The Julião Sarmento Pavilion, a new contemporary art centre, opens on 4 June.
Admission will be free from 5th to 8th June.
This venue offers a cultural programme that goes beyond exhibitions, where visual arts, cinema, literature, music, and fashion intersect, reflecting the interdisciplinary spirit that characterised Sarmento’s life and work.
The centre is located in Belém, in a building adjacent to some of the city’s most iconic cultural and museological institutions. Using Julião Sarmento’s own collection, it has allowed the city to enhance its contemporary and cosmopolitan profile, bringing together established artistic names with emerging figures in contemporary art.
Architecture and strategic cultural vision
The building itself is owned by the Lisbon municipality and was originally a food warehouse, before it underwent a thorough architectural rehabilitation led by João Luís Carrilho da Graça. The result is a unique space in terms of scale, mission, and identity.
With the aim of preserving, studying, exploring, and sharing the important private collection of artist Julião Sarmento (1948–2021), the centre comprises around 1,500 works of art. This collection was assembled over decades with a unique and deeply emotional perspective on the artistic community of which he was a leading figure.
A new institution where different art forms meet
More than a traditional museum, the Julião Sarmento Pavilion (under the curatorship of Isabel Carlos) positions itself as a living art centre, geared towards experimentation, production, and the sharing of artistic knowledge. Conceived “by a creator for other creators,” it is designed as a space where artists, audiences, researchers, and communities can come together, with a programme that goes far beyond temporary exhibitions. Here, the visual arts converge with cinema, literature, performance, music, and fashion, reflecting the interdisciplinary spirit that defined Sarmento’s life and work.
The institution’s key objectives include:
– the regular presentation of the collection through themed exhibitions and sections focusing on specific artists;
– Exploring the collection through multidisciplinary public programmes;
– Building an active artistic community committed to contemporaneity.
Inaugural Exhibition: TAKE 1 – Artist Julião Sarmento’s Collection, curated by Isabel Carlos
This exhibition presents us with two main themes: Art and Life, focusing on friendship, love, sharing, and celebration among artists; and Space and Architecture, revealing the artist’s fascination with habitation, the construction of architectural drawings, and materiality.
Among the artists featured in the exhibition are key figures of international contemporary art, such as Marina Abramović, Ernesto Neto, Robert Morris, Juan Muñoz, Cristina Iglesias, Rui Chafes, Richard Long, Lawrence Weiner, Ângela Ferreira, John Baldessari, Rita McBride and many more besides. Marked by emotional closeness and peer-to-peer exchanges, the collection reflects a deep understanding of art as an expanded field of relationships, desires, and awareness.
