Activities

Guernica, a testimony and condemnation of the bombing by Franco's forces of the Basque town of the same name is considered a foundational work of 20th century art and it continues to be a universal symbol of the struggle against oppression. Its arrival in Madrid in September of 1981 was presented as the symbolic conclusion of Spain's transition to democracy following the dictatorship. The complicated diplomatic negotiations undertaken to bring about the painting's move were also the first important steps in cultural policy to be taken by the country's new government, and they highlighted the role that avant-garde art would play in the official culture of Spain's young democracy. With its arrival, it ceased to be the emblem of dissidence against the dictatorship and became the symbol of the healing of the fracture between the two historical factions in Spain: a sign of the reconciliation upon which the new democratic society would be based.

In this concert, Morton Subotnick is accompanied by the visual artist Lillevan, a frequent collaborator of musicians on the experimental music scene, who will offer a visual interpretation of Subotnick's music. The concert will feature pieces from Silver Apples Of The Moon (1967) and from another one of his pioneering albums, A Sky of Cloudless Sulfur (1978).

Five hundred years into the invention of America, and two hundred years after the birth of the first Latin American republics, a question appears, like an inescapable shadow, hidden in the very name comprising these countries: Is it possible to think about a thing called Latin America? Is it even possible to think of it as a unit that can be grasped? Evidently, the answer is no. However, the main issue eludes this contradiction inasmuch as the name given to this part of the world calls for general reflections that encompass the whole and also multiple reflections that go further and take into account particular questions relevant to each geographical area.

The art critic and independent curator Santiago Olmo has a conversation with the artist Soledad Sevilla about the exhibition Written in the celestial bodies, a site-specific installation at Palacio de Cristal in Madrid's Parque del Retiro.

Comprised of a guided visit to the exhibition Fragments of memory, with commentary by the artist, followed by a colloquium with the audience, this workshop seeks to articulate both languages, that of the visible and that of the verbal, that of the artist and that of the audience or that of the exhibition and that of debate, as keys to understanding Elena Asins' work.

The exhibition Locus Solus. Impressions of Raymond Roussel, is about the legacy of Raymond Roussel, one of the lateral histories of modern art. In this conversation, the exhibition's curators discuss the keys to understanding the poetic universe of Raymond Roussel and his significance in artistic modernism.

In a lecture entitled René Daniëls revisited, the art critic Dominic van den Boogerd discusses some of the recurring themes found in Daniëls' oeuvre: his fascination for the picture as a "fleece" and for painting as a play of appearances and disappearances.

The book Rethinking Dramaturgy. Errancy and Transformation is the product of the First International Seminar on New Dramaturgies (Centro Párraga, 2009). Its presentation in the Museo marks the beginning of the academic year in the Master’s in Performing Arts Practices and Visual Culture in the Study Centre.

At the end of 1950, Jorge Oteiza concluded his investigations in the field of sculpture but, far from fading away, his aesthetic interests continued in a different sphere, one previously unexplored by him: film.

This conversation serves as an introduction to the largest retrospective to be held to date on the Italian artist. alighiero boetti. game plan is co-produced by Tate Modern (London), MoMA (New York) and the Museo, and is curated by Lynne Cooke, Mark Godfrey and Christian Rattemeyer.

Once again the Conference on Computer and Electronic Music offers a series of workshops on sound production and post-production, concerts dedicated to the aural perception of space and to live improvisation and sound projection, as well as a series of reflections, in a conversation and round table, about the artistic possibilities of radio and a fresh look at the Museum Collection from a new perspective, the auditory sphere.

Migraciones escénicas is the second stage of a project on research in the performing arts, organised by Artea in collaboration with international groups in Germany, Brazil, Chile, Slovenia and Turkey.