This year invites reflection on a rich exhibition season. It marks anniversaries such as the deaths of Picasso and the 40th memorial of Miró, along with the centennial of Joaquín Sorolla and the birth centennial of Antoni Tàpies. Details from the foundation are anticipated in December. The program also spotlights artists including Tina Modotti, Jaume Plensa, and Santiago Rusiñol, with themes ranging from espionage in cinema to the Marquis de Sade. Ten must-see exhibitions have been gathered to guide enthusiasts.
Miró’s Le balcon, Baix de Sant Pere and Picasso’s El paseo de Colom, both painted in 1917, anchor a discussion of early collaborations between two iconic painters.
Picasso and the year of Miró
Miró and Picasso will be central to the Picasso Year, aligning with Miró’s 40th death anniversary in Barcelona. Beginning October 19, exhibitions run in parallel at Fundació Miró and Museu Picasso, exploring friendship, parallels, and divergences between the artists, their shared influence on Barcelona, and how they helped shape the city’s cultural identity.
Festivities extend to Madrid’s Reina Sofía with Picasso 1906: The Great Transformation, a sculpture-focused exploration of Picasso. Matter and Body appears in May in Malaga and Bilbao’s Guggenheim, and The Will of Picasso is staged at the Design Museum in June, focusing on ceramics that inspired him. New York’s Brooklyn Museum hosts Picasso and feminism in June, a provocative dialogue on gender, power, and art.
Guggenheim will present a pivotal show, Absolute Reality: Paris, 1920-1945, in February, placing Picasso’s broader circle against shifting urban modernities.
Simon Menner. Skin 1/19 from the series Surveillance Complex (2019).
Movie spies and 19th-century portraits at CaixaForum
CaixaForum currently hosts major comics and ancient Egypt exhibitions, but this fall will bring Top Secret, a cross-media examination of espionage. James Bond meets Mata Hari, and Edward Snowden joins Carrie Mathison in a cinematic dialogue about real-world spies, props, and the technologies they relied on.
At the old Casaramona site, a February 15 program spotlights 19th-century portraiture in Spain as a symbol of power amid social change, featuring Goya, Vicente López, Madrazo, Sorolla, and Ignacio Zuloaga from the Prado.
From Anglada Camarasa to Borrassà’s Gothic in MNAC
Although delayed, 2023 at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya will present two focused exhibitions. A generous donation enables renewed attention to Camarasa (1871-1959), a figure as international as the era’s greats, alongside Marià Fortuny. A second exhibit, opening February 23, explores late medieval Gothic revivals with panels from the Barcelona Cathedral, reflecting the workshop of Lluis Borrassa and highlighting St. Peter the Martyr and the relatives’ decapitation scenes.
Ilse Bing’s self-portrait, 1931, will also be featured in relation to these explorations of modernity and photography.
Ilse Bing and Tina Modotti at Kbr
February 15 marks the Mapfre Foundation’s opening of Spain’s first retrospective devoted to Ilse Bing (1899-1998), a Bauhaus-influenced German photographer who worked across Frankfurt, Paris, and the United States. The show will collect 190 photographs and documentary materials spanning her career from her German roots to exile in America, including a sequence of works from her Paris years. A June pairing will highlight Tina Modotti (1896-1942), who supported the Republican cause and aided in Madrid’s hospitals during the Civil War, alongside a study of Jules Ainaud who documented Catalonia in the early 1870s.
Ilse Bing’s era and Modotti’s courageous photojournalism are positioned as a dialogue across generations and regions, linking European and American art worlds.
Sorolla’s centennial in focus
Sorolla’s centennial celebrations began late last year with new venues and programs. In Barcelona, a venue at Palau Martorell will host Hunting Impressions, presenting oil miniatures, while Madrid offers a portrait-focused collection at the Prado and the Origins exhibition at the Sorolla Museum. These shows reflect Sorolla’s broad influence on Spanish painting and beyond.
Nancy Holt at MACBA
MACBA will feature Nancy Holt, including the expansive project In Out staged in June and a centerpiece piece, Ventilation System, that traverses multiple floors. The museum’s leadership focus under Elvira Dyangani Ose will continue with a refreshed permanent collection narrative that invites new dialogue among recent acquisitions and core holdings.
From Sade to Artificial Intelligence at CCCB
When CCCB closes in May, Graphic Constellation will introduce nine avant-garde graphic writers and then yield to a centerpiece season around the Marquis de Sade. Some viewers will find his thought provocative; others, shocking. An October debut, Artificial Intelligence, will explore human and machine boundaries, asking where human intent ends and algorithmic insight begins.
Marcelo Brodsky’s eye at Foto Colectania
Marcelo Brodsky, an Argentine photographer, chronicles the era of dictatorship and its echoes in the fight against apartheid and Black Lives Matter. From February to May, Foto Colectania will present a survey of his most influential series, tracing a history of exile and resistance that resonates across borders.
John Berger and Miralda at La Virreina
May brings Permanent Red to La Virreina, examining the ideological layers of John Berger’s diverse work across poetry, drama, novels, essays, film, and TV. In June, Miralda: Fashion and Photography (1962-1978) will study the photographer’s lens on fashion in the era, with ample unpublished material. Both exhibitions are curated by Valentin Roma, the center’s director.
Plensa and Antonio López at La Pedrera
On March 31, La Pedrera hosts Plensa with The Poetry of Silence, emphasizing the sculptor’s dialogue with language and literature. In September, a survey of the celebrated painter-sculptor’s seven-decade career will be showcased. Antonio López is also highlighted in a concurrent segment focusing on his long, quiet influence on Spanish art.
– Lucien Freud: The Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid will mark the painter’s centenary on February 14.
– Oskar Kokoschka: The Austrian expressionist features at Bilbao’s Guggenheim in March, spotlighting his charged, controversial work as described by critics of his era.
– Johannes Vermeer: The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam will host the largest Vermeer exhibition in years, centering on Young Woman with a Bible from February 10.
– Manet and Degas: Orsay Museum in Paris will unite these two nineteenth-century masters in March for a landmark display.
– Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian: Tate Modern in London will present a focused April program bringing together two pivotal figures in abstract art.