Palácio de Espanto (Palace of Awe) is the first in a cycle of three group exhibitions that share the same theme, the same structure and the same objective. Starting with a selection of pieces from the Coleção da Caixa Geral de Depósitos, these exhibitions also incorporate other previously unseen works by guest artists, as well as artefacts originating from collections embodying the material culture of the respective host regions. In putting together this tangled web of encounters, the aim is not only to contrast the Coleção CGD with objects from other origins and ages, but to return to art something that has slowly been taken away from it by today's profusion of images and the increasingly rhetorical nature of contemporary discourses: its undeniable symbolic power.