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What happens with art, art lovers, and art collectors is that we all belong everywhere and nowhere - we are both alike and incomparable. Collectors from different contexts are identical in their passion and in the way they understand their responsibility as key players in making their local scenes visible.
They are vital supporters of their ecosystems, but also global interlocutors. Even if a collector focused exclusively - to exaggerate - on art from their own neighborhood, they could still speak with a global art collector with ease, because at both scales you find something universal.
- Maribel López, director of ARCO fair during interview for 100 Collectors
The most awaited art event in Lisbon, the 8th edition of ARCO Lisboa art fair, takes place this week, from Thursday, May 29 to Sunday, June 1, at its now well-established venue, the Cordoaria Nacional in Alcântara. Gathering 83 galleries from 17 countries, ARCO Lisboa will showcase mostly Portuguese art, followed by Spanish and international artists.
The fair is divided into three sections: the General Programme includes 61 galleries selected by the fair’s Organising Committee. The Solo Projects section offers an in-depth focus on one artist per gallery. Meanwhile, Opening Lisboa, curated by Sofía Lanusse and Diogo Pinto, features 18 emerging galleries. This year’s curated project, The Forms of the Ocean, conceived by Paula Nascimento and Igor Simões, brings together five projects that explore the relationships between Africa, the African diaspora, and other global geographies.
In 2016, when the already established Spanish art fair ARCO arrived in Lisbon, it launched with 45 galleries. Today, that number has nearly doubled. In the meantime, Lisbon has gone through a remarkable transformation.One of its most important museums, MAAT, opened during this period - both a cause and consequence of a city beginning to attract visitors from around the world. Year after year, Lisbon has become a hub for expatriates - the members of Lisbon's Local Chapter of the 100 Collectors are a good example - as well as digital nomads and foreigners who have energized the local art scene in unprecedented ways. International galleries opened new spaces, artist residencies and independent venues expanded to meet the growing demand of newly arrived creatives. Just in the past year, three new museums opened in Lisbon and its surroundings: CAM Gulbenkian, Fundação Albuquerque in Sintra, and MACAM.
“Without a doubt, this ever-growing energy is fundamental for the fair. And while it’s beyond our control, we do everything we can to channel it. Of course, the fair has a lot to offer, but it certainly helps when we can call the director of an international museum and invite them to discover these new museums and foundations in parallel with the fair. It’s a privilege, and a wonderful opportunity,” says Maribel López, director of ARCO Madrid and ARCO Lisboa.
Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar
Have a Good Trip, Many Wonders
The first group exhibition based on the collection preserved by BAC – Banco de Arte Contemporânea Maria da Graça Carmona e Costa, showcasing a significant body of documentation and works by artists, galleries, and critics active since the second half of the 20th century.
Location: Rua do Vale, 7, Bairro Alto
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10am–2pm and 3pm–6pm
More info
MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art
Aldebaran Fallen to Earth
A new series of phantasmagorical paintings by Portuguese artist Adriana Molder, suspended from leather cords in an immersive installation.
Location: Rua Serpa Pinto 4, Chiado
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10am–6pm
More info
Culturgest
Susan Hiller – Dedicated to the Unknown
This exhibition presents the work of Susan Hiller, who spent over 50 years exploring the dimensions of the subconscious and the paranormal. The show arrives at Culturgest as a retrospective originally conceived for the Helga de Alvear Museum in Cáceres, Spain.
Location: Rua do Arco do Cego, 50, Campo Pequeno
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 11am–6pm
More info
MACAM – Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando Martins
One of Portugal’s leading collectors, Armando Martins inaugurated this new museum in May to showcase his collection through both permanent and temporary exhibitions. Gardens, a café, and art installations are spread throughout the 18th-century palace.
Location: Rua da Junqueira 66, Alcântara
Opening hours: Wednesday to Monday, 10am–7pm
More info
Albuquerque Foundation
Inaugurated in February 2025, the foundation in Sintra is dedicated to ceramics, housing the renowned Albuquerque Collection of Chinese export porcelain from the Ming and Qing dynasties. The foundation's contemporary program opened with a solo exhibition by American artist Theaster Gates.
Location: Rua António dos Reis, 189, Sintra
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10am–6pm
More info
Kindred Spirit
Ana Santos and António Júlio Duarte
An exhibition of works from the António Cachola Collection, presented in the independent space led by curator Sérgio Fazenda Rodrigues.
Location: Rua da Boavista, 54, Santos
Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday, 2pm–6pm; Saturdays by appointment
More info
Kunsthalle Lissabon
Sonia Gomes
One of the most relevant voices in Brazilian contemporary art, Sonia Gomes reclaims overlooked narratives through her textile-based practice, transforming materials into vessels of memory, resistance, and care.
Location: Rua José Sobral Cid, 9E
Opening hours: Thursday to Saturday, 3pm–7pm
More info
ZDB
Pizza Space-Time by João Marçal
Engaged in a historical and technical understanding of painting, the artist invokes impressions of light, repetition of patterns and pixelisation of images to create spatiotemporal illusions within the works, displacing it and challenging its autonomy.
Location: Rua da Barroca nº 59, Bairro Alto
Opening Hours: Monday to Saturday, 6pm to 10pm
Opening event on May, 28th, from 6pm-10pmMore info
Narrativa
And They Laughed At Me by Newsha Tavakolian
The Iranian photographer revisits her early archive, recovering technically imperfect images from her first years behind the camera. These are interwoven with a new, intimate body of work that reflects on a society in constant struggle for freedom and transformation.
Location: Rua Dr. Gama Barros, 60
Opening Hours: Wednesday to Friday, 2pm to 7pm, Saturday, 2pm - 5pm
More info
Underdogs
Interdimensional Landscape
The exhibition brings together 17 new works by Spanish artist Okuda, created exclusively for the Lisbon-based gallery and showcasing his signature fusion of surrealism, geometry, and vibrant color.
Location: Rua Fernando Palha, 56, Marvila
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am - 7pm
More info
Galeria Foco
What Holds the Structure
Through acts of weaving, un-doing, and re-use, Maria Appleton materially and conceptually questions the notion that life is made-up-of and upheld by neatly intersecting threads
Location: Rua Antero de Quental, 55A
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Friday, 14 pm to 19.00, Saturday, 2pm - 6pm
More info
Galeria Madragoa
Body Language
An Exhibition by the American artist Steffani Jemilson, whose videos and multimedia projects explore the relationship between Black embodiment, sound cultures, and vernacular practices to modernism and conceptual art.
Location: R. Navegantes 53A, Estrela
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 11am - 7pm
Exhibition opening on May 28th, from 6pm - 9pmMore info
Galeria Filomena Soares
Carlos Garaicoa
Through rigorous compositions, carefully controlled color planes, and Cartesian volumes, the Cucan artist unfolds a visual vocabulary where architectural drawing, geometric art, and formal restraint intersect, alluding to the layered complexity of the contemporary world.
Location: Rua da Manutenção, 80, Xabregas
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Saturday from 10am - 1pm and from 1.30pm - 7pm
More info
3+1 Galeria
Vivenciar
Works by Portuguese artist Alberto Carneiro (1937 – 2017, Portugal) and British artist Charlotte Moth (1978, UK), who are now in dialogue in an exhibition curated by Caroline Hancock
Location: Largo Hintze Ribeiro 2 E-F, Rato
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Friday, 2 pm to 7 pm, Saturday, 11 am - 4 pm
More info
Jahn und Jahn
Drawings by Albert Oehlen
Spanning the gallery's four exhibition rooms, the show brings together new works and five larger drawings on acrylic glass, which belong to the artist’s “Conduction” series, a body of lyrical, hand-painted abstractions influenced by the improvisational music of jazz conductor Butch Morris.
Location: Rua de São Bernardo, 14, Estrela
Opening Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 12am - 7pm
More info
Arco Lisboa
From 29 May to 1 June 2025
Trade visitors: 29th, from 3 pm to 9 pm
Open to the public: 30th and 31st, from 12 pm to 8 pm
ocation: Cordoaria Nacional, Av. da Índia
Click here to check the full list of galleries, curatorial texts and other programs of talks and books during the fair
