Curators Pedro Gadanho e Rita Marques
16 May - 13 Oct
MAAT Rooftop
MAAT’s walkable rooftop is one of its recognized architectural features, emerging as a magnet for audiences who do not always visit the Museum.
With a new viewpoint on the riverfront, London-based architects AL_A have turned MAAT’s public spaces into one of Lisbon’s tourist experiences. Now, the Museum programme comes out to meet these fleeting audiences face to face.
French artist Xavier Veilhan is the first to use MAAT’s rooftop, with a specially-designed sculpture installation, “Romy and the dogs”, that responds to the characteristics of this unique urban space. Presenting new cast aluminium statues which form part of an ongoing series, Veilhan proposes a figure of a woman and a pack of dogs as the new inhabitants of MAAT’s fifth façade.
Playing with notions of scale, recognition and strangeness, the figures also evoke how digitally-produced artefacts have gradually been replacing traditional art objects. The exhibition’s opening is planned to coincide with ARCOlisboa, marking the first time that audiences from this art event will access MAAT through the new pedestrian bridge designed by Amanda Levete.
