If you walk through hotels, many have art collections, but what if one building housed a museum and a five-star hotel? That is what Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando Martins (MACAM) offers: the model is that the latter funds the former, and parts of the collection are placed throughout the museum and the hotel.
It’s the brainchild of Armando Martins, an engineer and property developer with a vast art collection. If you’re lucky enough to stay at the hotel, along with the tea and coffee in your room, you’ll have art and a catalogue listing all the art you can find throughout the hotel. It will have you wandering the hallways trying to find them, spotting them on your way to the rooftop pool, or leading you into a library that’s so plush and large that even now I’m having library envy thinking about it.
The museum is split: the first two galleries, near the entrance to the complex, house the permanent collection, while the two galleries in the new wing, accessible via the central courtyard, house the temporary exhibitions.
My visit marks the opening of the sculpture exhibition titled ‘Weight-Counter-Weight’. Even before I enter the exhibition, my exploration of the hotel reveals a preference in the collection for abstract geometric sculpture, which we see in the exhibition, where all works are sourced from the collection.
We see this in the work of Jose Damasceno, which confronts us as we enter the space, where plastic casings and wires combine into a network that reaches up to the ceiling, like the root network of a tree, but made of inorganic matter. It reminds me of how technology pulls us away from nature, yet still references terms such as root directory and saving items on the cloud.
There are some big names in the show, such as Olafur Eliasson, with his colour spiral, but the strongest works are those with a sense of play to them including Rirkrit Tiravanija’s towers made of winner’s wreaths from two German ex-Formula One drivers and a painting on the floor that looks like the patches that light may cast on the museum floor, though ironically it needs to be sheltered from the powerful Portuguese sun.
I was particularly drawn to Rodrigo Oliveira’s sculpture that references the graceful curves of the cathedral in Brasilia, designed by Oscar Niemeyer. However, in this version, the curves are replaced with bananas as a playful jest but also a nod to this ubiquitous fruit, which is Brazil’s highly tradeable export, to reference how unequal society can be and how only some benefit from the utopia this city was designed to be.
The other temporary exhibition space is dedicated to displaying works from other collections that don’t have their own museum to show them. It’s a great initiative, and it’s currently hosting impressive photography from the Américo Marques Collection. There are some big names on show, including Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman and the industrial photography of Bernd and Hilla Becher.
Some of my highlights include Martin Parr’s photograph of a sunbather on a beach next to the wheel of a heavy construction vehicle, and Sam Taylor-Johnson’s series in which she posed bar bouncers in front of artworks. Erwin Wurm’s work also includes a comedic element in his series about a man trying to conceal a bomb in his clothing, made all the more edgy by its creation shortly after 9/11.
The curatorial themes throughout the show are a tad thin, but as with all opportunities to show work from a major collection, you have to focus on the highlights, and that’s what this exhibition does.
I visited the permanent collection last, and gallery one offers a tour from the 19th century to modernism in Portuguese art. This is where I think this collection does its finest work, as I didn’t know any of these artists, and there are many great works in it.
Gallery two has more recognisable names, such as Paula Rego, Marina Abramovic, a ceramic church by Tong Cragg that looks like it’s made of wax, and Thomas Struth’s photograph of those looking up at Michelangelo’s David.
There’s a lot of art to see across four galleries, where visitors could easily spend several hours. What stayed with me after my visit was the importance of collections like this one, celebrating artists from Portugal whom many of us from other countries may not be familiar with. Placing them alongside works by well-known artists from across the world puts them in context, and MACAM is doing a great job of putting these artists on the map.
Weight-Counter-Weight is on until March 29th 2027. Other Spaces is on until October 26th. Entrance to both spaces and the main exhibition is ticketed.
The first image shows the facade of MACAM, and the fourth shows the permanent collection. Both are copyrighted by MACAM. The second image is of the work of Rodrigo Oliveira. © Cláudio Carvalho. The third image is copyrighted by Erwin Wurm.
