Multimedia

The curators of this exhibition, Julia Robinson and Christian Xatrec, explain in this video some of the keys to understand why 1961 was a decisive year that led to the invention of the “expansion of the arts”. The exhibition looks at the origins of the change, the experimental activity and the earliest collective actions that pointed to the beginning of an unprecedented expansion of the notion of “composition” and soon generated a multidisciplinary project that took place in real time/simultaneously over the course of that year.

The curator of the Cildo Meireles exhibition, João Fernandes, along with the artist himself, discuss the relationship between this artist's work and the spectator's sensorial experience, the critical use of ideological and economic circulation systems, and the ethical connection with the world. The exhibition comprises works and installations being presented for the first time and also others that are among the artist's lesser known creations.

Montse Aguer, one of the exhibition's curators, takes viewers on a tour of the Salvador Dalí show, putting forward a new vision of the artist as a thinker, writer and creator of a very particular vision of the world. The exhibition comprises approximately two hundred works and is organised into eleven sections that follow something of a chronological order. The works on display date from the early years of his career up through his religious and mystical phases, his period of experimentation with scenography and also the end of his career, which was closely linked to science and technology.

In this video the artist Azucena Vieites explains the process she carries out in her work of appropriation and iconographic resignification of materials and references linked to the contemporary cultural imaginary, using drawing and collage as her main work tools. 
Also, preceding Vieites' exhibition at Museo Reina Sofía a children's workshop called Coloring Book took place, in which a group of children modified, by coloring them in, some of her drawings.

Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, director of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection and curator of the exhibition Concrete Invention, provides an explanation of this show about the development of concrete abstraction in Latin America from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Revolving around 4 countries –Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Venezuela– and five guiding concepts– Geometry, Dialogue, Ilusion, Universalism and Vibracion– the exhibition includes works such as “Book of Creation” by Lygia Pape or “Physichromie500” by Carlos Cruz-Díez, as well as some conceptual pieces like the iconic “Fio” by Cildo Meireles.

The artist Mitsuo Miura in Imagined memories, his intervention in Palacio de Cristal, he delves into two of the aesthetic themes that give expression to his artistic vocabulary: geometric shapes and pure colours. For this building, one of Museo Reina Sofía's two secondary sites in Parque del Retiro, his proposal begins on the pictorial level and extends to the spatial level, through circles of colours distributed on the floor and suspended from the ceiling.

Joshua Chuang, the curator of the exhibition, leads viewers through this collection of photographs by Robert Adams. With a photographic style that is austere and direct yet also full of nuance and expressive potential, Robert Adams (Orange, New Jersey, 1937) has been widely regarded as one of the most lucid chroniclers of the profound changes taking place in the landscape of the American West in recent decades.
The Place We Live, the first retrospective on Robert Adams to be held in Spain, takes a look at the main projects undertaken by this photographer

Nacho Criado (Mengíbar, Jaén, 1943 – Madrid, 2010) is considered one of the most important figures in the last 40 years of experimental art in Spain. The Palacio de Velázquez, one of the Museum's venues in Parque del Retiro, offers a retrospective of his work, providing insight into the multitude of media, practices and homages present in his art, and also their material realization. The Palacio de Cristal, the other Reina Sofía venue in the park and the second site of the retrospective, reconstructs the 1991 exhibition Piezas de agua y cristal, where cultivated mushrooms exemplify the 'collaborating agents' that give this exhibition its name.

Conversation with Lynne Cooke, the exhibition curator, and the artist Sharon Hayes (Baltimore, Maryland, 1970). Using methodological and conceptual strategies drawn from various spheres of discourse, Hayes' projects explore the relations between history, politics and language, using performances, videos and installations to create a collective imaginary. These processes of documenting a historical event end up conditioning the gaze of the individual, leading to a critical reflection about the frictions generated between the public and the private.

Conversation with Lynne Cooke, the curator of the exhibition devoted to the German artist Rosemarie Trockel. Trockel's work explores different methods and a wide range of materials, thereby eluding classification. Her creations question the legitimizing categories of art, social order and gender identities. Also, in this collection, Trockel gives her attention to lesser known artists, chosen out of the empathy she feels for the frankness and inventiveness with which they look at questions that she too asks herself.