From the Spanish Republic to Exile: The Networks of Spanish Art

Seminars and Lectures

Maruja Mallo. El canto de las espigas. Pintura, 1939. Colección Museo Reina Sofía — Maruja Mallo. *El canto de las espigas*. Pintura, 1939. Colección Museo Reina Sofía.

Held on 08, 09, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 29, 30 abr, 07, 08, 09, 10, 13, 14 may 2013

Starting with the milestone of the Second Spanish Republic, the course explores, using an interdisciplinary and global perspective, the networks and the creative, social and political structures that gave rise to different contacts at the national and international levels. These networks and two-way paths facilitated both the circulation of artists, works and ideas, and also multiple contacts between creators, intellectuals and disciplines, all of which determined the directions that art would follow in Spain.

Starting with the milestone of the Second Spanish Republic, the course, using an interdisciplinary and global perspective, explores the networks and the creative, social and political structures that gave rise to diverse cultural connections at the national and international levels. These networks, as sites of reciprocal exchange between different countries, not only facilitated the circulation of artists, works and ideas, but also encouraged the creation of multiple contacts between artists, intellectuals and disciplines, all of which determined the directions that art would follow in Spain.

The course seeks to recover that creative memory that began with the Second Spanish Republic, became polarized during the Civil War, and diverged, generating two disjointed, and seemingly differently, currents—one inside the country and another in the life of exile. Therefore, the course is divided into four large blocks – the Republic, the Civil War, the Exile and the Franco dictatorship – which will be used to explain some of the lines of research currently in progress, while focusing on both theoretical and practical and critical aspects. In order to broaden historiographic, investigative and critical horizons concerning Spanish art and foment debate, this course is organized into three theoretical sessions, with a guided practical session in the Museum's galleries, and a round table discussion for each of the blocks within the course. The goal is to encourage reflection about a historical period that, while deemed gloomy in comparison to its margins –the Republic, on the one hand, and the transition to democracy on the other –is nonetheless closely connected to the present.

Organised by

CSIC and Museo Reina Sofía

With the sponsorship of

More information

Credits: Three units of credit given to students enrolled in the Licenciatura program and two units of credit given to students enrolled in the new degree program (Grado) at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Two units of credit given to students enrolled at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Registration:http://www.cchs.csic.es/es/content/cursorepublica
More information: postgrado@cchs.csic.es

Participants

Paula Barreiro López, History Institute, CCHS-CSIC.

Miguel Cabañas Bravo, History Institute, CCHS-CSIC.

Mónica Carabias Alonso, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Juan Ignacio del Cueto Ruiz-Funes, Department of Architecture, UNAM (Mexico City).

Jesús Carrillo, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid-Museo Reina Sofía.

Julián Díaz Sánchez, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha.

Dolores Fernández Martínez, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Carmen Gaitán Salinas, History Institute, CCHS-CSIC.

Isabel García García, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Noemi de Haro García, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

María Dolores Jiménez- Blanco Carrillo de Albornoz, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Lidia Mateo Leivas, History Institute, CCHS-CSIC.

Idoia Murga Castro, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

José Luis de la Nuez Santana, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Javier Pérez Segura, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Joan Robledo Palop, Yale University.

Program

1. The Republic

April 8, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Miguel Cabañas Bravo. Art policy in the 1930s: the activity of the Spanish Bureau of Fine Arts

April 9, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Idoia Murga Castro. The plastic and performing arts in the cultural networks of the Silver Age

April 10, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Museo Reina Sofía Collection. Room 206
Lidia Mateo Leivas: Divergent utopias

April 11, 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Round table. Art and the Spanish Republic
Participants: Javier Pérez Segura (moderator), María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco, Idoia Murga Castro, and Miguel Cabañas Bravo
2. The Civil War

April 15, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Joan Robledo Palop. Perceptions of political violence, shown in art and image networks

April 16, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Mónica Carabias Álvaro. "Fighting" photographers

April 17, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Museo Reina Sofía Collection. Room 206
Joan Robledo Palop. Guernica in context

April 18, 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Round table. Art and the Civil War
Participants: Jesús Carrillo (moderator), Isabel García García, Mónica Carabias Álvaro, and Joan Robledo Palop
3. Exile

April 29, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Miguel Cabañas Bravo. The artists of the 1939 diaspora and their arrival in Mexico

April 30, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Idoia Murga Castro. New cartographies: interdisciplinarity in the scenarios of exile

May 7, 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Museo Reina Sofía Collection. Room 206
Carmen Gaitán Salinas. From the Civil War to exile: the various destinations, as seen through the Museo Reina Sofía Collection

May 8, 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Round table. Art and exile
Participants: Dolores Fernández Martínez (moderator), Juan Ignacio del Cueto Ruiz Funes, Miguel Cabañas Bravo, and Idoia Murga Castro.
4. The Franco dictatorship

May 9, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Paula Barreiro López. Militant critique and avant-garde: between experimentation and engagement

May 10, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Noemi de Haro García. Modernised dissidence, tolerated dissidence.

May 13, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Museo Reina Sofía Collection. Room 411
Paula Barreiro López. Art during the Franco dictatorship

May 14, 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Round table. Art and the dictatorship
Participants: Julián Díaz Sánchez (moderator), José Luis de la Nuez, Paula Barreiro López, and Noemí de Haro García.

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Miguel Brieva in Conversation with Julia Ramírez-Blanco and Alberto Berzosa

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Ángel Alonso, Charbon [Carbón], 1964. Museo Reina Sofía

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27th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference
Wednesday, 4, and Thursday, 5 March 2026
The 27th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference, organised by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Department of Conservation and Restoration, with the sponsorship of the MAPFRE Foundation, is held on 4 and 5 March 2026. This international encounter sets out to share and debate experience and research, open new channels of study and reflect on conservation and the professional practice of restorers.

This edition will be held with in-person and online attendance formats, occurring simultaneously, via twenty-minute interventions followed by a five-minute Q&A.

Submitting Proposals

The deadline for presenting proposals ends on 28 September 2025. Those interested must send an email to jornada.conservacion@museoreinasofia.es, submitting the following documents:

An unpublished proposal related to the conservation or restoration of contemporary art.

A 1,700-word summary, written in Word, on the theme addressed. Please indicate the topic at the top of the document with five keywords and the presentation format (in-person or virtual). Preference will be given to the in-person format.

CV and contact details.

Only one proposal per person will be accepted.

Proposals related to talks given in the last three conferences will not be accepted.

Proposals may be submitted in Spanish, French or English and will be evaluated by a Scientific Committee, which will select the submissions to be presented during these conference days and will determine their possible participation in a subsequent publication, the inclusion of which will undergo a second and definitive evaluation by the Editorial Committee.

For submissions in a virtual format, participants must send a recording following certain technical requirements they will receive once participation is confirmed.

The programme of sessions will be published in the coming days.
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Rethinking Guernica
Monday and Sunday - Check times
This guided tour activates the microsite Rethinking Guernica, a research project developed by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Collections Area, Conservation and Restoration Department and the Digital Projects Area of the Editorial Activities Department, assembling around 2,000 documents, interviews and counter-archives related to Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica (1937).

The visit sets out an in-situ dialogue between the works hung around the painting and a selection of key documents, selected by the Museo’s Education Team and essential to gaining an idea of the picture’s historical background. Therefore, the tour looks to contribute to activating critical thought around this iconic and perpetually represented work and seeks to foster an approach which refreshes our gaze before the painting, thereby establishing a link with the present. Essentially revisiting to rethink Guernica.
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UP/ROOTING
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 NOV 2025
Museo Reina Sofía and MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) invite applications for the 2025 iteration of the School of Common Knowledge, which will take place from November 11th to 16th in Madrid and Barcelona.

The School of Common Knowledge (SCK) draws on the network, knowledge and experience of L’Internationale, a confederation of museums, art organizations and universities that strives to reimagine and practice internationalism, solidarity and communality within the cultural field. This year, the SCK program focuses on the contested and dynamic notions of rooting and uprooting in the framework of present —colonial, migrant, situated, and ecological— complexities.

Building on the legacy of the Glossary of Common Knowledge and the current European program Museum of the Commons, the SCK invites participants to reflect on the power of language to shape our understanding of art and society through a co-learning methodology. Its ambition is to be both nomadic and situated, looking at specific cultural and geopolitical situations while exploring their relations and interdependencies with the rest of the world.

In the current context fraught with war and genocide, the criminalization of migration and hyper-identitarianism, concepts such as un/belonging become unstable and in need of collective rethinking:

How can we reframe the sense and practice of belonging away from reductive nationalist paradigms or the violence of displacement? How to critically hold the entanglement of the colonial routes and the cultural roots we are part of? What do we do with the toxic legacies we inherit? And with the emancipatory genealogies and practices that we choose to align with? Can a renewed practice of belonging and coalition-making through affinity be part of a process of dis/identification? What geographies —cultural, artistic, political— do these practices of de/centering, up/rooting, un/belonging and dis/alignment designate?

Departing from these questions, the program consists of a series of visits to situated initiatives (including Museo Situado, Paisanaje and MACBA's Kitchen, to name a few), engagements with the exhibitions and projects on view (Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture from Panafrica), a keynote lecture by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, as well as daily reading and discussion gatherings, editorial harvest sessions, and conviviality moments.
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Situated Voices 36
Thursday, 16 October 2025 – 7pm
Territorio Doméstico is a feminist collective made up of female domestic and care workers who live in the Community of Madrid. They form a cross-border space which responds to a number of urgent problems: defending labour rights for female domestic workers and demanding the regularisation of migrant workers, as well as the right to family reunification, social recognition and the reparation of care debt by institutions.

The collective will provide accompaniment in this encounter by putting forward a cross-sectional round-table discussion centred on professional illnesses suffered by specific collectives of women doing jobs that are predominantly physical, such as care and domestic work and farm work. The aim is to shine a light on the physical and psychological tolls these body-oriented jobs take on the people that do them, in addition to the scant social, legal and healthcare recognition they receive.

Professional illnesses for women are often not recognised as such and are diagnosed simply as common illnesses, and with everything that entails on a legal and administrative level. Furthermore, obtaining sick leave can often become a huge struggle, thereby breaching labour rights.

The Museo Situado assembly convenes to discuss this reality, granting it the space it deserves to collectively call for solutions which respect the rights of all female worker.