In Portugal, a new cultural and landscape impulse in Lisbon.
MAAT - Museu da Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology), launched in October 2016, in the context of the cultural patronage long undertaken by the EDP Foundation, translates the ambition to present national and international exhibitions. Besides enabling different approaches for the Art Collection in the EDP Foundation, it what concerns curatorship, it promotes the reflection over current subjects and trends.
MAAT - the dialogue of technology over, under and through art
The year was 1976, when Tejo’s power plant was officially excluded, having EDP undertaken it in the following year. In 1982, the location led to the Electricity Museum and, four years later, the “factory that powered Lisbon”, was target of a rating as a Public Interest Property. In 2016, at TEJO’s river margins, installed in two buildings, MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology) was born, in a project under the signature of the British architect Amanda Levete.
An immersive experience
Being imagined as an immersive experience, the futuristic structure of MAAT came to establish a new relationship with the river, specifically, and with the world, by exploring a symbiotic relationship between contemporary art, architecture and technology. With over 9.000 m², the integration of the structure in the landscape was thought to allow visitors to walk over, under and through the building. During the first opening year, MAAT received over 500.000 visitors, scoring a popularity highly superior to any other portuguese public museum.
Generated by EDP Foundation, MAAT, that has also been working as a window for the company’s collection of art, presents, on average, 18 exhibitions a year, stepping in as an alternative to host other countries’ exhibitions that, up to this point, had almost no presence in our cultural scene. Along with enabling several approaches on the Art Collection of EDP Foundation, in what concerns curatorship, the diversity of MAAT’s programs and locations place it as an important hallmark in Lisbon’s cultural script.
The Art Collection of the EDP Foundation
The Art Collection of the EDP Foundation started being built in 2000, encompassing several generations of portuguese contemporary artists, as well as several means of artistic expression and creation, like painting, photography, video or installation. In a constant evolution through annual acquisitions, the collection comprehends nearly 2400 masterpieces signed by over 330 artists. Although the oldest piece dates back from 1942, this collection has the chronological reference set on 1960’s decade, a time of revolutionary changes not only society, but also in art. It’s also during this time that the creation of the Portuguese Electricity Company, EDP’s precursor (Energias de Portugal), happens.
In 2015, through the acquisition of the Pedro Cabrita Reis’ Collection, made by 388 masterpieces by 74 artists, the EDP Foundation started to have one of the most significant acquis in Portuguese contemporary art, in the turn of the XX century. In the season of 2021-2022, the Collection was enriched with a set of authors and masterpieces of different times, origins, and senses, where we highlight Fernando Calhau (Água-mar-tempo, 1975), João Vieira (Viúva Negra, 1981), Miguel Branco (Sem título, 2021) or Ana Jotta (Ricochete #2 e Ricochete #6, both from 2017).
