Milk, Snow, Tear, Hand. Blanca Sánchez’s Art of Making and Being

From 26 June to 9 October, the Reina Sofía Museum Library and Documentation Centre will be hosting an exhibition devoted to Blanca Sánchez Berciano (Madrid, 1948–2007), a Spanish exhibition curator, cultural manager and collector considered to be the driving force and a key figure in the Madrid Movement.

The exhibition highlights her creative drive from the field and her use of collage as a methodology to build a conceptual reality based on the articulation of visual and material fragments. Built on various documents, Milk, Snow, Tear, Hand reviews Sánchez’s work and studies the ways in which she became a key figure on Madrid’s cultural scene over the past fifty years. Her presence is invoked in the anonymous piece that is the title of the exhibition, kept in the Blanca Sánchez Berciano Archive. Blanca, in a glass of milk. Everyday Blanca, raw and ephemeral like snow. Blanca, who feels deeply, who cries and laughs and who asks us to stretch out our hands to one another.

Blanca Sánchez Berciano trained in London, Frankfurt, Paris and Cologne. She returned to Franco’s Madrid in 1971. Throughout her career spanning almost forty years, she worked with teams like the Vandrés Galleries (1971–1980) and Vijande Galleries (1981–1986), as well as the Fine Arts Circle (1992–2006).  Although many of the materials on display offer an insight into the vibrant Madrid Movement, the exhibition covers her entire career. 

The exhibition has been organised by a group of students within the Curatorial Studies topic  of the MA in Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture, organised by the Autonomous University of Madrid, the Complutense University of Madrid and the Reina Sofía Museum

Image Credit:

• Unknown author, [Blanca Sánchez reflected in a mirror, applying eye make-up], ca. 1975