Notes related to Spain

Spanish art galleries are protesting with a temporary closure against a tax policy that places them at a competitive disadvantage compared to their European counterparts. The sector is calling for the application of a reduced VAT rate to ensure commercial competitiveness and to continue strengthening and reinvesting in the cultural ecosystem.

The three artists will bring their unique Latin American perspectives to reflect on the global themes addressed by the cycle: feminism, historical memory and power relations.

La Tercera Nave brings together the practices of Linarejos Moreno and Vanessa Enríquez in a dialogue centered on the material and symbolic remnants of memory. Through the concepts of textiles and weaving, both artists address fragmentation from industrial and technological perspectives.

Let’s Play. Juguemos en la colección, a BIENALSUR project, engages with the permanent collection of the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas through the conceptual lens of play, featuring the work of ten artists, mostly from Latin America, including Marta Minujín, Glenda León, and Silvia Rivas.

The installation is constructed using the artist's usual practices, where sand, pigments, and translucent curtains come together with cosmology and contemporary languages.

Andrea Canepa intervenes in the Palacio de Cristal at the Museo Reina Sofía with Fardo, an installation consisting of a large tarp inspired by pre-Columbian funerary bundles that transforms the building into a symbolic body, inviting reflection on what is visible and displayed, as well as on preservation and transformation.

The exhibition brings together a decade of technical and poetic experimentation that transcends the traditional boundaries of photography and places visual experience at the center of reflection. 

The exhibition traces different moments and formal strategies in her practice, marked by a critical reflection on violence, denial, and the tensions that permeate the female experience in contemporary society.

By Mónica Sotos

What are the successive diasporas of Latin American artists to Spain about, from the final years prior to the turn of the twenty-first century to the present? Article 2 of a series of 3.

The Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía (C3A) in Córdoba is presenting Me duelen los ojos de mirar sin verte, the first solo exhibition in Spain by Ana Segovia (Mexico City, Mexico, 1991), on view until January. Curated by Jimena Blázquez Abascal, the show features thirteen oil paintings on canvas and one work on wood, all created expressly for the occasion.

Un visionado a tres voces (A three-voiced screening frames) is the conversation between three video art collections that draw from the languages and dynamics of different Southern contexts. The selections prepared for the occasion by the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo Museum (CA2M Museum) in Móstoles —which hosts the initiative—, MAC Panamá and BIENALSUR, carried out through MUNTREF in Buenos Aires, also aim to establish synergies among the institutions.

The Force of the Display. Gae Archive is the title of the project by Nora Ancarola (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1955) currently on view at the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC). 

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao presents Anatomy of Space, an extensive exhibition dedicated to Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (Lisbon, Portugal, 1908 – Paris, France, 1992), which primarily encompasses her production from the 1930s through the 1980s. The exhibition is structured around two fundamental axes: architecture and the architectural landscape as compositional frameworks, and memory as the generator of the image.

Collegium is hosting at its headquarters in the Castilian town of Arévalo the exhibition Jaque. Poder, tiempo e imagen en estado de juego (Check. Power, Time, and Image in a State of Play), a conceptual show that stems from the relationship between chess and the Torre de los Ajedreces, part of the Romanesque-Mudejar style Church of San Martín, which currently serves as the institution’s main headquarters. The building, dating from the 11th and 12th centuries, features an unusual brick frieze in a checkerboard pattern that evokes the chessboard and the strategic dimension of the game.

The Fundación Casa de México in Spain hosts Re/Generación, a new installation from the Black Mirror / Espejo Negro series produced by Pedro Lasch (Mexico City, Mexico, 1975) and curated by the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico (INAH). Originating from an initiative originally produced by the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, North Carolina, in 2007, the series has been transformed through various techniques, evolving its language toward a narrative that makes it impossible to separate past and present, as well as spectator and proposal.

Es Baluard in Palma de Mallorca presents Preludio para el sol y las estrellas (Prelude for the Sun and the Stars), a project by Sandra Cinto (Santo André, Brazil, 1968) that transforms the museum space into a realm suspended between perception, time, and matter. The result envelops visitors in an expanded landscape that invites reflection through stillness and contemplation, where the sensory and the act of pausing become central to the experience.

By Mónica Sotos

What are the successive diasporas of Latin American artists to Spain from the final years before the beginning of the 21st century to the present about? Article 1 of a 3-part series.

Condeduque, one of Madrid’s leading cultural centers, has unveiled its seasonal program, which establishes a strong connection with Latin American art and thought. The municipal institution, which recently appointed the Mexican writer Jorge Volpi to oversee the center’s cultural direction, has also redesigned its proposals into seven areas of activity, reinforcing connections between the various performing arts and exhibition spaces.

Inventory of Fragile Materials is the title of the exhibition by Rocío Aguirre (Concepción, Chile, 1989) and Camilo Delpin (Concepción, Chile, 1989), presented at Spolia Haus until mid-month. Organized in collaboration with the Chilean Embassy in Spain, the Chile-Spain Foundation, and PHotoESPAÑA, the exhibition brings together two projects that, while distinct in their visual idioms, converge conceptually in their shared investigation of the residual.

Barcelona's MACBA presents I Have Learned to Swim on Dry Land, the first monographic exhibition that a Spanish institution dedicates to Cuban-American artist and activist Coco Fusco (New York, USA, 1960). The exhibition, titled after the opening sentence of Virgilio Peña's short story Swimming, offers a journey through several thematic nuclei revolving around words, language, and silence, as well as the semiotics and symbolism entwined with these concepts.

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa (Guatemala City, Guatemala, 1978) has long warranted a mid-career exhibition such as the one hosted by the Museo Reina Sofía. His ongoing activity and presence in institutions and performances over recent years have positioned the Guatemalan artist as a key figure in the development and visibility of contemporary Central American art beyond its geographic framework.

Until the end of September, the Galician city of Pontevedra is reviving its Art Biennial, an event that has been held since 1991 and now reaches its thirty-second edition under the slogan Volver a ser humanos (Becoming Human Again). Under this premise, Antón Castro, along with Agar Ledo and Iñaki Martínez Antelo, have curated a proposal centered on war, violence, and the traces they leave in society and humanity.

Alberto Baraya (Bogotá, Colombia, 1968) presents his project Llatina i Mestral (Catalan for Lateen and Mistral)as part of the B Biennial in Majorca. The work begins with a performative action in which the artist paints directly onto a sail while at sea. The sail becomes a canvas that captures both a physical journey and a conceptual one.

Priscilla Monge (San José, Costa Rica, 1968) arrives at the Galician Center for Contemporary Art (CGAC) with her exhibition Cuestiones de vida o muerte (Matters of Life and Death). This show brings together works from all stages of the Costa Rican artist’s career, establishing her as a key figure in Central American art through her commitment to social critique.

Sofía Crespo (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1991) often centers her work on the use of biology-inspired technology. In her exploration of the common ground between artificial intelligence and the way it generates images, on the one hand, and human perception of the environment, on the other, there is a turning point in the Argentine artist's practice.

The Official College of Architects of Madrid (COAM) is hosting No tan lejos (Not So Far Away), an exhibition by Emilio Pemjean (Santiago, Chile, 1971), which continues to explore his characteristic artistic approach that blends photography, design, architecture, and painting. In this exhibition, the Chilean artist presents a series of imagined and reconstructed spaces, virtually brought back to life through memory, which makes their reconstruction possible.

The Museum of America is hosting an exhibition of paintings by Juan Carlos Santoscoy (Guadalajara, Mexico, 1973) in its La Tapada gallery, open until the end of the month. Titled Algoritmos del caos (Algorithms of Chaos), the show features a selection of the artist’s most recent large-scale works, which engage with pressing themes in contemporary art such as global warming and the overexploitation of natural resources.

Cave Art Centre of Cantabria 'Alberto I de Monaco'  in Puente Viesgo is hosting its first-ever contemporary art exhibition.

MARCO, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Vigo, presents Savia y sangre (Sap and Blood), a solo exhibition by Laura Lio (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1967), which reveals the artist’s social vision and commitment through her work. Lio's practice involves a meticulous observation of certain organic and natural processes in search of a kind of internal order. With a poetic approach, the Argentine artist based in Spain challenges this natural structure through visual language and words.

By Álvaro de Benito

The Casa de México Foundation in Spain presents Guadalupe. La Virgen de México (Guadalupe. The Virgin of Mexico), an extensive program of exhibitions and activities centered around one of Mexico's most iconic and anthropologically significant figures. In addition to lectures and various screenings, the program revolves around two main themes: craftsmanship and popular culture on one hand, and anthropology on the other.