Inside Lisbon’s New MAAT Museum With Pedro Gadanho

MAAT Museum is set to revolutionise Lisbon’s contemporary arts scene

In a movement not dissimilar to Berlin’s artistic revolution, Lisbon’s burgeoning contemporary art scene is beginning to garner international attention. The recent opening of the highly anticipated MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon is a prime example of its impact so far. On one side a historic factory, on the other an impressive modern space, the museum brings together contemporary creativity in an utterly unique fashion. We speak to the museum’s director, Pedro Gadanho, about its aims, attractions and how it’s set to redefine Lisbon’s cultural landscape.

MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology is the most exciting museum opening in Lisbon in recent years. What makes the space so unique?

Firstly, it’s an amazing location. It is 38,000 feet of campus, including the new building by Amanda Levete and a power station from the early 20th century. Unlike in other power stations, which were emptied out of their machinery, this one has large parts kept intact so it has aspects of a technological or science museum, which is articulated with contemporary art programmes. This combination of industrial heritage and contemporary art is what I think makes the museum unique.

The museum focuses on three contemporary pillars – art, architecture and technology. How do you plan to bring these fields together?

When we decided to focus on the relationships between art, architecture and technology, this was intended as a way of narrowing down our focus within the broad field of contemporary art. It is a museum of contemporary art, but within a very particular context. It connects to the way in which artists see, understand and examine the impacts of modern technology, from digital technologies to social media and so on; their relationship to the city and the built environment; and how they react to, and portray, architecture. The Variable Dimensions exhibition is a good example of this as it shows how artists have been relating historically to architecture and how they have been investigating, portraying, discussing and debating aspects of architecture in a very different way from architects.

Is there any one exhibition that you’re particularly proud of putting together so far?

One of the shows coming up that will be very important for us is Utopia/Dystopia (22nd March – 21st August 2017). I’ve been calling it a ‘manifesto’ exhibition, in the sense that it brings out some political ideas about the transition of utopia, from 500 years of living with ideas of utopia to a moment in which dystopia starts to creep in. It will present the idea of artists and architects side-by-side at the same intellectual level. For us, that is our way of putting those two disciplines in dialogue and to have them confronting each other with ideas and concepts that will illuminate one another.

The museum has spaces devoted to Portuguese and international artists. Please tell us about some of the talents you’d recommend looking out for.

Very soon we’ll start what I call ‘The Project Room’ in the new building, where we’ll be working with Portuguese artists who have already acquired an international reputation, such as Grada Kilomba, Miguel Palma, João Louro, and Angela Ferreira, both of whom did the Portuguese pavilion at the Venice biennial. We’ll also start hosting younger artists. The space will be a counterpoint to the Oval Gallery, which is a very large space in which we invite international artists to present a commission. This has already included Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and will soon feature Mexican artist Héctor Zamora, or Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa. The Oval Gallery will have more of an international profile – something you could compare to the Turbine Hall (at London’s Tate Modern), with large scale projects that involve the audience in an interactive way.