Following its official opening on October 5, 2016, the new MAAT building reopened to the public on March 22, 2017, with two major exhibitions that take up the whole building: Utopia/Dystopia – A Paradigm Shift, curated by Pedro Gadanho, João Laia and Susana Ventura – and Order and Progress by Mexican artist Héctor Zamora, curated by Inês Grosso.
Utopia/Dystopia – A Paradigm Shift is the first “manifesto exhibition” to be held in the kunsthalle designed by Amanda Levete (AL_A). Installed in three of MAAT’s galleries, this key-inaugural project is a large group show featuring more than 60 works by a range of international artists and architects, some appearing for the first time in Portugal. The show reveals how the two fields have represented ideas of utopia, or anticipated emerging notions of dystopia, since the early 1970s, with a strong focus on work produced over the last five years. Participants include architects such as Archigram, Archizoom, åyr, Didier Faustino, Yona Friedman, Aldo Rossi, Superstudio, and artists such as Kader Attia, Jordi Colomer, Tacita Dean, DIS Collective, Cao Fei, Ângela Ferreira, Cyprien Gailard, Jonas Staal, Ryan Trecartin, and Wolfgang Tillmans.
The preview opening was held on March 21 with special performances by Michelangelo Pistoletto and Alard van Hoorn which took place outside the new building.
Héctor Zamora presents a new version of the performance/installation Order and Progress, in which the remains of traditional Portuguese fishing boats from different coastal regions temporarily occupy MAAT’s Oval Gallery. The performance, previously presented at the Palais de Tokyo in 2016, took place in the Oval Gallery on March 22, at 6.00 pm, coinciding with the museum’s opening to the public.
