MUSEO REINA SOFÍA

Description

Essentials about the Museo Reina Sofía in brief

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (usually just called “Museo Reina Sofía” for short) is one of the most important and most visited museums of modern and contemporary art in the world. Along with the Museo del Prado and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, it is one of the three major museums on Madrid’s Art Mile. Opened in 1992, the museum is a complement to the Museo del Prado with artists from the end of the 19th century to the present day. The works on display by modernist masters such as Dalí, Miró, Juan Gris and Picasso are among the most important of their time.

The building of the Museo Reina Sofía

The Museo Reina Sofía is housed in a former hospital designed by architect Francesco Sabatini at the end of the 18th century. The ever-growing collections made an extension necessary, which was inaugurated in 2005 according to plans by the French star architect Jean Nouvel. The museum also has two other outposts in Madrid, the Velázquez Palace and the Crystal Palace in Retiro Park, where temporary exhibitions and art installations are shown.

The exhibition in the Museo Reina Sofía

The time travel through the history of modern art in Spain is divided into three sections: “The 20th century dawns: Utopias and Conflicts (1900 – 1945),” “Is the War Over? Art for a Divided World (1945 – 1968)” and “From Revolt to Postmodernism (1962 – 1982).”

The first section is devoted to the crossroads of modernism and tradition at the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, with works by Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa, José Gutiérrez Solana, and Medardo Rosso, among others. This is followed by the great era of the European avant-garde, with works by world-famous artists such as Picasso and Juan Gris, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí.

The second section is dedicated to the two decades after World War II, when artistic discourse became more cryptic, existential and abstract. In this section, representatives of artist groups such as El Paso or Equipo 57 are exhibited, as well as important Spanish artists of the postwar period, with Antoni Tàpies, Jorge Oteiza or Esteban Vicente.

The third section of the collection focuses on the diverse concepts of contemporary art. Here, the question of what is actually art is highlighted, as well as topics such as social role models, the culture of the masses, and underground culture. The Zaj Group, Hélio Oiticica, Luis Gordillo, Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin, Gerhard Richter, Pistoletto or Marcel Broodthaers are to be mentioned as representatives of this period.