A GAZE INTO SALVADORAN AUDIOVISUAL ART AT THE REINA SOFÍA
From June 19 to 28, Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum will host Los reyes de la página roja (The Kings of the Red Page), a program dedicated to contemporary audiovisual productions from El Salvador. Part of the series Other Visions of Central America, this selection has been curated by Salvadoran artist Patricio Majano, this year’s resident at the Instituto Cáder de Arte Centroamericano—an initiative promoted by the Reina Sofía Museum Foundation and the museum itself to support research and dissemination of Central American art.
The sessions explore unique themes that touch on El Salvador’s social, political, economic, and cultural realities. These are framed within the broader context of violence and, at the same time, the emotional complexities that arise from it. The first session centers on El Salvador’s civil war, featuring Los ofendidos by Marcela Zamora, a documentary that examines the long-term impact of the conflict.
The second session shifts focus to the human body through a series of short films. In Piel y cicatriz (Skin and Scar), Lucy Tomasino uses metaphor to reflect on armed conflict and mourning. Gabriela Novoa’s Pulsión (Drive) explores how memory and emotion are embodied in matter. Variations by Denisse Griselda Reyes offers an autobiographical narrative through the lens of the artist’s alter ego.
The collective Public Display of Professionalism presents CISMA / SCHISM, which builds narratives about capitalist systems from the perspective of Miami. Meanwhile, Elyla draws on traditional rituals in Prayer for Tending Death and in Torita Encuetada, a collaborative piece with Milton Guillén. The program concludes with Todos los peces by Brenda Vanegas, a story that delves into rural childhood with a strong tone of social critique.
One of the central threads running through the program is the diversity of approaches in contemporary audiovisual production in the region, particularly among diasporic communities and Central Americans navigating new contexts abroad.
Los reyes de la página roja will take place from June 19 to 28 at the Reina Sofía Museum, Santa Isabel, 52, Madrid (Spain).
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