Baroque, sculpture and the expectation of restoring the number of visitors before the pandemic are the three general lines that mark the programming of the Prado Museum in 2023. This was announced on Tuesday by its director, Miguel Falomir, who explained in detail what will happen. be the activities that the institution will develop during the course. Guido Reni and Francisco Herrera “El Mozo” will be the stars of the spring at the art gallery, which will also feature Spanish paintings from the Frick Collection and participate in the 50th anniversary of the death of Francisco Picasso.
“We are confident that this will be a year of full recovery,” the manager noted, “the evolution is very positive, but we have not yet reached pre-pandemic levels.” Of course, they have reasons for optimism: the last week of 2022 was the best in the history of the institution.
Baroque Spring
The first semester of the museum will be dedicated to Baroque artists. The most important exhibition will be the exhibition dedicated to Guido Reni, which will be open from March 28 to July 9. As the manager put it forward, it would be “the biggest exhibition ever dedicated to the artist to date”. Organized in collaboration with the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, it will offer a comprehensive overview of the contribution of the Bolognese master to the art of his time, from the most recent historiographical contributions, and will pay particular attention to his connection with Spain, as manifested by his collection of works of the Crown and the high aristocracy.
For this, he will have around 100 works that include paintings, sculptures and graphic works. Some of them can be seen for the first time. They will be joined by other artists of the 16th and 17th centuries who were also heroes of the period, such as Titian, Caracci, Caravaggio, Zurbaran, Ribera and Murillo. A third of the works belong to the collection of the Museo del Prado, which houses another fifty from the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery in London.
From April 25, the exhibition will be held together with the exhibition dedicated to Francisco Herrera’s “El Mozo”. “This artist was a rare bird on the Spanish art scene because of his versatility,” describes Falomir. It is not surprising that he created pictorial compositions on canvas, frescoes, engravings, altarpieces, architecture, theater decorations and tapestries; and was in charge of the funeral ceremonies. The exhibition, which will be open until July 30, will highlight his crucial stay in Italy, highlighting his training as a still-life painter of fish and fish, as well as the influence of his training with his father in Seville. Francisco de Herrera as “Old Man” Engraver; and his relationship with Bartolome Esteban Murillo, which contrasts their ways of understanding painting.
New narratives and art from the past
“The exhibitions of the second semester will be more conceptual,” explained the director. The downsides, the hidden side, will be studied from November 7, 2023 to March 3, 2024 on the B side of the pictorial support. Part of the paradoxical reality that a quarter of the surface of the great masterpiece of the Prado Museum, Las MeninasThe back side of the painting is occupied,” he shared, “it will be delayed motivation“.
A study of the museum’s collections, which includes complete photographic documentation and restoration work that also restores the supports, has helped uncover messages, evidence and data contained in a part of the art that has received little attention. “It offers a completely different approach to what a work of art is as an object, very novel,” he expressed.
It will arrive on October 10 The Lost Mirror: A Medieval Image of the Jew and Judaism, which will be open until January 14, 2024. Its purpose is to reveal how late medieval Spanish art was the scene of a complex and multifaceted construction of the image of the Jew. Figurative strategies went far beyond mere stigmatization or demonization and also produced positive images that demonstrate coexistence and cultural exchange.
Another jewel of the season is promised Spanish painting from the Frick collection, which will be on display at the Villanueva Building from March 7 to July 2. “An institution that by statute does not allow borrowing of its works,” recalls Falomir, but thanks to the work it does, it has opened up to cooperation with other institutions. “It’s not going to be a very large but sophisticated set of works by Goya, Murillo, El Greco and Velázquez,” he said.
The Villanueva building will also display the National Art Gallery’s contribution to the fiftieth anniversary of Pablo Picasso’s death. It will open its doors on June 13 Picasso–Greco, which can be visited until September 17. The exhibition will try to answer “to what extent the lessons from El Greco were present in the genesis of Cubism”. Emilio Sanchez Perrier. Pictures (from May 5 to July 30) and Drawing for engraving illustrated in Spain. From Carmona to Goia (from October 17 to January 14) there will be other exhibitions of the season.
A bet on sculpture in the permanent collection
The Museo del Prado will continue to work on its permanent collection, “bet to return to sculpture the meaning it should have always had”. For this they present a new gallery installation. There will also be a monograph session devoted to copying works of art and progress will be made in the renovation of the European Naturalism Rooms.
It will be within the limits of the routes proposed by the center encrypted reality. Calderón de la Barca and painting (from May 9 to September 10) and The importance of the frame in painting (from November 2023 to March 2024). The second, as Falomir stated, “will draw attention to that part of the works of art that is sometimes considered foreign objects.” We will see what role and importance it has in the museum.”
In 2023, tourism activities will be maintained, which will have three: A century of portraiture. Image of XIX century societywhich will start in Barcelona and later depart for Zaragoza; In the streets of the Prado, which after touring Extremadura last year, will now travel to Malaga; i Today is Prado timeAn initiative that makes the art gallery accessible to the visually impaired through the exhibition of six relief images corresponding to different genres and artistic styles.
“The Prado Learning Center is one of our most important initiatives and one of the most affected during the pandemic,” laments Falomir. By 2023, they have programmed a chair headed by Alexander Nagel, professor of art history at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; and the Pérez-Lorca Conference of the poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson, Princess of Asturias Award 2020. Among the various symposia that will be held, the director highlighted Female protagonists in the formation of the collections of the Museo del Prado II. From Isabel de Bourbon to Mariana de Neoburgo (March 6 and 7).
In addition to the programming, the director of the art gallery noted that in January they will release a report on the institution’s works of questionable origin. Similarly, he ruled on the activists who glued their hands to the frames of Goya’s Las Majas last November. “We have already explained that the museum has strengthened security measures, but there was some inevitability. If someone wants to attack a piece of art, even putting a policeman in each one, it can happen,” Falomir assured.
“It’s more public opinion than coercive measures,” he added, “and public opinion has responded well to seeing that this is not the way to justify some legitimate ideas, but there is another way. he”. “The attacks were counterproductive for those who committed them,” he concluded, “we hope it will not happen again.”
Source: El Diario
