Ocaña high in the sky: the Reina Sofía's new permanent collection has a strong Catalan accent

MadridIn the 1970s, Joan Miró's fame was worldwide. Some of the world's most important museums, including the MoMA in New York and the Tate Gallery in London, dedicated exhibitions to him. But accolades didn't soften Miró's spirit, and in the 1974 exhibition at the Grand Palais and the Centre Georges Pompidou, he presented a series of burned canvases. Yes, Miró remained a radical painter, and his gesture can also be interpreted as an act of protest at the end of the Franco regime. Now, one of these canvases, owned by the Fundació Joan Miró, occupies a prominent place at the beginning of the revamped tour of the museum's permanent collection. Reina Sofía Museum From 1975 to the present. Fire and more fire: alongside them, you can see some of the engravings from Picasso's Vollard Suite that were damaged during an attack on the Theo Gallery in Madrid perpetrated by the Guerrillas of Christ, who considered Picasso "a Marxist, homosexual, and pimp."

"In uncertain times like these, we don't just aim to imagine futures, but the fundamental task of the museum is to try to recognize in the past and present those desirable futures that were already there or are there now. This, we believe, is the fundamental task we face," says Manuel Segade, the museum's director, along with the president of the museum's board of trustees, Ángeles González-Sinde; the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun; and the museum's deputy director, Amanda de la Garza.

The renovation of this part of the permanent collection comes five years after the one carried out by his predecessor, Manuel Borja-Villel. Now the 15M banners have disappeared, along with the obvious desire to criticize the festivities of the 1992 Seville Universal Exposition and those responsible for the disaster. tar and the housing crisis and evictions. Meanwhile, Afro-Spanish artists are included. "The same social movements that were represented until now are present, but now they are represented in works of art; I think that's the difference. On this floor, we demonstrate extreme confidence in art to address social and political problems, and the document takes a back seat," says Segade.

The new exhibition includes 403 works by 224 artists, 173 of whom are Spanish. Thirty-five percent are women, the highest figure ever reached by the museum, although they still want to go further. And 258 works are being shown for the first time. Seventy of the works were acquired in the last three years, 36 of them by women artists. And all of them are organized into three thematic itineraries spread across 21 chapters: A history of emotions in contemporary art, The Powers of Fiction: Sculptures, New Materialisms, and Relational Aesthetics and A new framework. The institution, the market, and the art that transcends them."It's a collection that's constantly being revised," says Segade, who plans to continue renovating the other floors of the museum: in 2027, the renovated section covering the 1950-1970 period will open, and in 2028, the section dedicated to the avant-garde.

The portraits that Miquel Barceló made of Hervé Guibert

Within the itineraries there are areas dedicated to cruisingthe AIDS pandemic, the ravages of heroin, grief, and the photography and video art of the 80s. In many of these itineraries, the presence of Catalan artists is significant: in the field of counterculture, Ocaña shines, with theGlorious AssumptionNazario, with a string of original comics from the Lafuente Archive; and a 1961 film by filmmaker Jacint Esteve dedicated to the transvestite Margarita. Later, one of the exhibition's highlights features Miquel Barceló: instead of placing him among the painters of his generation, Segade situates him within the AIDS movement in a room filled with previously unseen portraits that Barceló made of the French artist Hervé Guibert, a pioneer who died from AIDS-related complications. "They began as a critic and an artist and later became friends. Miquel had never exhibited these portraits, nor had he sold them. They are important works, and if you look at the details, the yellow in the background is actually an acid, because Barceló used acid directly to fuse the surface of the paintings in the box." Segade.

The first room ofThe powers of fiction It is dominated by a gigantic panel by the architect and artist Juan Navarro Baldeweg, filled with his recurring elements. It is surrounded by a string of artists, including Sergi Aguilar. Very close by, Don't overdo it with the emergency stairs Remember that in the 1990s Susana Solano was one of the great innovators of sculptural language beyond Spain.

Among the artists of the latest generations, you can also see a legendary piece from when David Bestué and Marc Vives formed an artistic duo. Actions at homeA work brimming with humor. "They created it for a young artists' competition in Sant Andreu and ended up exhibiting at the Venice Art Biennale. What these two artists did was reinterpret art history with a great deal of humor," says Segade. "Humor is fundamental in contemporary art," he emphasizes. Among the younger artists is also Mònica Planes, whose work on sculpture can be seen on display.Hermaphrodite from the Prado Museum.