From May 16 through September 28, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian presents Drawing Vocabularies, the first solo exhibition in Portugal by acclaimed Italian artist and filmmaker Rosa Barba.
Photo at top: Hear, There, Where the Echoes Are, 2016–2021, Drums, projectors, glass panels, screens, Installation view at MoMA PS1, New York, 2016 | Photo: Charles Roussel © Rosa Barba
Occupying the soaring central Nave of the museum, the exhibition brings together around twenty works — including several never previously shown — in an installation that blurs the boundaries between cinema, sculpture, sound, and architecture. Rather than watching a film from a seat in front of a screen, visitors move through the exhibition itself, surrounded by projected images, shifting light, mechanical movement, and layered soundscapes.
Barba has spent more than two decades redefining the language of cinema through large-scale installations that use celluloid film and vintage cinematic equipment as sculptural materials. At CAM, her works unfold like a living environment: part film set, part immersive artwork, and part sensory journey.
Courtesy the artist and Esther Schipper, Berlin/Paris/Seoul
© the artist / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025 | Photos: CHROMA
© Rosa Barba / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2021 | Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Themes of landscape, memory, time, and transformation run throughout the exhibition. Barba frequently explores the relationship between nature and human intervention, weaving together archival references, astronomy, environmental change, and poetic storytelling. The result feels both deeply contemporary and strangely timeless.
Two major new works form the centerpiece of the exhibition. Myth and Mercury, a newly commissioned 35mm film created in partnership with institutions including Rome’s MAXXI, combines volcanic imagery, cosmic references, and fragments inspired by the writings of Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci. Nearby, Thick Harmonies transforms a looping strip of film into a kinetic sculpture in constant motion, creating an ever-changing composition of color, rhythm, and light.
On the museum’s Mezzanine level, Barba has also selected works from the CAM Collection that echo her fascination with text, narrative, and visual language, extending the exhibition into a dialogue between cinema, literature, and contemporary art.
For more information, visit the CAM Gulbenkian website.
Rosa Barba Designing Vocabularies
CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian
(in the Nave and Mezzanine of the museum)
Rua Marquês de Fronteira, 2
Lisbon
Hours:
Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday – 10:00 to 18:00
Saturday – 10:00 to 21:00
Closed on Tuesday
Entrance: €10.00 CAM Collection and CAM Temporary Exhibitions