Exhibitions in Madrid, a city full of art and innovation, are one of the central pillars of its extensive cultural offerings. From recognized museums to independent art galleries, as well as other less conventional exhibition spaces, the exhibition possibilities are practically endless.
That’s why every month we make a selection of the must-see exhibitions you can’t miss in Madrid. Photography painting, contemporary art, sensorial experiences and immersive… There is a lot to choose from and a lot to discover.
1. Mundo Pixar
More than an exhibition, Mundo Pixar is a large-scale immersive experience, the opportunity to walk inside the sets of our favorite Pixar films (Andy’s room in Toy Story, the Mexican village in Coco, the scare factory in Monsters S.A., Carl’s house, the grumpy grandpa in UP…). After traveling through Brazil, it now arrives in Madrid with numerous 3D objects and details for Pixar fans. More than 3,000 m² of fantasy, memories and moments that have marked generations.
🗓️ Until May 26, 2024.
📍 S pace 5.1 of the IFEMA Madrid Exhibition Center (avenida del Partenón, 5)
2. Colita. Antifemina
Isabel Steva Hernández (Colita) and Maria Aurèlia Capmany, photographer and writer respectively, were the women responsible for publishing, at the time of the Transition, a document that can be considered the first openly feminist graphic book: Antifemina (1977).
It was soon withdrawn from the market, but in 2021 the publisher Terranova and the Barcelona City Council reissued and published it and now the CBA dedicates this exhibition to “vindicate the figure of two intellectual and brave women who fought in a convulsive time to dignify the fact of being a woman and speak of feminism, in a clear and direct way”.
🗓️ From February 29 to May 5, 2024
📍 Sala Goya del Círculo de Bellas Artes (calle de Alcalá, 42)
3. The Berlin Wall. A divided world
The berlin Park in Chamartín, is not the only place in the capital where a part of the wall that divided the German capital in two is preserved: the exhibition The Berlin Wall. A World Divided lands in Madrid with more than 20 meters of that historic wall, nearly 300 original objects and spy tools. Many of these objects are on display to the public for the first time thanks to the collaboration of the Berlin Wall Foundation.
🗓️ All month
📍 Canal Foundation (Castellana Room 214)
4. Goya. Awakening of consciousness
With this exhibition the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando makes a tour that shows the change between the artist’s production during his early years and his maturity. With a special feature: for the first time in history, all the plates that Goya conceived and used for the printing of his engravings have been restored.
🗓️ From March 22 to June 23, 2024
royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando (Calle de Alcalá, 13)
5. Chagall. A cry for freedom
The Mapfre Foundation has teamed up with La Piscine – Musée d’Art et d’Industrie André Diligent (Roubaix) and the Musée national Marc Chagall in Nice to present this extensive tour of Chagall’s work with a backbone: the idealism and belief in universal peace of an artist who not only lived through two world wars and an exile, but who knew how to capture with his particular look those beliefs in a painting with deep roots in the history of the twentieth century.
🗓️ From February 2 to May 5, 2024
📍 Recoletos Room (Paseo de Recoletos, 23)
6. The Art of Manga
Rare books, scrolls, woodcuts, paintings, manuscripts, posters, sculptures or comics. All these supports have a place in The art of manga, the Tribute exhibition to “pioneering and influential mangakas” behind classics such as Dragon Ball, Heidi, Marco, Naruto or One Piece. On the other hand, throughout the exhibition there will also be recreated elements of Japanese culture such as a traditional gate, a Zen garden or a Yokai temple.
🗓️ As of April 4, 2024
📍 Official College of Architects (COAM) (Calle de Hortaleza, 63)
7. Jurassic World by Brickman
More than 6 million LEGO® pieces were needed to assemble one of the most amazing exhibitions of the moment: Jurassic World by Brickman, the largest LEGO® made in Spain and featuring dinosaurs as the main characters. Specifically, more than 50 of these creatures have been recreated life-size for the enjoyment of young and old alike. The expo has different spaces and stages, as well as activities.
🗓️ Until May 26
iFEMA Madrid Exhibition Center (Avenida del Partenón, 5)
8. Love Me fast
Romantic love in times of Tinder and social networks. This is the theme of the small-format exhibition of the Asturian artist Noemi Iglesias Barrios, in which you can find pieces in materials and media as different as bronze, glass, video, photography and porcelain. And all of them, at the same time, question the notions of art and craftsmanship throughout history and today.
🗓️ Until April 28, 2024
📍 4 th floor of CentroCentro (Plaza de Cibeles, 1)
9. Here and now. Contemporary Czech comics
The Centro Checo Madrid, the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Madrid, the Casa del Lector and the Germán Sánchez Ruipérez Foundation join forces to present the exhibition Aquí y ahora. Contemporary Czech comics, which brings together works by 20 prominent Czech authors such as Pavel Čech, Jiří Grus, Karel Jerie and Štěpánka Jislová. These are representatives of three generations that have marked the last 20 years of comics and comic book production and this exhibition aims to highlight their variety, quality and international impact.
🗓️ From February 29 to September 9, 2024
📍 Casa del lector (Matadero Madrid. Paseo de la Chopera, 14)
10. Museum of Illusions
An experience that will test the limits of human brain perception. Optical and photographic illusions and amazing tricks follow one after the other in a tour where you can touch, experiment, jump… and take lots of photos of all the illusions that will leave you with your mouth open.
🗓️ Choose date when purchasing your tickets
📍 Museum of Illusions Madrid (calle del Doctor Cortezo, 8)
11. The intimate realism of Isabel Quintanilla
For the first time, the Thyssen is dedicating a monographic exhibition to a Spanish artist and has chosen Isabel Quintanilla from Madrid. An artist of intimate, close, everyday painting, which is shown through a selection of 90 works in which she portrays her own life. Domestic scenes, objects of the people she loved and landscapes take center stage in paintings that invite us to look for beauty in the smallest details of everyday life.
🗓️ From February 27 to June 2, 2024
📍 Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (Paseo del Prado, 8)
12. Sweet Space
10 interactive themed rooms and a world of candy and color to discover. That is Sweet Space’s bet: to offer an immersive experience that involves all the senses, especially taste. A sense that you can put to the test, for example, in its ice cream laboratory. The different scenarios of the tour have been designed by artists of the stature of Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada to create a unique and, without a doubt, instagrammableworld.
🗓️ Choose date when purchasing your tickets
📍 ABC Serrano (calle Serrano, 61)
13. I caught you among the leaves
Nine artists (Sophia Wong, Sofia Perdomo, Gin Ro, Cristobal Ascencio, Genesis Valenzuela, Youssef Taki, Megane Mercury, Yun Ping, and Run X) and one theme: the family album. Through different languages such as photography, video, sculpture or installation, they all portray “how families, in all their diverse manifestations, are reconfigured by processes such as migration, the search for identity and the construction of community”, understanding and expanding the concept beyond blood ties.
🗓️ Until May 19, 2024
📍 Sala de Arte Joven (avenida de América, 13)
14. Velázquez Tech: a museum just for Las Meninas
This museum is entirely dedicated to one of the most iconic figures in Velázquez’s paintings: the Meninas. Its commitment as a multisensory and interactive museum will make you not only a visitor, but also an active participant during the tour: you can visit the Alcazar room where the painting was painted, design your own Meninas and even talk to Velázquez through holograms.
🗓️ Choose date when purchasing your tickets
📍 Velázquez Tech Museum (calle de Atocha, 12)
15. The collection of the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia. Between Bosch and Sorolla
One of the most outstanding exhibitions of the moment, as the Museu de Belles Arts de València brings to the capital part of its collection for the first time. In total, more than 100 works will be exhibited in the form of a chronological tour through the Valencian museum’s holdings, from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century. Thus, the public will find works by artists such as Juan de Juanes, El Bosco, Marteen de Vos, José de Ribera, Rubens, Benlliure, Ignacio Pinazo, Muñoz Degrain… And, of course, the Valencian painter of light par excellence: Sorolla.
🗓️ From February 28 to July 14, 2024
maría Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation (calle Alcalá Galiano, 6)
16. The last days of Pompeii
An exhibition that fits into the category of immersive exhibitions and that allows -or rather, recreates the illusion of- the impossible: to walk through the streets of Pompeii, to know the lifestyle of those who lived there, their Customs or their gastronomy before the tragic outcome that made it disappear. The Last Days of Pompeii recreates those last days of the city and its people and also the moment of the eruption of Vesuvius.
Defined as a “virtual adventure” on the website of Madrid Artes Digitales (MAD), during the tour of the exhibition the public will be able to contemplate a “select collection of archaeological pieces”, walk through the Villa of the Mysteries, interact with different elements or star in a gladiatorial fight.
🗓️ As of September 2023
📍 Madrid Artes Digitales (Nave 16 de Matadero. Plaza de Legazpi, 8)
17. Antoni Tàpies. The practice of art
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Antoni Tàpies’ birth, there are several tributes to the artist in the form of exhibitions, such as the one organized by the Museo Reina Sofía and the Fundació Antoni Tàpies. This is the largest monographic exhibition to date of the Catalan with 220 works, from both international collections and family loans. It traces his artistic production from 1943 to 2012, paying special attention to his unique identity, experimentation with materials and his reflections on painting and representation.
🗓️ From February 21 to June 24
📍 Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (calle de Santa Isabel, 52)
18. Exhibitions of the reopened ABC Museum
After four years of closure, the ABC Museum reopens its doors to the public with free tickets and houses the ABC Collection, considered an Asset of Cultural Interest and consisting of 150,000 graphic pieces and engravings. Its hours are from 10 am to 9 pm and it resumes its activity with exhibitions such as La jaula de los monos. 6 looks at the ABC collection o Este Madrid, by Andrés Trapiello: a tribute to the city curated by writer and journalist Andrés Trapiello.
🗓️ Various dates (more info on their web)
📍 ABC Museum (Amaniel St., 29)
19. Jordi Socías. At the end of the escapade
One of the photography exhibitions of the season is the one that the Sala Canal de Isabel II is dedicating to the Barcelona photographer Jordi Socías, responsible for having portrayed some of the most important personalities of culture such as Jorge Luis Borges, Paloma Picasso, Francis Ford Coppola, Ai Weiwei, Dalí, Rossy de Palma and Pedro Almodóvar… Photographs (some of them unpublished), magazine and book covers and interiors are spread over four floors to showcase his professional and personal career.
🗓️ From February 22 to April 21, 2024
Canal de Isabel II Hall (calle de Santa Engracia, 125)
20. On the move. National Heritage vehicles and carriages
While perhaps the first thing you think of when you think of a sedan is a type of candy, it also designates a type of horse-drawn four-wheeled vehicle. And in the first temporary exhibition of the Royal Collections Gallery a sedan can be seen, among other vintage vehicles that have been used by the monarchy throughout its history to move around.
The exhibition is located on the third floor of the building and you can find carriages, vehicles, sleds or a travel litter that allow the public to approach “the history of the carriage in Spain and its role as a representation of power, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century,” says Patrimonio Nacional.
🗓️ Until June 2024
📍 Galería de las Colecciones Reales (Calle de Bailén, s/n)
21. 440 Spanish Theater
The Teatro Español celebrates its 440th anniversary this year, making it the oldest theater in Europe, and does so with this exhibition to pay tribute to its history. The exhibition gathers documents, anecdotes and images to show visitors the legacy of this theatrical institution from three points of view: that of the artists, that of the public and that of the professionals.
🗓️ Until July 14, 2024
📍 Teatro Español (calle del Príncipe, 25)
22. Hell and Wonders
The National Library inaugurates a new exhibition space in its basement and opens with the exhibition El infierno y las Maravillas (Hell and Wonders), which unveils treasures from the library and is coherently located in the place known in the world as “hell”, where the hidden institutions hid their books. It is distributed throughout four rooms with different themes, and covers authors as diverse as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Marshall McLuhan, Carl Sagan, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Joan Brossa, María Zambrano and Italo Calvino.
📍 S panish National Library (Paseo de Recoletos, 20-22)
And if you prefer to see free exhibitions at night…
The Prado at night
From March 2, El Prado resumes the Program that began last year of night visits to some of its exhibitions on the first Saturday of each month, between 8:30 pm and 11 pm. Access, through the door of the Jerónimos, is free until full capacity is reached. And due to the success of the previous call, it is advisable to go with time.
Temporary exhibitions at the Thyssen
The Thyssen is another museum that offers free evening visits on weekends, specifically on Saturdays, to visit its temporary exhibitions at no cost. They will also start on March 2, from 9pm to 11pm with free access until full capacity is reached. And for the time being it is an initiative that will continue until January 2025.