Exhibitions in Madrid, a city brimming with art and innovation, are one of the cornerstones of its vast cultural offerings. From renowned museums to independent art galleries, as well as other less conventional exhibition spaces, the possibilities when it comes to exhibitions—in this case, for the month of February—are practically endless.
That’s why every month we curate a selection of the must-see exhibitions you can’t miss in Madrid. Photography, painting, contemporary art, sensory and immersive experiences…There’s plenty to choose from and plenty to discover.
Environmental awareness, a fascination with the sea, the artist’s own voyage on a sailboat, and a reinterpretation of Moby Dick are the mix of ingredients that have led to this free exhibition by Andalusian artist Esteban Ruiz.
In it, Herman Melville’s novel serves as a guide through a series of paintings rich in textures and volumes that invite us to rethink, from a contemporary perspective, our relationship with the sea and those who inhabit it.
Free admission from February 20 to March 20, 2026 (click here for full details on admission fees).
This exhibition is an ode not only to fashion, but also to the dialogue established between different artistic languages, such as painting and haute couture. Thus, through more than 40 outfits from the most prominent fashion houses of the 20th and 21st centuries—such as Balenciaga, Pertegaz, Flora Villarreal, Sybilla, Jesús del Pozo, Teresa Helbig, and David Delfín—visitors can trace the influence of Romantic-era upper-class attire on their designs.
The history of recent cinema cannot be understood without Avatar, and now its universe takes a step beyond the screen. ‘Avatar: The Experience’ arrives at Espacio Delicias this fall with an immersive journey divided into nine spaces that recreate the essence of Pandora: bioluminescent jungles, futuristic laboratories, and creatures that breathe so close they seem alive.
Beyond its technical spectacle, the exhibition offers a sensory and narrative experience in which visitors actively participate. An event that coincides with the premiere of the third film in the saga and demonstrates that fantasy can also have a physical form.
Oriol Maspons’s unique perspective and unmistakable style can be enjoyed in this photography exhibition, which showcases the Catalan photographer’s distinctive yet lucid portrayal of Spain during the late Franco era: a country in transition where the everyday and the surreal coexisted naturally.
Menchu Gal. Images of a Life
This exhibition highlights the work and legacy of Menchu Gal, a pioneer of painting in Spain: not only for her distinctive brushwork, but also for being the first woman to win the National Painting Prize in 1959. The selection of works presented by Serrería Belga (formerly Medialab Prado) offers a journey through her artistic career via landscapes, portraits, still lifes, and interiors.
More than a hundred objects from the British Museum’s collection make up this exhibition, which aims to rescue from oblivion one of the “great forgotten kings of history,” a figure as multifaceted as he was complex, who ruled the great Assyrian Empire between 669 BC and 631 BC.
His territory, which stretched from the eastern Mediterranean coast to the mountains of western Iran, experienced a golden age of economic, artistic, and intellectual splendor during his reign.
Free admission
Sculpture takes center stage in this free exhibition, which brings together some of the most prominent figures in 19th- and 20th-century art. Baltasar Lobo, Jorge Oteiza, Eduardo Chillida, Juan Muñoz, Susana Solano, Julio González, and Pablo Picasso are among the artists represented here through their works, which engage in a dialogue with one another across different artistic languages and disciplines.
Free admission
This exhibition explores the historical origins of radio, as well as the emotional significance it has held and continues to hold for thousands of people—a quality that has always defined this medium. The exhibition features a selection of 150 historical models from countries such as the Netherlands, France, and Japan, and traces the various roles radio has played over the years, from propaganda to literacy education.
Helen Levitt
Madrid is hosting an unprecedented retrospective of Helen Levitt, one of thefirst women to revolutionize documentary photography thanks to her inexhaustible ability to transform everyday situations in her native New York into scenes brimming with humor and, at the same time, a certain enigmatic quality that immediately connects with the viewer.
Through this compilation from her archive—which has been opened to the public for the first time—visitors can explore herpioneering color images and, of course, her iconic portraits of children at play in various poor neighborhoods of the city, such as Hispanic Harlem or the Lower East Side, in the late 1930s.
Anders Zorn. Traveling the World, Remembering Home
From his watercolors from his youth to the portraits of kings and celebrities that brought him worldwide fame: in this exhibition, the public will be able to discover the work of the Swedish artist Anders Zorn, characterized by a mastery of oil painting and engraving that established him as one of the most internationally renowned artists of his time.
His sensitivity to capturing light is one of the hallmarks left in his artistic output bythe friendship that bound him to Joaquín Sorolla, to which is also added, as a distinctive element of his work, the mastery with which he managed to unite the modernity of Paris with the folklore of his native Sweden.
Hammershøi. The Eye That Listens
One of the major exhibitions coming to Madrid in 2026 is that of the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916), to whom the Thyssen is dedicating its first major retrospective in Spain. Throughout the nearly 100 paintings that make up the exhibition, recurring motifs include interiors that, if they could be heard, would sound like silence and which, likely due to their ambiguity, continue to unsettle viewers today.
Free admission
Artist Ricardo Martínez stars in this free exhibition, paying tribute to some of the comic book characters most beloved by audiences across generations: from Mafalda, Snoopy, Popeye, Mortadelo and Filemón to Lucky Luke. To achieve this, he uses the scratchboard technique, which involves scraping with a blade on black paper to gradually reveal the white areas, as if sculpting the drawings.
Free admission
The Madrid History Museum hosts this surprising free exhibition, which tests the boundaries between painting and photography through the hyperrealist work of José Miguel Palacio. It features nearly 70 canvases where visitors can feel the bustle of the streets and the rhythms of everyday life in Madrid from the tranquility of a museum gallery.
Japanese prints make a strong entrance with over 70 works from the Pasamar-Onila Collection , which date from the golden age of this technique and are on display at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts. Signed by artists such as Kitagawa Utamaro, Utagawa Hiroshige, and Utagawa Kunisada, these scenes depict everything from courtesans and women performing domestic tasks to erotic prints.
It has taken centuries for the figure of Queen Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg—granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England and queen consort during the reign of Alfonso XIII—to be justly restored to her rightful place. This exhibition aims to shed light onthe aspects that defined her as a great modernizer of the role of queen consort and that explain the popularity she achieved, such as her active involvement in charitable causes and public life.
The Prado Museum is renewing its curatorial approach with its first exhibition dedicated to photography, drawn from the vast holdings of the art museum itself: a collection of great heritage value comprising more than 100 photographs. These images feature some of the museum’s most notable paintings and sculptures, but also offer a way to see how this museum has evolved over time.
Carmen Martín Gaite, a paragon of women in literature
Free admission
Among the major exhibitions in Madrid that opened in 2025 and will continue through much of 2026, one dedicated tothe “ ” Carmen Martín Gaite to mark the centennial of her birth (1925–2025) is a must-see. The exhibition at the National Library of Spain approaches her figure and her legacy in the same way she approached life through her collages: by reassembling and reconstructing it from fragments.
In this case, the fragments gathered here trace her life and intellectual journey and her legacy through objects suchas photographs, portraits, manuscripts, letters, collages, books from her personal library, and audiovisual materials, among other memorabilia.
In the Manner of Bosch
Free admission (limited capacity: 25 people)
Bosch’s genius is measured not only by the works he left for posterity, but also by the way in which the fantastical worlds he painted have influenced the creators who came after him.
This is precisely the focus of this small-scale exhibition, which includes two small panels created by one of his followers and contemporary works that clearly bear the artist’s mark, sharing surreal, metamorphic, and fantastical elements.
After making its mark in Barcelona, a second branch of the Banksy Museum is now opening in Madrid. Located very close to the Acacias metro stop, this new Madrid museum hosts a permanent exhibition featuring over 170 replicas of Banksy’s most iconic works, such as“ ” “Banksy’s Rage,”“The Flower Thrower” “ ” and“ ” “The Girl with the Red Balloon.” This space serves as a tribute to one of the world’s most prestigious street artists.
Wunderkammer
Free admission
Ana Juan, one of our most internationally renowned illustrators and winner of the National Illustration Award, is the focus of this exhibition in which explores other artistic languages ranging from sculpture to the most avant-gardeanimation .
Wunderkammer (meaning “chamber of wonders” in German) invites visitors to let themselves be surprised by imaginary beings and unsettling figures that in some way visually narrate the chaos that characterizes today’s reality. It offers a unique opportunity to immerse oneself in the virtuosity of an artist whose covers have been featured in magazines around the world, such as The New Yorker.
10 interactive themed rooms with a world of sweets and color to discover. That is Sweet Space’s mission: to offer an immersive experience that engages all the senses, especially taste. You can put it to the test, for example, in its ice cream lab. The various stages of the tour have been designed by different artists to create a unique and, above all, Instagram- .
Lola Lasurt. “Aún deep song”
Free admission
Is it possible to represent war through the movement of the body? In this exhibition, artist LolaLasurt’ , she reinterprets the choreography Martha Graham created in 1937 in response to the horror of the Spanish Civil War. To do so, she employs large-format pictorial friezes and video art, transforming the tension and suffering of the body at war into an aesthetic experience designed to move the viewer.
In short,“ ” isan artistic endeavor that uses dance and painting as tools of historical memory.
Free admission
From a propaganda tool of the Franco regime to one of the most important audiovisual archives of the 20th century in our country: the Spanish Film Archive presents* *, the first exhibition entirely dedicated to the *NO-DO*, whose viewing and screening were mandatory in all cinemas across the country between 1943 and 1975 and which, over time, has become a fundamental testimony for reconstructing life during that era and our collective memory.
From laughter machines to walls where you can share with others the things that make you happy. The Museum of Happiness (MüF) offers 20 immersive experiences where you can not only learn about but also experience everything related to happiness throughout its different rooms: a space to de-stress, a magic show, or a hug-o-meter.
Free admission
The exhibition“ ” Artist’s Stickers at CentroCentro draws on nostalgia in its 500 pieces, blending Madrid’s popular culture with classic references. Luis Pérez Calvo, the artist, creates an impossible Madrid where Goya crosses paths with Bazooka gum and the Looney Tunes stroll through Carabanchel. It is a tribute to stickers, collecting, and the neighborhoods that defined several generations.
Cristóbal Balenciaga, Pedro Rodríguez, Manuel Pertegaz, Flora Villarreal, Elio Berhanyer, Sybilla, Jesús del Pozo, Teresa Helbig, and David Delfín come together in this magnificent exhibition, where the museum’s own collection engages in a dialogue with some of the most prominent Spanish fashion designers of the 20th and 21st centuries. The common thread, of course, is the relationship between 19th-century art and fashion design.
Until May 17, Bridgerton fans will also find some special designs.
375 objects tell a different story about the inhabitants of the Royal Palace. More specifically, about its youngest inhabitants: the princesses and princes who were raised in the halls and corridors of this monumental building between 1850 and 1931.
The exhibition Royal Toys reconstructs, through photographs, letters, diaries, and, of course, toys, how the future Kings and Queens of Spain entertained themselves in their childhood. We will find such curious items as the children’s story of The Tooth Fairy written by Luis Coloma as a commission for Alfonso XIII when he was a child, as well as praxinoscopes, puzzles, dollhouses…
Traveling Through Time: 85 Years of Renfe Advertising
Free admission
A visual journey throughRenfe’s history, memory, and modernization with the historic trains of the Railway Museum as a backdrop. The exhibition brings together graphic material from the company across 78 posters that reflect not only its evolution but also that of a country undergoing modernization.
Designers such as Juan Toribio, Cruz Novillo, and Alberto Corazón contributed to the company’s visual identity, and together, in the words of the organizers, it forms “a shared biography between a public company and the society it has accompanied.”
Free admission
The Thyssen is another museum offering free evening visits on weekends, specifically on Saturdays, , to view its temporary exhibitions on the ground floor and level -1 at no cost from 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM. Admission is free until capacity is reached. Additionally, when there is no temporary exhibition on the ground floor, the Carmen Thyssen Collection will be open.
The Prado at Night
Free admission
The initiative“ : El Prado de noche” (ThePrado at Night) continues in 2026, offering free admission to the museum’s temporary exhibitions duringevening hours from 8:30 PM to 11:30 PM on the first Saturday of each month. Additionally, the visit is complemented by other activities, such as the opening of Café Prado and the museum shop.
