Vivian Suter: Disco / Anthony McCall: Rooms

MAAT in Lisbon inaugurates two completely new exhibitions, Disco by Vivian Suter and Rooms by Anthony McCall, thus completing the openings of its autumn program.

Vivian Suter: Disco
October 30, 2024–March 17, 2025
Curated by Sérgio Mah

In one of the most important shows of the year, MAAT presents Disco, an exhibition of approximately 500 paintings by Vivian Suter (b. 1949), the Swiss-Argentine artist who explores the possibilities of painting, particularly its relationship with nature. 

Over the last four decades, Swiss-Argentine painter Vivian Suter (b. 1949) has been building a monumental body of work in Panajachel, Guatemala. Disco, named after the artist’s dog, presents the culmination of this work, showcasing over 500 paintings, including 163 pieces being exhibited for the first time. Vivian Suter’s geographic location plays a pivotal role in her artistic practice, profoundly influencing both her creative process and the outcome of her paintings. As Vivian Suter says: “Nothing I have ever worked on as an artist would have any meaning without this place, without these trees, without the leaves, without my dogs, who follow me wherever I go.”

Vivian Suter’s abstract paintings result from a daily, physical, and emotional relationship with the materials and contingencies of nature in the place where she lives and works. Rain, earth, humidity, and animal footprints often inhabit her canvases, expressing the close interaction between the artist and the ecosystem in which the work is generated.

Disco comes after several moments of great international critical acclaim following her participation in Documenta 14, 2017 and her exhibitions at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, and the Vienna Secession. Disco will travel to the Palais de Tokyo in the summer of 2025. The partnership between the two institutions also extends to the publication of a monograph by JRP|Editions still this year, including writings by the artist, and new essays by Sérgio Mah and François Piron.

Anthony McCall: Rooms
October 30, 2024–March 17, 2025
Curated by Sérgio Mah

Rooms is the first solo exhibition by British artist Anthony McCall in Portugal. Developing in a space between sculpture, cinema, drawing, and performance, McCall’s work is recognised for the innovative way in which it explores these intersections: simple, complex, and highly sensory.

This exhibition presents four pieces that mark McCall’s career, which he dubs “solid-light” works, produced between 2007 and 2020. These film installations flow through space like immaterial yet apparently three-dimensional sculptures of light and smoke. The performative dimension of these works arises from the articulation between the viewer’s participation, bodily sensation, and perception of the physicality of the forms drawn by the light. They were conceived after McCall returned to artistic production in 2003 (after a 24-year hiatus during which he worked as a graphic designer for the New York art scene). At that point, he conceived new film installations using digital processes and devices. The exhibition also includes a photograph, Room with Altered Window (1973), which documents one of Anthony McCall’s first artistic experiments.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by MAAT, with new essays by Sérgio Mah and Johanna Gosse.

With these two new exhibitions, MAAT completes its Autumn programme which includes the previously inaugurated Black Ancient Futures, William Klein – All the World’s a Stage and Catarina Dias – INVERTED ON US.