Museum of Contemporary Art, University of São Paulo

The Museum of Contemporary Art, University of São Paulo (Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, abbreviated as MAC USP) is a public university museum in São Paulo, Brazil. Inaugurated in 1963, it is one of the largest art museums in the country and safeguards one of the most important collections of modern and contemporary Western art in Latin America. The institution operates across multiple sites, with its main headquarters and an annex located on the University of São Paulo campus, alongside a prominent pavilion in Ibirapuera Park. As a university museum, it integrates its vast artistic holdings with academic missions, serving as a major center for research and training in art history, theory, criticism, and museology.

The museum was created in 1963 when the University of São Paulo received the holdings of the former São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MAM). MAM had been founded in 1948 by the Brazilian industrialist and art collector Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho, known as Ciccillo Matarazzo, and his wife Yolanda Penteado. Dissatisfied with his original foundation, Ciccillo closed MAM and donated its entire collection, alongside his and his wife's private collection, to the university. This foundational gift also included works acquired or received via donation during MAM's operation, as well as prizes from the São Paulo Biennials up to 1961. In its early years, MAC USP focused on preserving and exhibiting this inheritance while simultaneously becoming a leading center in the Southern Hemisphere for collecting and studying conceptual art, new technologies, and works that questioned modern traditions, acquiring pieces by artists such as Lucio Fontana and Artur Barrio. In recent decades, the museum has continued to expand its modern and contemporary collections through donations from artists, gallerists, and collectors, as well as acquisitions facilitated by the Association of Friends of MAC USP (AAMAC), adding works by artists including Henry Moore, Cildo Meireles, Joseph Beuys, and Leda Catunda.

The museum's collection comprises over 10,000 works spanning paintings, prints, three-dimensional objects, photographs, conceptual art, objects, and installations. It is considered one of the most comprehensive collections of 20th-century Western art in Latin America, with works ranging from 1906 to the late 1990s and beyond. The holdings are strongly characterized by acquisitions from the São Paulo Biennial and represent all major modern and contemporary art movements. The collection features extensive international modernist and contemporary figures, including Josef Albers, Karel Appel, Hans Arp, Joseph Beuys, Max Bill, Umberto Boccioni, Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Giorgio de Chirico, Raoul Dufy, Max Ernst, Lucio Fontana, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, George Grosz, Hans Hartung, Barbara Hepworth, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Käthe Kollwitz, Wifredo Lam, Henri Laurens, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Roberto Matta, Joan Miró, Amedeo Modigliani, Henry Moore, Giorgio Morandi, Eduardo Paolozzi, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Serge Poliakoff, Robert Rauschenberg, Germaine Richier, Kurt Schwitters, Jesús Rafael Soto, Frank Stella, Jean Tinguely, Antoni Tàpies, and Victor Vasarely. Brazilian modernism and contemporary art are particularly well represented by artists such as Tarsila do Amaral, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, Anita Malfatti, Ismael Nery, Candido Portinari, Alfredo Volpi, Hélio Oiticica, and Lygia Clark. Additionally, the museum preserves a significant collection of early 20th-century Italian art, its own historical archives, and a specialized visual arts library containing the personal libraries and papers of artists and critics.

Among the thousands of works, several specific pieces stand out within the museum's holdings. Brazilian modernist Tarsila do Amaral is represented by major oil paintings, including A Negra from 1923, Estrada de Ferro Central do Brasil from 1924, Floresta from 1929, and Costureiras from 1950. Italian Futurism is anchored by Umberto Boccioni's plasters Development of a Bottle in Space from 1912 and Man in Motion from 1913. Other notable European works include Amedeo Modigliani's Self-Portrait from 1919, Marc Chagall's Self-Portrait from 1914 and The Spring from 1938-1939, Giorgio De Chirico's The Enigma of a Day from 1914, Jean Metzinger's Landscape from 1912, Max Bill's Tripartite Unit sculpture from 1948-1949, Kurt Schwitters's Duke Size collage from 1946, Egon Schiele's Self-Portrait from circa 1910, Pierre Soulages's Painting from 1959, and Victor Vasarely's Chillan from 1951. Ismael Nery's Figure from 1927-1928 and Roman Opałka's From the Interior from 1969 also form part of the notable collection.

MAC USP operates across three distinct sites. The museum was originally housed on the third floor of the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion in Ibirapuera Park, a building designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer, which also hosts the São Paulo Biennial. In 1985, construction began on a new facility on the main campus of the University of São Paulo, which opened in 1992. This campus location includes a sculpture park that remains open to the public. In 2012, supported by the State Government and the university, the museum relocated its primary headquarters to a newly renovated Niemeyer-designed architectural complex on the edge of Ibirapuera Park. This main building features five floors and an annex dedicated to art exhibitions. The top floor houses a restaurant and a terrace offering panoramic views of the city and the park, which is accessible via a pedestrian bridge over a nearby highway. The Niemeyer headquarters and the art collection are protected by national and local heritage regulations.

The museum's primary venue is located at Avenida Pedro Álvares Cabral 1301, in the Ibirapuera neighborhood of São Paulo. It is open to the public from Tuesday through Sunday, operating between 10:00 am and 9:00 pm, and is closed on Mondays, Christmas, and New Year's Day. Admission and parking are entirely free. As a university museum, MAC USP is deeply integrated into academic activities. Its curators are university professors who research themes related to art history, theory, criticism, museology, and education. The institution offers undergraduate and graduate courses, organizes conferences and workshops, and provides a Research Gallery designed specifically for teaching, where classes regularly meet to study artworks directly. The museum also supports numerous scholarships and fellowships at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels through major Brazilian funding agencies, including CNPq, CAPES, and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). Furthermore, MAC USP functions as a loan institution, contributing to exhibitions worldwide.