PHotoESPAÑA 2018

Each summer, Madrid becomes a major event for the world of visual arts and photography. With exhibitions in the main museums, halls and art galleries, as well as diverse activities  related to the chosen theme each year, PHotoEspaña offers the possibility to discover the latest tendencies in photographic art as well as the latest projects by the most internationally renowned artists.

The 2018 programme features 100 exhibitions, 514 artists and 62 venues. To celebrate the first 20 years of its history, PHotoEspaña has extended carte blanche to Cristina de Middel, who recently received the National Photography Award, inviting her to choose five of the festival's exhibitions. The theme of these is Players, and in them the artist pools together the works of various photographers with a shared outlook on photography, viewing it as a playful tool of exploration.

Three of the exhibitions selected by Cristina de Middel will be displayed at Fernán Gómez. Centro Cultural de la Villa: The Greatest Show on Earth, which focuses on the world of the circus, where anything is possible; Grand World Final, in which six representatives from five continents rebel against the laws of nature; and Odyssey, a retrospective devoted to Samuel Fosso, who uses portraiture as a mode of expression. Players is rounded out by the exhibitions Begin at the Beginning… And Go on Till You Come to the End: Then Stop, at CentroCentro, featuring works that blend photography with other languages, and Magnum Photographers Come out to Play, at Telefónica Foundation Space.

This year’s edition will feature some big Spanish names. The Cerralbo Museum will host the project Repose and Dizziness, for which National Visual Arts Award winner Carmen Calvo has retrieved photos from anonymous family albums from the 1940s and 50s. The Museum of Romanticism will revisit the pictorialism of Tomás de Acillona, while the ICO Museum will offer a retrospective on the work of Carlos Cánovas. In Myths of the 20th Century, the Canal Foundation will feature a unique selection of works by the great British portrait photographer Cecil Beaton, and Lázaro Galdiano Museum will pay tribute to French photographer Luis Masson, who conducted a complete topographical study of Spain in the 19th century.

Three themes in particular will play a prominent role in the Official Section: the practice of collecting, the environment and photography as a tool of social protest. In keeping with this, Círculo de Bellas Artes will explore the history of Russia in the first half of the 20th century with nearly 300 photographs from the Lafuente Archive, in the exhibition The Soviet Century. In s.m.a.r.t. Paths Towards Sustainability, the Royal Botanical Gardens will display a selection of works by prominent figures in photography that aims to raise public awareness about the challenges for sustainability. Fashion will also enjoy some time in the spotlight, in the exhibition Moda! Spanish Fashion Through Photography at the Garment Museum, which will feature roughly one hundred photographs that strike up a dialogue, as it were, with some twenty exclusive designs from the museum’s own collection.