Exhibition. Ulises Carrión. Dear reader. Don’t read

Ulises Carrión: Double Effort, 1988. Handwritten notebook. Private collection, Paris

A key figure in Mexican conceptual art, Ulises Carrión (1941, San Andrés Tuxtla, Mexico – 1989, Amsterdam) was an artist, editor, curator, and theorist of the post-1960s international artistic avant-garde.

This retrospective focusing on Ulises Carrión’s personal and groundbreaking approach seeks to illustrate all aspects of his artistic and intellectual work. The exhibition spans from his early career as a young, successful writer in Mexico, to his college years as a postgraduate student exploring language and linguistics in France, Germany, and Britain, to his numerous activities in Amsterdam, where Carrión established himself in 1972 and lived until his untimely death at the age of forty-nine.

The exhibition is composed of nearly 350 pieces that include books, magazines, videos, films, sound pieces, mail art, public projects, and performances, along with Carrión’s initiatives as curator, editor, distributor, lecturer, archivist, art theorist, and writer. It is a significant body of original work structured so as to place a spotlight on every facet of his production.

Date: March 16 - October 10, 2016
Location: Sabatini Building, Floor 3
Curatorship: Guy Schraenen
Organized by: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Itinerary: Museo JUMEX, Mexico D.F. (February - May, 2017)

Featured Artwork. Louise Bourgeois, He Disappeared into Complete Silence

Louise Bourgeois, He disappeared into Complete Silence, 1947-2005. Louise Bourgeois’s art © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VEGAP

The presence of the work He Disappeared into Complete Silence (1947 / 2005) by Louise Bourgeois (Paris, France, 1911 – New York, USA, 2010) in the Museo Reina Sofía is the result of a loan agreement reached in 2015 with the Easton Foundation. This work, along with the rest of Bourgeois’ loaned sculptures, are on display in room 411 inside the Collection.

He Disappeared into Complete Silence, her first book, made with Atelier Hayter, and in collaboration with Marius Bewlwy, Director of the Peggy Guggenheim Gallery. expounds themes that would be a constant throughout Bourgeois’ work, for instance the loss of a mother, jealousy, filial rejection, cannibalism and violent death.

Location: Colection 2. Sabatini Building, Floor 2. Room 411

Activity. Constituent Machines: Constituent Power, Biopolitics, Democracy

Yes to the Constituent. Photography by José Luis Durón

The Museo Reina Sofía will host a lecture and seminar by Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos, to take place within the context of the programme Constituent Machines: Constituent Power, Biopolitics, Democracy , jointly organised with the Commons Foundation, and in collaboration with Intermediae. Sousa Santos will analyse the current crisis of constitutionalism in various European states, as well as the possibilities of launching a constituent process on a continental level capable of responding to the enormous social tensions and dilemmas that contemporary European societies face. The round-table discussion will analyse new political perspectives aimed at a more in-depth study of the post-neoliberal project, and with the backdrop of the current regional political crisis and the deceleration of the economic activity affecting the Global South.

Date: March 14,15 and 21, 2016
Location: Sabatini Building, Auditorium and Nouvel Building, Protocol Room
Hour: 7:00 p.m.
Admission: Free, until full capacity is reached. Complete capacity for the seminar held by Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Programme: Check website
Organized by: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and Fundación de los Comunes in collaboration with Intermediae

Concert. Inifinite Music. XXVI International Festival of Sacred Art from the Community of Madrid

For the first time, the Museo Reina Sofía incorporates five concerts from the series Infinite Music, to be performed within the programme of the XXVI International Festival of Sacred Art from the Community of Madrid.

This edition borrows the theoretical framework of contemporary music and mysticism to open up new experimentation in a programme that looks to explore the connection between music and spirituality, performed by first-rate, internationally acclaimed musicians.

Date: March 11, 12, 18 and 19, 2016
Hour: 8:00 p.m.
Location: Nouvel Building, Auditorium 400
Organized by: Comunidad de Madrid