Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea
Address:
Rua Serpa Pinto 4
1200-444 Lisboa, Portugal
Website
Social Media: @mnac.oficial
The MNAC collection encompasses key movements inPortugueseart, from Romanticism, Naturalism and Symbolism to the early 20th-century avant-garde — including Expressionism, Surrealism, Neorealism, Abstraction, Neo-Figuration, and Land Art — as well as contemporary artistic production. It is currently enriched through donations and deposits from artists, collectors, and estates, reflecting diversity and vitality. The collection also includes complementary documentation — catalogues, inventories, agreements, and acquisition protocols — which provide a critical framework for research, ongoing reflection, and reinterpretation.
Rua Serpa Pinto 4
1200-444 Lisboa, Portugal
Website
Social Media: @mnac.oficial
About the archive
The MNAC (National Museum of Contemporary Art) holds a significant collection of Portuguese Art from 1850 to the present, featuring paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, and new mediaworks. It operates as an open and dynamic institution dedicated to preserving, researching, and promoting contemporary Portuguese art while encouraging critical reflection and diverse artistic perspectives. Alongside its artworks, the museum maintains extensive documentation that supports research and knowledge production. Under its current direction, the MNAC embraces a feminist-informed and community‑focused curatorial approach, positioning itself as a living space for thought, dialogue, and cultural transformation.The MNAC collection encompasses key movements inPortugueseart, from Romanticism, Naturalism and Symbolism to the early 20th-century avant-garde — including Expressionism, Surrealism, Neorealism, Abstraction, Neo-Figuration, and Land Art — as well as contemporary artistic production. It is currently enriched through donations and deposits from artists, collectors, and estates, reflecting diversity and vitality. The collection also includes complementary documentation — catalogues, inventories, agreements, and acquisition protocols — which provide a critical framework for research, ongoing reflection, and reinterpretation.
Focus & Research
This residency invites the artist to explore the silences, absences, and blind spots within MNAC’s collection, considering the historical, political, financial, and institutional forces that have shaped it over time. By foregrounding what has been neglected, underrepresented, or deliberately excluded, the residency encourages a critical re‑examination of established canons and the pursuit of alternative readings. The research framework proposes an interdisciplinary engagement that combines artistic practice, archival investigation, and critical reflection. The artist in residence is encouraged to explore methods of activating the archive — whether through visual, performative, discursive, or experimental strategies — that reveal overlooked relationships between artworks and their associated documentation. This process may also involve examining MNAC’s complex institutional history: a museum founded in 1911 during the transition from monarchy to republic, later shaped by the ideological pressures of the Estado Novo regime, including censorship, editorial control, and imposed aesthetic norms. Through this inquiry, MNAC seeks an external perspective that can challenge, expand, and reimagine how the Collection is organised, interpreted, and transmitted into the future.Residency details
Available period for archive visits: September 2026 – March 2027Durationon location: 8 weeks
What the archive offers:
Access to archival materials, databases and catalogues; digital resources; scanners; technical or research support; curatorial guidance and creative input; introductions to the collection and its contexts; and other forms of assistance depending on the project needs.Workspace:
Shared workspace, reading roomAccessibility
- Steps and elevators
