More than 300 photographs with Pablo Picasso as the protagonist and the images of the Madrid scene taken by Mariví Ibarrola give the starting shot to the largest photographic festival in the State, PhotoEspaña this year. An early shot, because despite the fact that these exhibitions have just opened in Madrid, the bulk of the festival will not arrive until the end of May, when exhibitions dedicated to artists such as Marina Abramovic, ORLAN and Fina Miralles land in the Spanish capital; in the Madrid fashion of the sixties photographed by Joana Biarnés; to the facet as photographer of Antoni Miralda; Malick Sidibé's vibrant Mali of the 1960s and 1970s, and pioneers such as Alice Austen, Marie Høeg and Bolette Berg, who already in the 19th century addressed the genre in their photographic work and challenged the usual roles.
It will be a PhotoEspaña with 96 exhibitions, focused on art, the environment and gender, and with sub-venues in Santander, Zaragoza –which, among other exhibitions, will offer one with photographs taken by Carlos Saura– and even Barcelona, where not only will the samples of the Mapfre-KBr Foundation dedicated to Tina Modotti and the Catalonia of Jules Ainaud, but the Museu Picasso will show the snapshots of the great photographer Bernard Plossu that travel through the Catalan landscapes that the man from Malaga visited. A Plossu of which the portraits of the Spanish capital will be seen in the El Águila room of the Community of Madrid.
Without a doubt Picasso will be one of the protagonists of the festival. The Fernán Goméz Cultural Center of the City Council opened yesterday – it is free – Picasso en foto, more than 300 images of the painter from the collections of the Museu Picasso in Barcelona and curated by its director, Emmanuel Guigon. But also ORLAN, which will be seen at the Círculo de Bellas Artes from May 30 in an exhibition next to those of Marina Abramovic and Fina Miralles, will show his work inspired by the portraits of Dora Maar crying painted by the author of Guernica .
Also in the Círculo, curated by Ignasi Duarte, there will be Cowboy's dream, 116 photographs taken by the artist Antoni Miralda between 1961 and 1991 in Europe and the US and which show that photography is at the genesis of the imaginary with which he feeds all his work. Even without leaving the huge Círculo building, there will be the exhibition Como un torbellino, dedicated to the Norwegians Marie Høeg and Bolette Berg, photographers, businesswomen, fighters for the vote for women and subverters of gender roles.
Madrid/Moda a pie de calle, by the photojournalist Joana Biarnés, will be seen in the Canal de Isabel II room. At Fundación Canal there will be Madrid: a creative chronicle of the eighties, which will complement I shot in the eighties, by Mariví Ibarrola, already open at the Serrería Belga. For its part, the ICO Museum will show the look at history, and how we build it, by Rosa y Bleda, and the Royal Botanical Garden, De arboris perennis, the connection with nature of the national prize-winner José Manuel Ballester.
The Cerralbo Museum will look at the body through three enormous artists, Francesca Woodman, Imogen Cunningham and Sanja Ivekovic, and the Mapfre Foundation will show the influence on contemporary photography of Louis Stettner. The Centro Sefarad will hang the gaze of the Polish David Seymour on Israel of the fifties and the Leica Gallery, La joie de vivre by Malick Sidibé. In CentroCentro Edward Burtynsky will exhibit his sub-Saharan landscapes and the Royal Photographic Society will inevitably dedicate an exhibition to the missing Ouka Leele: The universe of a star.
