Museums and galleries are much more than art galleries, in fact, photography exhibitions are repeated every season. Although the high point is when it starts PHotoEspaña fortunately, the capital always has spaces dedicated to the art of containing the instant. The halls and foundations also dedicate part of their programming to it, enriching even more the cultural offer that every month is full of art exhibitions in the capital.
1. Exhibition by Jordi Socías: At the end of the escapade
Since his famous portrait of Dalí, in which Jordi Socías only needed to capture half of a close-up of the painter’s face to capture its essence, his lens has captured characters such as Borges, Paloma Picasso, Francis Ford Coppola or Ai Weiwei. The Canal de Isabel II Hall opens its doors to an exhibition that brings together the career of photographer Jordi Socías to the present day. More than five decades of iconic images that began in the late 1970s.
Since February 22
Canal de Isabel II Hall (calle de Sta Engracia, 125)
2. Christer Strömholm
The Mapfre Foundation presents the work of Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm in this retrospective that touches on all aspects of his prolific career. From his time with the German group Fotoform, his fixation with assemblages of objects in the final stage of his career, his travels, street life through his lens, to the portraits he made of different artists, always with a light touch of irony and humor.
Until May 5
Mapfre Foundation (paseo Recoletos, 23)
3. FLAMENCO Chipén
FLAMENCO Chipén is a journey through the 150 years that dancing, guitar playing and singing have been established in Madrid. The exhibition is divided into five sections that review the history of flamenco in the capital, taking as a starting point the first documentary reference on flamenco: an article published in the newspaper El Espectador in 1847, entitled Un cantante flamenco.
The exhibition has more than 150 pieces gathering posters, costumes of some of the main referents such as Camarón, Enrique Morente or Paco de Lucía, archive documents and press articles, together with photographs by Nicolás Müller, Martín Santos Yubero, Ramón Zabalza or Alberto García Alix.
Until May 17
El Águila (3, Ramírez de Prado St.)
4. A romantic portrait. La carte de visite.
Before people even dreamed of texting, there were profile pictures. The exhibition A Romantic Portrait: The carte de visite presents a curious and very incipient moment in the history of photography in Spain.
The exhibition features a selection of business cards from the pioneers of portrait photography in Madrid during the initial expansion of commercial photography on paper, between approximately 1858 and 1865. These “visiting letters” became a social phenomenon in the second half of the 19th century, with a growing demand that led to competition between studios and lower prices, democratizing access to portrait art for various social classes.
Until September 17.
Regional Library of the Community of Madrid Joaquín Leguina (Ramírez de Prado Street, 3)
5. Reinventions. The ubiquity of identities in Caribbean photography
Casa de América has the photography exhibition Reinvenciones. The ubiquity of identities in the photographic from the Caribbean which is divided into two interconnected parts. The first focuses on the historical photography of the Dominican Republic after the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo (1930-1961), which replaced an earlier style that was more idealized and linked to the regime. This section explores the origins of contemporary Dominican photography and its contribution to the formation of a new national imaginary, and points out the significant social and spatial referents of Caribbean society since the 1960s.
The second part, entitled Sujeto encontrado, addresses contemporary production and how the new photographic language of the Caribbean has developed, showing its influence on the diversity of identities present in the region.
Until March 23rd
Casa de América (Plaza Cibeles, s/n)
6. A paradigm shift
The Sala de Arte Joven presents the photography exhibition A Paradigm Shift, where 15 artists question recurring themes in today’s society, such as power structures, gender, race, technology and ecology. Through an artificially generated text that introduces the show, tendentious ideas about the current landscape of photography and the need for a change of perspective are explored.
Until March 10
Sala de Arte Joven (avenue de América, 13)
Photography exhibitions in Madrid are one of the cultural oases that winter offers us. It is a way of transporting us to stories, towns and people of different times, in their most realistic, almost documentary versions and also in the most dreamlike and experimental ones.