-
November 27, 2013 Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
The social value of art in times of crisis
This working group focuses on assessing and analysing the current situation in terms of the social value of contemporary art; the debate concerning the reconstruction of the discourse on its public usefulness and the new forms of funding and new ideas and strategies by which to improve the reception or social impact of art in a context of economic crisis.
It will reflect on the following themes: rethinking the economy of art, as a determining factor of cultural policies; analysis of the new policies and methods of cultural management and, finally, the necessity of artistic education that includes a pedagogy of art and also teaches visual culture and fosters creativity at all levels of education.
10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. Opening words
Manuel Borja-Villel, Director of Museo Reina Sofía
Borja Baselga, Director of Fundación Banco Santander
Rosina Gómez-Baeza, Co-director of YGB Art
11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Conversation about the new ways to approach cultural management policies and methods, art education, the reception and social impact of art, generating potential lines of action that will improve people’s access to visual culture.
ModeratorIgnacio Paris
ParticipantsMarina Vishmidt, Rubén Martínez, Yaiza Hernández and Juan Arturo Rubio Arostegui
Marina Vishmidt
Writer, researcher and art critic
Rubén Martínez
Researcher and professor. Member of the Metropolitan Observatory of Barcelona
Yaiza Hernández
Professor and researcher. Central Saint Martins School of Art, London
Juan Arturo Rubio Arostegui
Professor and researcher. Universidad Antonio de Nebrija
Ignacio Paris
Artist and writer -
November 27, 2013 Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Training, research and professionalisation of the field's actors
This working group focuses on evaluating the current situation of the art profession in Spain, in its different areas of activity: research, training and professionalisation. It seeks to define the appropriate scope of action by the different actors, help build links and stimulate exchange and network creation. It also places great importance on encouraging research, looking more in depth at art education at all levels and at the study of Spanish artists.
4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Dialogues about the current situation of the different actors in the Spanish art world, making proposals for lines of action that stimulate exchange and the creation of networks
4:00 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. Dialogue on research: Dora Garcia and Selina Blasco
4:45 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. Dialogue on training: Juan Luis Moraza and Isidro López Aparicio
5:30 p.m. - 6:15 p.m. Dialogue on professionalisation: Tam Gryn and Estrella de Diego
6:15 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Conversation among the dialogue participants and the public, moderated by Isidro López-AparicioModerator
Isidro López-Aparicio
Participants
Dora García
Artist
Selina Blasco
Professor and researcher. Faculty of Fine Arts, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Juan Luis Moraza
Sculptor and professor. Faculty of Fine Arts, Universidad de Vigo
Isidro López-Aparicio
Artist, curator and professor. Universidad de Granada
Tam Gryn
Head of Curating Department and Director in Latin America of Artist Pension Trust
Estrella de Diego
Writer and chaired professor of contemporary art. Universidad Complutense de Madrid -
November 28, 2013 Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
The construction of narratives
This subject will be addressed from the vantage point of critical and other types of narratives. This working group will offer evidence of the limited visibility of existing works and documents and the current preeminence of museums, research groups, art centres and independent production bodies, to the detriment of the university.
The group also seeks to make connections between younger research groups, to shake up the current discourse in order to generate new tools of analysis and narrative strategies. All done with a view to increasing the visibility of landmarks and processes of a different nature, thus breaking with the inertias and circularity produced by existing discourses. Finally, the channels used for the dissemination and circulation of ideas will be re-examined.
10 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Conversation in which questions concerning the research work currently underway in the different art professions and university contexts will be addressed, with special attention going to the reasons for their limited visibility. The participants will propose lines of action conducive to the creation of ties between young researchers and different art forums.
ModeratorPatricia Mayayo
10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Conversation (1st session): Juan Albarrán, Jorge Luis Marzo and Valentín Roma
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Conversation (2nd session): Jesús Carrillo, Lola Jiménez-Blanco and Glòria Picazo
ParticipantsJuan Albarrán
Professor at the Duke Center for Hispanic Studies, in Madrid, and professor at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Jorge Luis Marzo
Curator, writer and professor. BAU School of Design, Barcelona
Valentín Roma
Historian, curator and professor of aesthetics and digital culture. Elisava School of Design, Barcelona
Jesús Carrillo
Head of Cultural Programs at Museo Reina Sofía
Lola Jiménez-Blanco
Professor of Art History. Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Glòria Picazo
Art critic and curator Director of Centre d’Art la Panera, Lleida
Patricia Mayayo
Professor of Art History. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid -
November 28, 2013 Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Art, collectionism and creation of heritage
The topics addressed by this working group are the current situation of the art market and of the collector in relation to public bodies, museums and the Public Administration. Special emphasis will be placed on fiscal questions, such as the Patronage Act (Ley de Mecenazgo), due to its impact on the creation of contemporary art heritage. The references used are a report on the Spanish art market in 2012 (Informe del mercado del arte español en 2012), published by the Fundación Arte y Mecenazgo, and a report on the status of Spanish culture (Informe del mercado del arte español en 2012. Una aproximación al estado y el sistema de las artes visuales de 2011).
Given the current context, the group finds it especially worthwhile to examine, from the perspective of the collector and the museum, questions related to the limited presence of Spanish art abroad, reflecting on the shortcomings that prevent Spanish art from finding a place in the international scene and proposing actions that will encourage and consolidate the relationship between public entities and private collections. The group will also underline the crucial role played by far-reaching, varied and high-quality dissemination campaigns.
1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. Lecture by Nacho Ruiz: The future is not what it used to be. New strategies for new scenarios in Spain’s art market
4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. Conversation about topics related to the collector and the museum. Reflection will focus on the shortcomings that prevent or hinder the contextualisation and visibility of Spanish art in the international setting, proposing lines of action.
Moderator
João Fernandes
ParticipantsPatrizia Sandretto, Jaime Sordo and Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro
Nacho Ruiz
Art gallerist and historian
Patrizia Sandretto
Collector and President of Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
Jaime Sordo
Entrepreneur, collector, President of the Association of Private Collectors of Contemporary Art 9915
Gabriel Pérez Barreiro
Director and chief curator of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection
João Fernandes
Deputy Art Director at Museo Reina Sofía -
November 28, 2013 Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Autonomy and the creation of networks
The Autonomy and the creation of networks working group explores these questions by looking at specific practices that are conducive to creating networks, rather than using previous definitions or theoretical frameworks. Of particular interest are the networks formed not by actors of the same type – such as museum networks or professional associations – but rather heterogeneous, even conflictive, collaborations that involve both cultural producers and the public.
The idea is to look at partnership and artistic creation in terms of their capacity – and their limitations – in generating collective expressions and social fabric. Transversality, the questioning of institutional consolidation and the power of contagion of these hybrid partnerships allow us to consider production and circulation alternatives for artistic practices, and also the emergence of new expressions of different autonomous ways of doing things.
5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Conversation on different experiences pertaining to partnership work.
Moderators: Támara Díaz and Fernando López (Museo Reina Sofía)
Participants: Joaquín Vázquez (BNV, Seville), Eva Fernández (Cine sin autor, Madrid), Marisa Pérez (Fundación de los Comunes) and Emily Pethick (Cluster)
7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Closing words and presentation of conclusions by moderatorsParticipants
Joaquín Vázquez
Co-founder of BNV Producciones
Eva Fernández
Writer and founder of Cine sin Autor
Marisa Pérez
Co-ordinator of Fundación de los Comunes
Emily Pethick
Director of The Showroom and member of the networks Common Practice and Cluster in London
Tamara Díaz
Researcher and curator. Exhibitions Department at Museo Reina Sofía
Fernando López
Cultural manager and researcher. Exhibitions Department at Museo Reina Sofía
Horizons of Contemporary Art in Spain
Held on 27 Nov 2013
Horizons of Contemporary Art in Spain is conceived as a plural space for reflection and debate, the aim of which is generate proposals based on a critical diagnosis of the contemporary art system in Spain and its international projection, taking into account different points of view and bringing together all voices. The event will be open to the public and will also be streamed live on the project’s website.
The project seeks to heighten the visibility of the achievements and values generated in contemporary art over the last two decades and to identify practices and attitudes that hamper the development of its full potential, especially at the international level. Its priority objective is to develop action proposals that respond adequately to the challenges currently faced by the field of contemporary art and culture in Spain. [dropdown]
Work began in November of 2012 with an initial gathering of professionals from the art world, during which five groups focusing on fundamental topics were organised. The participants’ efforts over the last year have led to the creation of a contemporary art observatory (Observatorio Horizontes del Arte contemporáneo en España). The conclusions drawn thus far are available on the project’s website.
One year after the first Horizons of Contemporary Art in Spain event, the upcoming symposium will bring together a number of agents from the current contemporary art scene. It hopes to increase public awareness of the issues explored by the Observatory’s working groups, and also to put forward conclusions and proposals that may be useful in improving the projection of Spanish contemporary art around the world. It will follow a dynamic and participatory format, based on a series of lectures, dialogues and conversations about the five key topics. [/dropdown]
Coordinated by
YGBArt
Organised by
Fundación Banco Santander and Museo Reina Sofía
Más actividades
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.
CLINIC 2628. A Community of Writing and Research in the Arts
February – October 2026
Clinic 2628 is a project which supports and brings together writings which stem from the intention to offer a space and sustainable time for research work in art and culture. Framed within an academic context which is increasingly less receptive to the forms in which thinking happens and is expressed, the aim is to rescue the academic from its neoliberal trappings and thus recover the alliance between precision and intuition, work and desire. A further goal is to return writing to a commons which makes this possible through the monitoring of processes and the collectivisation of ideas, stances, references and strategies.
The endeavour, rooted in a collaboration between the Museo Reina Sofía’s Studies Directorship and the Artea research group, via the i+D Experimenta project, is shaped by three annual editions conceived as spaces of experimentation, discussion and a demonstration of writings critical of what is put forward by today’s academia.
What forces, forms and processes are at play when writing about art and aesthetics? In academia, in museums and in other cultural institutions, the practice of writing is traversed by productivist logics which jeopardise rhythms of research and experimentation. The imposition of both scientism inherent in the structure of “the paper” and the quantifying of results which demand a criterion of quality and visibility sterilise and smoothen, from the outset, the coarseness that is particular to writing understood from the concrete part of language: phonic, graphic, syntactic and grammatical resistance connecting the language user to the community the language unites and activates. They also sterilise the roughness enmeshed in the same desire to write, the intuitive, clear and confusing pathways that once again connect the writer to those reading and writing, participating in a common good that is at once discovered and produced.
The progressive commercialisation of knowledge propelled by cognitive capitalism moves further away from the research and production of knowledge in artworks and artistic languages and practices. The work of curators and archive, criticism, performances and essays formerly saw a horizon of formal and emotional possibilities, of imagination that was much broader when not developed in circumstances of competition, indexing and impact. Today, would it be possible to regain, critically not nostalgically, these ways; namely, recovering by forms, and by written forms, the proximity between art thinking and its objects? How to write in another way, to another rhythm, with no more demands than those with which an artwork moves towards different ways of seeing, reading and being in the world?
Dear Felix:
Saturdays at 6pm
The immediately recognisable art of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, which is on display, from May to October 2026, in the show Sweet Revenge, moves beyond the transmission of messages laden with poetic evocation, vital or biographical reflection, or even a clear political or ethical positioning. Rather, it seeks an active response by visitors to the exhibition. His work invites engagement with these messages so that, whether delighting, moving or challenging, it still prompts viewers to participate in the dialogue and complete the artistic undertaking with their own actions.
Thus, the guided tour Dear Felix: offers a shared, dialogue-inflected tour through the show, with the aim of collectively thinking and feeling the gestures the artist’s work puts forward. Ostensibly simple actions such as crossing through a beaded curtain to take a sweet and eat it, taking a poster from a stack of paper or simply observing a billboard closely, all contain ways of understanding life, loss, love, injustice or the passing — never linear — of time. The tour’s ultimate aim is not to set meanings or create an overload of interpretations of the work, nor does it seek to crystallise an image of the artist and his life in a response to questions which are not there. It looks instead to provide a space to open shared meaning in these apparently simple objects and to attempt a possible correspondence of return from the here and now. A lumbering attempt at responding which starts with a simple Dear Felix:
Robert Capa
Friday, 26 June 2026 – 6pm
This international encounter centred on the figure of Robert Capa (Budapest, 1913 — Thai Binh, Vietnam, 1954), one of photojournalism’s pre-eminent figures, is held within the framework of the government initiative Spain and Freedom. Fifty Years and in conjunction with a cluster of three locations — the building on number 10 Calle Peironcely, the Plaza del Fotógrafo Robert Capa and the San Carlos Borromeo Parish in Vallecas — declared as a Place of Democratic Memory.
The emblematic photo Robert Capa took in 1936 of this area of Republican Madrid, featuring anonymous children talking in front of a bullet-riddled building attacked by Nazi-fascist air forces, has, in recent years, become a catalyst for impassioned collective action vindicating memory and denouncing the horrors and brutality of wars, past and present.
Within this context, representatives from cultural and academic spheres and civil society organisations from Germany, the USA and Spain discuss the legacy of Capa and photojournalism in European democratic memory, exploring in greater depth two citizen initiatives constructed by Europe from its shared memory: #SalvaPeironcely10 (#SavePeironcely10), in Entrevías (Puente de Vallecas), and the Capa Haus Initiative in the Lindenau neighbourhood of Leipzig, both united by the protection and conservation of historical heritage and by the defence of peace.
The round-table discussion features the participation of Cynthia Young, Juan Miguel Sánchez Vigil, Ulf-Dietrich Brumann and José María Uría Fernández and is moderated by Myriam Soto Lucas. Carmina Gustrán Loscos, the commissioner of Spain and Freedom. Fifty Years, will also join the discussion.
equipoMotor
Jueves alternos, 23 de octubre, 2025 - 11 de junio, 2026 - 17:30 h
El programa equipoMotor regresa en su edición 25-26 con un aire espectral y mutante para lanzar la pregunta: ¿y si el Museo fuera «un poco más Frankenstein»? Inspirándose en dicho monstruo y en todas aquellas criaturas que desafían la norma desde los márgenes, el proyecto de mediación cultural Galaxxia diseña y acompaña una edición incisiva, intergeneracional y descentralizadora, donde saberes invisibilizados, cuerpos raros y deseos molestos se entrelazan para generar nuevas formas de imaginación crítica y radical. En los sótanos y corredores del Museo —un particular laboratorio— las dudas no se esconden: son materia prima.
Así, para este curso el equipoMotor convoca a personas de todas las edades que hayan participado en ediciones anteriores de los distintos equipos del Área de Educación a recorrer el Museo como quien manipula un cuerpo abierto: descoyuntando algunas de sus categorías teóricas y artísticas —la necropolítica, lo crip-cuir, la lucha de clases, las políticas del malestar, la decolonialidad, la temporalidad cuir, la descentralización institucional o el feísmo— para articular un relato díscolo, remendado y palpitante.
El programa se estructura en bloques temáticos sobre lo freak como metodología, el trabajo cultural, la intergeneracionalidad y la diversidad territorial. Cada bloque a su vez se despliega en sesiones que combinan disparadores teóricos y estéticos, visitas a exposiciones y espacios liminales del Museo, talleres artísticos con artistas, ejercicios de curaduría audiovisual colectiva y de relatoría radiofónica, así como instancias de activación pública, mediante proyecciones de cine experimental y coloquios compartidos con el público, en complicidad con el archivo Hamaca y el Área de Cine y Nuevos Medios del Museo.
De este modo, la presente edición incorpora una particularidad: el grupo de participantes irá transformándose en un «colectivo curatorial audiovisual temporalmente autónomo», con capacidad de incidir en la programación del Museo y de abrir la conversación de equipoMotor al público general, cuestionando y expandiendo así los límites entre las cabezas que deciden, las manos que producen y los cuerpos y presencias que habitan la institución. Las personas seleccionadas en la modalidad oyente serán invitadas a las proyecciones públicas, así como a otras activaciones y momentos de apertura del equipoMotor.
Frente al relato de un museo homogéneo, pulcro y lineal, apostamos por un Museo disidente, contradictorio y lleno de vida residual. Un Museo que no tema hacerse preguntas incómodas ni mostrar sus cicatrices. equipoMotor. Un poco más Frankenstein no busca repensar el cuerpo de la institución, sino habitarlo en sus desgarros, tal como es: híbrido, inacabado, infecto, fantasmagórico… y cargado de esporas y chispas por venir.