One Prado Museum Another: photographs from the Alcobendas Collection among painters. Group exhibition.

Let us recall what Benito Pérez Galdós said so effusively on his walks through Madrid: that when passing in front of the Prado Museum, he would remove not only his hat, but ‘his skull’. The mastery of the works housed in the Prado Museum has been the subject of uninterrupted attention throughout entire generations and has left a lasting mark on Spanish visual culture. An unequivocal expression of respect and the announcement of the maximum permeability of perceptions and the mind are contained in the expression ‘to remove one’s skull’, that is, to leave one’s brains exposed to the physical influence of, in this case, exemplary paintings, a gesture with which artists respond to what they admire.

Without a doubt, it is fair to interpret contemporary Spanish photography, so splendidly represented in the Alcobendas Collection, in terms of the memory that survives in it of the visual legacy of the Prado Museum. This exhibition does not focus on the equally important photographic works that deal directly with the spaces, audiences and works of the Prado, but rather takes into consideration pictorial models whose authority frames a creative imaginary that coincides with a very significant representation of contemporary Spanish photographers. In this interesting relationship, the following occurs: we identify paradigms that are projected, we see that poetics are transformed, and we witness new ways of looking.

The exhibition is based on nine famous paintings from the Prado’s collections. These are works deliberately chosen from van der Weyden, Dürer, Titian, Rubens, El Greco, Velázquez, Bosch, Patinir and Goya, all of whom are major masters in the Museum’s collection. The number coincides with that of the Muses, daughters of Mnemosyne, goddess of memory, who are also nine in number. Photographic—rather than pictorial—creation finds its place in these nine registers, which contemplate pain, nudity, love, visual perception, the vision of invisible reality, the physiognomy of humanity, delirium, the landscape of our journey, and the portrait of the alienated community that represents us. These themes coincide with the prominent issues addressed by the masters invited to this gathering.

Centro de Arte Alcobendas