 1
Foregrounding environmental urgency and material responsibility, this exhibition reconsiders earth not as nostalgia but as a radical proposition for contemporary architecture. It traces a journey from soil as raw matter to conscious architectural action, integrating scientific research, historical knowledge, prototypes, and contemporary case studies.
Ângela Ferreira: Here I Stand
Curator: Nuria Enguita
October 24–February 28, 2027
Colonial histories and their enduring infrastructures are critically examined in this exhibition. Spanning works from the 1990s to the present day, the show highlights Ângela Ferreira as a central figure in Portuguese contemporary art and her sustained exploration of colonialism through installation, sculpture, video, and photography. Born in Maputo (Mozambique) and trained in apartheid-era South Africa, Ferreira’s biography is inseparable from her artistic practice.
Francisca Carvalho: Kouroi al Cora
Curator: Sara De Chiara
November 12–April 4, 2027
Drawing on experiences across diverse geographies, Francisca Carvalho constructs complex narratives through collage, drawing, painting, textiles, and text. The exhibition includes research undertaken in India, particularly Rajasthan and Gujarat, where the artist engaged with traditional pattern-making techniques, natural dyes, and hand-block printing, manipulating symbols, patterns, and cultural references.
Neïl Beloufa
Curator: Marta Mestre
November 12–April 4, 2027
Neïl Beloufa’s first exhibition in Portugal addresses the blurred boundaries between fiction, technology, and geopolitics. The MAC/CCB is transformed into an interactive environment structured as a live computer game, where visitors navigate staged spaces while their movements are captured via sensors and algorithmic systems, making them active participants within a fictional narrative.
Marisol: When Things Are Just Beginning
Curator: Laura Vallés Vílchez
December 3–April 12, 2027
The first retrospective dedicated to Marisol Escobar is co-produced by MAC/CCB and Fundación Botín (Santander) in collaboration with the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Highlighting drawing as the connective thread throughout her practice, it features over 100 drawings alongside sculptures, archival material, and films by Andy Warhol. The title references Leo Castelli's question, echoing Marisol's repeated decisions to step away from the art world at pivotal moments: “How can you leave when things are just beginning?”
