La Ribot. Panoramix (1993 - 2003)

Held on 07 may 2003
The artist, dancer and choreographer La Ribot (María José Ribot) (Madrid, 1966) was honoured in 2000 with the Premio Nacional de Danza (National Dance Prize), in recognition of a career that included dance, performing arts and visual arts. Her best known work is the Series Distinguidas (1993-2003), a collection of short pieces created as a reflection on the body and from the body.
These actions -which began by being performed in theatres and later made the jump to galleries and museums- are now the subject of the exhibition Panoramix at the Palacio de Velázquez del Parque del Retiro. The exhibition is a journey through all of her Piezas Distinguidas performed over three hours. This same program is also presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Centre d'Art Contemporain in Geneva and Tate Modern in London. Although these pieces fall into three very distinctive series -13 Piezas distinguidas, Más distinguidas y Still distinguished created in 1993-94, 1997 and 2000 respectively- the presentation does not follow a chronological order but an order of meaning.
The space dedicated to La Ribot’s performance has been occupied by a variety of objects with which the artist interacts in each of her actions. A chair on which to jump on-top of or with which to make noise, a metre to measure various body parts, a sheet with which to represent the tail of a mermaid, adhesive tape with which to stick wood slats on to her body and transform herself into a hand-made cyborg, a wet suit, wigs, clothing, bottles and other everyday items whose meaning is subverted in the hands of the artist who often appears nude on stage.
The public is placed in the centre of the action in such a way that their presence is part of the actual scenery that accompanies her pieces. The music, ranging from pop tunes to traditional Italian songs to jazz, is an essential component to Series Distinguidas. The various movements, sometimes specific to the dance, sometimes to the performance, become part of the whole action giving indications about the ultimate meaning of the pieces developed.
Another fundamental ingredient of La Ribot’s work in Series Distinguidas is a certain taste for humorous winks. Actions are devoid of the gravity that sometimes possesses the performance and results in a playful idea of movement as a form of expression. In some of the pieces the artist introduces the text, oral or written, increasing complicity with the spectator who is forced to abandon their role of voyeur.
These Series Distinguidas have been sold to: collectors, museums, galleries and businesses. A total of thirty-four actions of variable duration (between thirty seconds and seven minutes) collected in this exhibition display La Ribot’s last decade of work, which is presented as a reference to the opening of performance and the performing arts to new possibilities.
Itinerary
Musée National d'Art Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou París; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Ginebra;Tate Modern, Londres
Organised by
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in collaboration with the Consejería de las Artes de la Comunidad de Madrid
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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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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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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?
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Thursday, 16 October 2025 – 7pm
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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.
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