CaixaForum Madrid: Art exhibitions programme 2011-2012
CaixaForum Madrid boosts its cultural attractions with an outstanding programme of exhibitions to suit all tastes.
Photo: CaixaForum Madrid, Spain
CaixaForum Madrid boosts its cultural attractions with an outstanding programme of exhibitions to suit all tastes.
Major exhibitions of the work of Delacroix, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, Piranesi, the finest contemporary art and the archaeological treasures of Saudi Arabia are the highlights of the new season 2011-2012 at CaixaForum Madrid.
Photo: CaixaForum Madrid, Spain
CaixaForum Madrid will hosting two outstanding exhibitions of two great artists, Eugène Delacroix and Piranesi, whose works and styles had a notable influence on later currents. Like the ones planned in the spheres of archaeology and contemporary art these two exhibitions will show the fruits of the strategic alliances established in recent years between ”la Caixa” Welfare Projects and leading Spanish, European and American museums. Specifically in this case, with the Musée du Louvre and MACBA for the joint organisation of exhibitions.
The season will begin on 18 October with Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), the most important retrospective of the work of the great French painter in half a century. The exhibition, the fruit of the cooperation agreement between ”la Caixa” Welfare Projects and the Louvre, brings together over one hundred works, many of which will be seen for the first time in Spain. It includes loans from leading museums such as the National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York or the Art Institute of Chicago.
This is the most complete exhibition of his work ever held in Spain and the most important internationally since the great exhibition organised in Paris to coincide with the centenary of his death in 1963.
Lovers of contemporary art will have an opportunity to enjoy a wide selection of two of the largest and most internationally renowned collections with the exhibition The Persistence of Geometry. From 15 December, the collections of ”la Caixa” Foundation and the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) will come together in a show that focuses on the use of geometry in the spheres of sculpture and installation since the sixties.
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, 1909-1929. When art dances with music will bring to CaixaForum Madrid the pioneering spirit of Sergei Diaghilev and his world famous ballet company. From 16 February, through 200 objects including posters, costumes, elements for the choreography and the sets visitors will be drawn into the notion of total art propounded by Diaghilev. Avantgarde artists such as Matisse and Picasso, musicians like Ravel and Stravinsky and writers of the stature of Jean Cocteau, all present at the exhibition, were part of that thirst for innovation whose aim was to renew visual language through the choreography, the sets and the musical language.
In the spring of 2012 the rooms of CaixaForum Madrid will be home to the first comprehensive exhibition in Spain of the work of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, one of the most important illustrators of the 18th century. Like no-one else he cultivated the three dimensions and detail in the engraving. The exhibition consists of an unrepeatable set of over 300 works by this Italian genius of drawing through a montage that provides visitors with a new way of observing art in which the engravings are combined with audiovisuals and reproductions of pieces and sets. The spectators will discover the technique, intensity and evocative power of his work, which had a great influence on Romantics, Surrealists and Cubists. His engravings of Venetian gaols still inspire film sets today.
CaixaForum Madrid will close the exhibition season by inviting visitors to discover the archaeological treasures of Saudi Arabia. From 3 July 2012, Routes of Arabia. Archaeological treasures of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia will present a selection of over 300 works, most of which had never left their country of origin before their presentation at the Musée du Louvre in Paris and CaixaForum Barcelona in November last year. The aim of the exhibition is to reveal this little known archaeological treasure and offer an unprecedented panorama of the different cultures that followed one another on the Arabian Peninsula from prehistory to the dawn of modern times.
CAIXA FORUM MADRID
Paseo del Prado, 36
