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July 11, 2013
Table 1: Encounters between Spain and Latin America
Moderated by: Jesús Carrillo
10:00 a.m.
Presentation
Paula Barreiro López, Jesús Carrillo, Fabiola Martínez Rodríguez and Gabriel Pérez Barreiro
10:30 – 11:10 a.m.
Keynote address
Olga Fernández López. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Notas sobre un relato migrante: vanguardias artísticas entre Latinoamérica y España
11:10 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Communications
Eamon McCarthy. Queens University, Belfast
Norah Borges: el arte de la negociación
Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales. Universidad de Granada
La vanguardia oculta. Trayectos del diseño gráfico rioplatense (1920-1935)
12:00 – 12:30 p.m.
Break
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Communications
Irene Herner. Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City
Siqueiros contra el fascismo y la guerra (1932-1939)
Joan Robledo-Palop. Yale University, New Haven
Frente a Frente y Nueva Cultura: narraciones transatlánticas de la violencia y el fascismo
Idoia Murga Castro. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Encuentros en escena: danza mexicana y exilio republicano
Miguel Cabañas Bravo. History Institute CCHS-CSIC, Madrid
Legados y esperanzas en los creadores españoles del exilio de 1939 en Cuba
2:00 – 3:30 p.m.
Lunch Break
3:30 – 5:00 p.m.
Communications
Ana María León. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Antonio Bonet: el último indiano
Aitor Acilu and Juan Biain. Universidad de Navarra and Arantzazu Gaur Foundation
Jorge Oteiza. De San Agustín a Santiago. Miradas al origen: el pasado como amigo
Jennifer Josten. University of Pittsburgh
La migración de formas entre España y México: Mathias Goeritz y la difusión del arte abstracto en la posguerra
Imelda Ramírez. Universidad EAFIT, Medellín
Relatos de la escultura moderna en Colombia: Jorge Oteiza y Edgar Negret
5:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Break
5:30 – 6:40 p.m.
Communications
Ernesto Hernández Busto. Independent researcher
El sueño y la piedra: notas sobre João Cabral de Melo, Joan Miró, “Dau al Set” y la estética de la composición
María González Pendás. Columbia University, New York
Intercontinentes: ilusiones del exilio republicano en México a través de unas formas de hormigón
Fernando Herrero Matoses. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Alberto Greco y Julio Cortázar: el 'juego' y la trayectoria nómada de la vanguardia
6:40 – 8:00 p.m.
Responses to the communications and colloquium
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July 12, 2013
Table 2: Modernity and Modernism(s): Displacement and Divergence
Moderated by: Paula Barreiro López.
9:00 – 9:40 a.m.
Keynote address
Michael Asbury. Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN), University of the Arts, London
Contesting Notions of Hybridity in Brazilian Modern Art
9:40 – 11:10 a.m.
Communications
Lori Cole. Brandeis University, Waltham
¿Qué es la vanguardia? Ultraism Between Madrid and Buenos Aires
Mara Sánchez Llorens. Universidad Nebrija, Madrid
Cuando los límites del arte son invisibles. Cartografías universitarias latinoamericana
Kaira Cabañas. PhD. Princeton University
Modern and Mad: Ethics of Reception, Rio de Janeiro
Catrin Seefranz. University of the Arts, Zurich
Modernismo Pobre. The Emancipatory Practices of the “Avant-Garde in Bahia” in the 1950s
11:10 – 11:30 a.m.
Break
11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Communications
Fabiola Martínez Rodríguez. Saint Louis University, Madrid
The Paradoxes of Modernism, and the Divided Legacies of Surrealism and Abstraction in Mexico
Cecilia Fajardo Hill. Independent art historian and curator, Los Angeles
Las ‘otras’ modernidades
María Iñigo Clavo. Spanish University of Distance Education and Universidade de São Paulo
Las preposiciones de la modernidad
Edith Wolfe. Tulane University, New Orleans
Latin America’s Discrepant Cosmopolitanisms and the Limits of Center and Periphery Models for understanding the Avant-Garde
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Responses to the communications and colloquium
2:00 – 3:30 p.m.
Lunch Break
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July 12, 2013
Table 3: Museography, representation and curatorial narratives
Moderated by: María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco.
3:30 – 4:10 p.m.
Keynote address
Gabriel Pérez Barreiro. Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection Foundation
Algunos apuntes sobre exposiciones de arte 'latinoamericano': constelaciones, estrellas, temas y variaciones
4:10 – 5:40 p.m.
Communications
Dafne Cruz Porchini. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City
La Exposición Internacional del Surrealismo en México (1940). Símbolo de un cambio de paradigmas
Aleca Le Blanc. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Under Construction: Calder at Rio de Janeiro’s Museu de Art Moderna in 1959
Carmen Juliá. Tate, London
Julio Plaza y el arte postal: redes de intercambio transnacional
Gina Tarver. Texas State University, San Marcos
Espacios ambientales en el Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá: fomentando una neo-vanguardia internacional en Colombia
5:40 – 6:10 p.m.
Break
6:10 – 7:40 p.m.
Communications
Miriam Basilio. New York University
El canon latinamericano en desarrollo: exponiendo la colección en el Museo de Arte Moderno, 1945-1954
Blanca Serrano Ortiz de Solórzano. Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
La abstracción geométrica cubana: intercambios artísticos internacionales y políticas museológicas locales
Lucas Baden. Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG), Karlsruhe
'Vochito' contra 'Murales'- de 'Motor' a 'Promotor': Fernando Gamboa, la vanguardia del arte méxicano y la Bienal de Venecia
Francisco Godoy Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
El modelo constelar: Mari Carmen Ramírez y su estela
7:40 – 8:00 p.m.
Break
8:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Responses to the communications and colloquium -
July 13, 2013
Table 4: Genealogies and Discourses of the Avant-garde
Moderated by: Fabiola Martínez Rodríguez.
10:30 – 11:10 a.m.
Keynote address
Andrea Giunta. University of Texas, Austin
Transatlánticos / Transcontinentales. Una discusión sobre diálogos y genealogías
11:10 – 12:20 p.m.
Communications
Harper Montgomery. Hunter College, New York
The Critic and the Visionary Avant-garde, a Transnational Network
Manuel Gutiérrez Silva. Rice University, Houston
Vision and Distinction: Avant-garde Artwriting and the Deconstruction of Visual Culture in Post-revolutionary Mexico
Cecilia Braschi. University of Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne
La ‘síntesis de las artes’ en las revistas brasileñas de posguerra: herencias vanguardistas y postulados locales
12:20 – 12:40 p.m.
Break
12:40 – 2:00 p.m.
Communications
Daniela Lucena. Universidad de Buenos Aires, CONICET
Tensiones entre arte/política en la asociación arte concreto-invención
Paula Barreiro López. History Institute CCHS-CSIC, Madrid
Hacia la izquierda: el acomodo de una vanguardia “sans rivages” en el discurso estético marxista de los años sesenta
Jaime Vindel. Universidad de León
Conciencia ética y conciencia estética en la vanguardia argentina de los años sesenta. Una crítica del esteticismo de la teoría de la vanguardia posmarxista
2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Lunch Break
4:00 – 5:10 p.m.
Communications
Mariola V. Alvarez. Rice University, Houston
Neoconcrete Books and the Politics of Participation
Ornela S. Barisone. Universidad Nacional de Rosario, National Board of Scientific and Technical Research, Institute of Latin American Literature, Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos
Discursos de la vanguardia e intercambios transnacionales ‘fuera de foco’: sobre el invencionismo y la propuesta integrativa de E. A. Vigo
Fernanda Nogueira. Universidade de São Paulo
La vanguardia más allá de la vanguardia. El caso del Poema/Processo en Brasil
5:10 – 5:30 p.m.
Break
5:30 p.m. – 6:40 p.m.
Communications
José Luis de la Nuez Universidad Carlos III, Madrid
La difusión de las neovanguardias en América Latina y su repercusión en la crítica
Eve Kalyva. Universidad de Buenos Aires
Unas reflexiones sobre la vanguardia después el arte conceptualMara Polgovsky Ezcurra. University of Cambridge
Materia política: Marcos Kurtycz, León Ferrari y el retorno de lo (sur)real
6:40 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Responses to the communications and colloquium
8:00 – 8:15 p.m.
Closing act
Transatlantic Encounters: Avant-garde Discourses in Spain and Latin America
Held on 11, 12, 13 jul 2013
This international event, which brings together researchers, artists and curators from both sides of the Atlantic, seeks to stimulate reflection about the notion of avant-garde in relation to the experience and discourse of modernity between 1920 and 1970.
The main object of this reflection is the political and aesthetic avant-garde that formed in the context of the first and second Avant-gardes (or Neo-avantgardes), and also the role that the exchanges between Spain and Latin America played in the construction of this notion. Through keynote addresses and communications, the various sessions will present the latest research, thus contributing to a better understanding of the relationships and exchanges between Spain and Latin America (which have been little studied to date), and to a reconsideration of historiography and the dominant discourses of modernism and modernity.
Organised by
CSIC History Institute (1), Saint Louis University Madrid, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection and Museo Reina Sofía
(1) Supported by the National Plan for Research, Development and Innovation Project After the Republic: networks and two-way paths in Spanish art since 1931
Participants
Scientific committee
Paula Barreiro López. History Institute at the Human and Social Sciences Centre, CSIC (Spanish National Research Council)
Fabiola Martínez Rodríguez. Saint Louis University, Madrid
Jesús María Carrillo Castillo. Museo Reina Sofía
Gabriel Pérez Barreiro. Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection Foundation
![Miguel Brieva, ilustración de la novela infantil Manuela y los Cakirukos (Reservoir Books, 2022) [izquierda] y Cibeles no conduzcas, 2023 [derecha]. Cortesía del artista](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/ecologias_del_deseo_utopico.jpg.webp)
![Ángel Alonso, Charbon [Carbón], 1964. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/perspectivas_ecoambientales.jpg.webp)
Más actividades
Aesthetics of Peace and Desertion Tactics
8, 22 OCT, 5, 19 NOV, 3, 17, 31 DIC 2025,14, 28 ENE, 11, 25 FEB, 11, 25 MAR, 8, 22 ABR, 6, 20 MAY, 3, 17 JUN 2026
The study group Aesthetics of Peace and Tactics of Desertion: Prefiguring New Pacifisms and Forms of Transitional Justice proposes a rethinking—through both a theoretical-critical and historical-artistic lens—of the intricate network of concepts and practices operating under the notion of pacifism. A term not without contestation and critical tension, pacifism gathers under its name a multiplicity of practices—from anti-militarism and anti-war movements to non-violence activism—while simultaneously opening urgent debates around violence, justice, reparation, and desertion. Here, pacifism is not conceived as a moral doctrine, but as an active form of ethical and political resistance capable of generating aesthetic languages and new positions of social imagination.
Through collective study, the group seeks to update critical debates surrounding the use of violence and non-violence, as well as to explore the conflict of their representation at the core of visual cultures. In a present marked by rearmament, war, genocide, and the collapse of the social contract, this group aims to equip itself with tools to, on one hand, map genealogies and aesthetics of peace—within and beyond the Spanish context—and, on the other, analyze strategies of pacification that have served to neutralize the critical power of peace struggles. Transitional and anti-punitive justice proposals will also be addressed, alongside their intersections with artistic, visual, and cinematic practices. This includes examining historical examples of tribunals and paralegal activisms initiated by artists, and projects where gestures, imaginaries, and vocabularies tied to justice, reparation, memory, and mourning are developed.
It is also crucial to note that the study programme is grounded in ongoing reflection around tactics and concepts drawn, among others, from contemporary and radical Black thought—such as flight, exodus, abolitionism, desertion, and refusal. In other words, strategies and ideas that articulate ways of withdrawing from the mandates of institutions or violent paradigms that must be abandoned or dismantled. From feminist, internationalist, and decolonial perspectives, these concepts have nourished cultural coalitions and positions whose recovery today is urgent in order to prefigure a new pacifism: generative, transformative, and radical.
Aesthetics of Peace and Tactics of Desertion, developed and led by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Studies Management, unfolds through biweekly sessions from October to June. These sessions alternate between theoretical discussions, screenings, work with artworks and archival materials from the Museo’s Collection, reading workshops, and public sessions. The group is structured around sustained methodologies of study, close reading, and collective discussion of thinkers such as Judith Butler, Elsa Dorlin, Juan Albarrán, Rita Segato, Sven Lütticken, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Franco “Bifo” Berardi; historical episodes such as the anti-nuclear and anti-arms race movement in Spain; and the work of artists and activists including Rojava Film Commune, Manuel Correa and the Oficina de Investigación Documental (Office for Documentary Investigation), and Jonas Staal, among other initial cases that will expand as the group progresses.
Rethinking Guernica
21, 28, 22, 29 SEP, 5, 12, 19, 26, 6, 13, 20, 27 OCT, 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, 3, 10, 17, 24 NOV, 7, 14, 21, 28, 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 DIC 2025
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.
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.
![Francesc Abad, Procés transformació [Proceso transformación, 1972]. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/AD05219-009-actividad.jpg.webp)
The (legal) person and the legal form. Chapter I
2, 6, 9 OCT 2025
As part of the Studies Constellation, the Study Directoship’s annual fellowship, art historian and theorist Sven Lütticken leads the seminar The (Legal) Person and the Legal Form: Theoretical, Artistic, and Activist Commitments to foster dialogue and deepen the hypotheses and questions driving his research project.
This project, titled Unacting Personhood, Deforming Legal Abstraction, explores the dominance of real abstractions—such as exchange value and legal form—over our processes of subjectivation, and asks how artistic practices can open up alternative ways of representing or performing the subject and their legal condition in the contemporary world.
The seminar consists of eight two-hour sessions, divided into three chapters throughout the academic year. While conceived as non-public spaces for discussion and collective work, these sessions complement, nourish, and amplify the public program of the Studies Constellation.
This first chapter of the seminar, composed of three sessions, serves as an introduction to the fundamental issues of the research concerning theoretical, artistic, and activist engagements with the legal form. It includes three sessions dedicated respectively to: the legal form, through the work of French jurist, philosopher, and lawyer Bernard Edelman, with particular attention to his Marxist theory of photography (translated into German by Harun Farocki); the (legal) person, via contributions from Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito, academic, social justice activist, and writer Radha D’Souza, and visual artist Jonas Staal; and land, through the work of researcher Brenna Bhandar—specialist in the colonial foundations of modern law and the notion of property—and artist, filmmaker, and researcher Marwa Arsanios.
Through these and other readings, case study analyses, and collective discussions, the seminar aims to open a space for critical reflection on the ways in which the law—both juridical form and legal form—is performed and exceeded by artistic and activist practices, as well as by theoretical and political approaches that challenge its foundations and contemporary projections.