Madrid,
This summer two years have passed since the opening, together with the Cathedral of the Almudena and the Royal Palace, of the Gallery of Reales, directed since last November by Víctor Cageao, who was a general coordinator of programming at the Prado Museum.
Coinciding with that anniversary, the center presents in the coming months, in its rooms dedicated to works of art treasured by Austrias and Bourbons, four interventions of contemporary artists who have integrated subtle in those funds and propose a rereading, necessarily contemporary, of the pieces that make up the real collection and the context in which they arose.
The project is called “Alterations. Gender, alterity and creative freedom” and, as Cageao explained, aims to enrich the visitor’s gaze with new perspectives, giving reasons to the gallery public to return again and again to its spaces.
In the Austrian room pieces of Mateo Maté and Diana Larrea have been installed. From the first we will contemplate, in the section dedicated to Felipe II, The spine girl (2016), a sculpture executed with the plaster emptying technique that reinterprets, making it a woman, the ESPINARY de Guglielmo Della Porta.
At first, we might seem a classic replica of that work, but Maté uses this transformation to raise questions of gender, sexuality and diversity. Its copy use serves the subversion of past normative ideals.
For its part, Diana Larrea, who for several years has disclosed in exhibitions and social networks the proposals of past artists, partially exposes her series of photographs Among the dead (2020), also in the field of Felipe II. It is one of the projects in which he has tried to recover those little -tracked genealogies of creative women, selecting and modifying a series of self -portraits to teach them through false cyanotypies. For this exhibition, the images corresponding to Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana and Artemisia Gentileschi, the three linked to the real collections have been chosen.
Meanwhile, works by Cristina Mejías and Cristina Lucas are waiting for us in the Bourbons. The first exhibits in the musical cabinet Double memory, tremor and overturn II (2022), one of the pieces that make up its series Mouth and bonewhere it affects the importance of oral communication as a route of knowledge transmission. These are sculptures that carried out from materials and techniques used by the Luthiers (his brother has a guitar workshop) and that are located halfway between crafts and contemporary creation.
From Lucas we will appreciate a textile work, in the field of Alfonso XIII. Is called Europe 1912-1945 (2017), is part of your project TUFting And he points out, by black embroidery, bombarded enclaves, paying tribute to their victims. It is no accident that you choose to display those Antimapas On that support: it refers, through it, to popular art associated with the duel and mainly made by women.
This exhibition proposal is accompanied this summer, in the Gallery of Real Collections, with others on findings of the Museum of America, the sample of marbles of the Royal Palace and with the presentation of a photographic work of Bleda and Rosa in the framework of Photospaña and the National Heritage Initiative Field notebooks. Is called The sun’s hours And it corresponds to a series developed in the Yuste Cácereño monastery: in the last dwelling of Carlos V, where he retired in his most delicate health stage, the monarch had the help of the watchman of the court, the Milanés Juanelo Turriano, to design a hydraulic system that would improve the use of the gardens and also to put the last watches that marked his hours.
The duo of photographers leads our gaze to three of those who were focuses of interest of Carlos V at that time: astronomy, botany and mechanical mills, in photos in which they also propose dichotomies between natural chaos and their human management, between the visions from the window and the palpable reality, the life (and its disorder) and its Renaissance vision.
This is the second episode of those Field notebooks: The first was in charge of Javier Vallhonrat and attended the sources of the farm of San Ildefonso.
Both samples are completed with a good number of activities to celebrate the second birthday of the Gallery of Real Collections: there will be dance by Sara Cano and Juan Berlanga (June 21 and 22); A dialogue between artists Mateo Maté, Diana Larrea, Cristina Mejías, Cristina Lucas and Antonio J. Sánchez Luengo, commissioner of the exhibition “Alterations” (June 24); Informal talks with conservatives of the Prado Museum, the National Museum of Decorative Arts, the Royal Tapestry Factory, the Museum of America, the National Archaeological Museum and the National Museum of Romanticism (23, 24, 25, June 26 and 27); Classical music in the rooms (June 27 and 28, July 1 and 2); Guided visits to warehouses (from June 30 to July 4); Summer cinema (from June 30 to July 3); and guided visits to the rooms (in June and July).
Finally, National Heritage has launched the interactive galeon application, which allows us to know more about the history of the Spanish monarchy, the real collections and the monumental buildings and natural spaces that this institution manages. We can navigate the biography of each monarch, know their role as a collector and travel the main historical, cultural and artistic events of his reign, in addition to learning from the palaces, monasteries, gardens and forests that are part of the real sites and the royal patronages and fundamental pieces that make up the real collections.
It can be accessed from here: https://galeon.patrimonionacional.es/
“Alterations. Gender, alterity and creative freedom”
Real collections gallery
C/ Bailén, s/ n
Madrid
From June 10 to September 21, 2025
