Public Programs

Thought and Debate


image of Thought and Debate

Museo Reina Sofía, in its role as a vehicle of knowledge and reflection, as well as an impulse for new spaces for experimentation, creation and dissemination of contemporary art, sets in motion a number of diverse lines of thought and debate:

  • The development of research, analysis and debate frameworks which can imbue the narrative of the Collection with an additional dimension, as well as the programming of exhibitions.
  • The setting in motion of discussion forums on key issues of contemporary debate relevant to the museum as an institution dedicated to providing citizens with frameworks for the critical analysis of culture.
  • The experimentation with alternative methods of mediation between the citizens and the museum's proposals, taking up as a starting point the experience of artists and of the agents with whom the museum establishes collaboration.
  • Experimenting with alternative methods of mediation between citizens and the museum’s proposals, taking the experience of artists and collaborating entities as a point of departure.

image of Reactivate/reinterpret

Reactivate/reinterpret. Theatre and performative practices in contemporary art museums

Type of activity: Seminar and performances
Date: January 12, 19 February 9, 16, 17, 23 and March 1, 15, 22 and 29, 2012
Place: Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200, Auditorium 400, Sabatini Auditorium and Protocol Room

Several international museums have in recent years placed performative approaches and practices at the centre of their institutional logic, their programming and even their spatial organization. This series of lectures and performances examines whether the repetition of these practices indicates a shift towards the post-modern museum (i.e. one focused on the production of events as spectacles), or towards a late-modern museum (i.e. one aware that the narrations of art history surpass the exhibition format).
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image of Encuentros. Hans Haacke and Walter Grasskamp in conversation

Encuentros. Hans Haacke and Walter Grasskamp in conversation

Type of activity: Talk
Date: February 15, 2012
Place: Nouvel Building, Auditorium 400

Often associated with institutional critique, the work of Hans Haacke dismantles the idea of the autonomy of museum and art institutions, by showing the complex and ambiguous networks of relationships involving capital and power that support not only museums but also cultural institutions. In this talk Haacke and the art critic and historian Walter Grasskamp look at a decades-long career that still has great current importance.
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image of Rethinking Latin American modernisms. Flows and overflows

Rethinking Latin American modernisms. Flows and overflows

Type of activity: Seminar
Date: March 2 - 3, 2012
Place: Nouvel Building, Auditorium 400

This seminar questions the ideas of centre and periphery, or of master and derivative narratives, in which modern art has usually been presented. More specifically, Latin America, in confrontation of this logic, is not a place on the margins of history, but rather an constellation of singular modernisms that take up, recycle and pervert any possibility of a canon. Organised in conjunction with the Fundación Cisneros and focusing on the 1940s and 50s, the seminar brings together the most important historians, critics, curators and specialists in this field.

image of Art and Transition

Art and Transition

Type of activity: seminar
Dates: March 16 - 17, 2012
Place: Sabatini Building, Auditorium

Art and Transitionis a seminar in which a group of artists and art historians will discuss their understanding and analyses of the collisions between art and politics during Spain's transition to democracy. From a critical perspective, and recovering initiatives and spaces that are practically forgotten, the sessions will focus on issues related to the construction of the art-institution, the paradoxes of activism and the role of the media.
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