Activities

Museo Reina Sofía is holding an event in memory of Elena Asins (1940–2015), on the one-year anniversary of her death. The activity aims to look back at the uniqueness of an artist dedicated to exploring an abstract language which radically differed from the sensible world, and also acknowledges a broader generation of historians, theorists, poets and artists committed to investigating the limits and potential of abstraction in Spain in the 1960s and 1970s. 

The dancer Toni Jodar, a representative of contemporary dance in Catalonia, puts forward this “dancing” lecture, in which he explains the history of dance, illustrated with his own body, across the 20^th century.

In conjunction with the XVI Madrid Science Week, the Museo Reina Sofía is joined by the IPCE, Spain’s Cultural Heritage Institute, to organise within its programme of activities the following technical encounter: The Surrealist Object. Anoxia, Display Cases and Chocolate.

The second activity in the programme Documentos, which revolves around themes related to the Museo Reina Sofía Documentation Centre, is Zines of the Zone: a “nomadic library” bringing together some 1,500 fanzines, photobooks and self-edited photo-zines which all share the use of photography.

The Museo Reina Sofía hosts the opening session of Starting from Peter Weiss, organised by the Centro de Documentación Crítica (Critical Documentation Centre) to commemorate the centenary of the German dramatist’s birth. 

This master lecture, in conjunction with the seminar Dance, Gender and Nation: 1930–1960, is given by Mahalia Lassibille, head professor of the Department of Dance at the University of Paris 8 and an anthropologist specialised in Africa. Lassibille has focused her research on the uses of dance categories, particularly “traditional African dance” and “contemporary African dance”, and their choreographic effects.

Within the framework of the retrospective Txomin Badiola. Another Family Plot (until 26 February, 2017), held in the Museo Reina Sofía, this round-table discussion brings together a series of artists for whom formalism is articulated with a double meaning: gliding or camouflage.

The programme Documentos, which revolves around themes related to the Museo Reina Sofía Documentation Centre, presents its first activity: Art, Words and Memory in the Texts of Gómez de Liaño, a round-table discussion which looks at the output of Ignacio Gómez de Liaño.

Marcel Broodthaers (Brussels, 1924 - Cologne, 1976) is a key figure of contemporary art, and a reference point and driving force in many current discourses and practices. Following his initial work as a poet, journalist and photographer, in 1964 Broodthaers decided to become a visual artist, and from that moment on concerns with providing a response to the basic questions posed by visual arts can be discerned as he interrogated the idea of representation and the production of meaning through the use of existing knowledge systems. In this round-table discussion Christophe Cherix, Jean-François Chevrier, Dirk Snauwaert and Manuel Borja-Villel will debate the different readings around the founder of the fictional museum.

Dance, gender and nation, three closely bound concepts within the context of contemporary Western culture, and the thematic cornerstones of this seminar. The focal point is the period spanning the second third of the 20^th century - a period of upheaval in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 1929 and the rise of the totalitarianism that would trigger the outbreak of the Second World War shortly afterwards.

Inside the framework of the 2015-2016 Research Residencies, the playwright, stage director, writer and visual artist Javier Montero puts forward a project of critical research and collective production regarding the different forms of creativity, and the role they play in producing new subjectivities.

The Museo Reina Sofía’s Department of Conservation-Restoration, the Geosciences Institute (CSIC-UCM), and the YOCOCU (YOuth in COnservation of CUltural Heritage) association have organized the fifth edition of the International Conference on Youth in Conservation of Cultural Heritage, celebrated from 21 to 23 September at the auditoriums of Nouvel Building.

This seminar analyses the role of Ulises Carrión (Mexico, 1941 - Holland, 1989) in conceiving new strategies to disseminate and distribute art from the mid-seventies, and the emphasis he placed on reinventing the uses, forms and appearances of the book as a device for action. 

The Interventions by Bob Jessop and Ngai-Ling Sum will analyse two interrelated problems. On one side, the production processes of hegemony in the current crisis scenario by the new social blocs emerging in Europe, and on the other, the cultural political economy related to current debates on the civilising change the human species is currently undergoing.

The international conference Cold Atlantic will examine the artistic, cultural and aesthetic exchanges produced between the USA, Europe, Africa and Latin America during the Cold War. The aim is to highlight the axes of alignment and artistic exchange between the geopolitically minor actors that were trapped inside the huge theatrical strategy from this period.