We told you earlier this week: El Prado by night, the initiative that opens the doors of the art gallery on Saturdays at night, will be held again in 2025. As a result of this nighttime opening, the public will be able to visit two temporary exhibitions of the Prado completely free of charge.
These are the exhibitions Darse la mano. Sculpture and color in the Golden Age -which is sponsored by the AXA Foundation- and Sigmar Polke. Affinities Unveiled. As on previous occasions, they will be open from 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. and access is free of charge until full capacity is reached -once again, we recommend that if you want to go you do it in advance to ensure your entrance-.
In addition, visitors will also have access to the risen Christ by artist Giulio Clovio, recently donated to the museum by American Friends. It is a unique piece that until now was used for private worship -and the second we have preserved by the artist in Spain- inspired by Michelangelo’s David.
Shaking Hands. Sculpture and color in the Golden Age.
This impressive exhibition, located in rooms A and B of the Jerónimos building, brings together almost a hundred sculptures by great masters such as Gaspar Becerra, Alonso Berruguete, Gregorio Fernández, Damián Forment, Juan de Juni, Francisco Salzillo, Juan Martínez Montañés or Luisa Roldán.
The exhibition, the museum explains, “reflects on the success of Baroque polychrome sculpture and its complementarity with painting”. That is why also along the tour you can find “paintings and engravings that, as in a game of mirrors, emulate or reproduce them”.
Among the works on display are five recently acquired works that had not been shown to the public until now: Good and Bad Thief by Alonso Berruguete, St. John the Baptist by Juan de Mesa and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, belonging to a late medieval Castilian Descent from the Cross.
📅 Dates: from November 19, 2024 to March 2, 2025
Sigmar Polke. Affinities Unveiled
The second of the free exhibitions to be visited at El Prado -in rooms C and D of the Jerónimos building- is dedicated to the artist Sigmar Polke and is the German’s first solo show in Madrid.
An artist of great repercussion in the field of European contemporary art, whose work dialogues with Spanish painting. Especially with Goya’s, joining the work of “two artists separated by almost two centuries, but connected by their disruptive and visionary approach“, according to the gallery.
In total, more than forty pieces by the artist are on display , including paintings, photographs and drawings. Alongside them, works by Goya that are presented for the first time in Spain as Las viejas or El Tiempo ( 1810-12), owned by the Museum of Lille, whose X-ray is also shown to the public.
📅 Dates: from November 26, 2024 to March 16, 2025