What turns an empty space into a place? That is the question behind On Drawing Places (Portuguese: Lugares Que Se Desenham), which opened on 7 November 2026 at the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian (CAM) in Lisbon. The exhibition fills the Nave and the Mezzanine, both levels of CAM’s main hall, and runs until 29 March 2027.
A collection read through the idea of place
Curated by Sérgio Mah and Leonor Nazaré, the show draws entirely on the CAM Collection. It brings together more than 100 works by more than 50 Portuguese and international artists, from the 1950s to the present, across painting, sculpture, installation, drawing, photography and video. According to the Gulbenkian, the focus is on gestures and ideas linked to four actions: delimiting, constructing, inhabiting and mapping. These are seen as ways of marking a presence in a particular territory.
Drawing plays a double role, both as a theme and as a way of trying out forms. In the curators’ view, the artist does not simply depict a place but builds an “intermediate territory” between reality and imagination. Some works show places we recognise, such as houses, schools and motels. Others zoom in on architectural details and everyday objects, or move into imagined and abstract environments.
New acquisitions and first appearances
One highlight is Marcas (1976), a painting by Maria José Aguiar and the latest addition to the CAM Collection. Several works are on show at the museum for the first time, including Patrícia Garrido’s large installation Interior #2 (2021), Cecília Costa’s Darkest Light (2023) and Carlos Nogueira’s construction with a white floor from within (1997). A series of ten photographs by Augusto Alves da Silva shows the Algarve in the 1980s.
The artist list is a who’s who of Portuguese modern and contemporary art: Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Almada Negreiros, Lourdes Castro, René Bertholo, Ângelo de Sousa, Julião Sarmento, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Rui Chafes, José Pedro Croft and Alberto Carneiro, among many others. International names include Richard Hamilton, Fiona Rae, Mark Wallinger, Gérard Titus-Carmel, Narelle Jubelin and Waltercio Caldas.
Visiting
CAM is at Avenida de Berna 45A. It is open from 10:00 to 18:00 and until 21:00 on Saturdays, and closed on Tuesdays. The Gulbenkian lists tickets from €8 to €18, depending on the combination, and offers guided tours with the two curators. For anyone who has wondered why a corner, a street or a view can feel like home, this is a quiet and thoughtful exhibition with plenty to discover.