The Government delegate in Cantabria, Eugenia Gómez de Diego, has participated today in the presentation of the new exhibition season organized by the ENAIRE Foundation in the Naves de Gamazo, which starts programming with the ‘Ciria’ exhibitions. Painting, memory and time’, by José Manuel Ceria, and ‘Consciousness2’, a selection of photographs owned by the institution with which the permanent exhibition is renewed.
In his speech to the media, Gómez de Diego highlighted the “consolidation” of the Naves de Gamazo as a benchmark of culture in Santander and highlighted the “strong momentum” that the Government of Spain is giving to the most significant cultural projects that are materializing in the city.
As concrete examples of this commitment, he cited the associated headquarters of the Museo Reina Sofía – Archivo Lafuente, the new headquarters of the Museum of Prehistory and Archaeology of Cantabria (MUPAC), the rehabilitation of the Embarcadero Palace, the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art (MAS) or the restoration of the Menéndez Pelayo Library, all projects that have the support and “important contribution” of the Government chaired by Pedro Sánchez.
“It is a shared objective that Santander is a reference at national and international level, and this is another example that when the administrations collaborate, the common objectives materialize”, said the delegate of the Government, who has been convinced that the new exhibition season “will be a success”.
For Gómez de Diego, “culture is a fundamental instrument of social progress and equal opportunities”, and “it has various dimensions: some, which have to do with the growth of people, and others, as an important element of part of the economic development of the country”.
125,000 visitors
The Gamazo Naves are the first permanent headquarters of the ENAIRE Collection of Contemporary Art and were rehabilitated for this purpose by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility through the 2% cultural program.
The delegate has expressed thanks to the Foundation’s team, whose work is giving “visible results”: “The public responds and is growing, almost 125,000 people have visited this center until January 31, 2024. And thousands of people have been involved in cultural mediation activities.”
“The year 2024 will be even better. The Gamazo Ships are consolidated as another reference of culture in Santander and Cantabria; we are all in the same boat”, said Gómez de Diego, who also had words of thanks for the artist José Manuel Ciria and for the curator Marcos Ricardo Barnatán.
The presentation was attended by the managing director of the ENAIRE Foundation, Beatriz Montero de Espinosa; the president of the Port Authority, César Díaz; the general director of Culture of the Government of Cantabria, Juan Antonio González, as well as the artist himself, José Manuel Ciria, and Commissioner Marcos Ricardo Barnatán.
Exhibition ‘Ciria. Painting, memory and time’
José Manuel Ciria (Manchester, 1960) is considered one of the greatest representatives of abstract expressionism and one of the Spanish artists with the greatest international career. The exhibition, which will be open until June 2, delves into the most recent work of this artist that has been represented in the ENAIRE Collection of Contemporary Art since 1995.
Ciria is a painter and his life is painting. After many years of work and research, he has explored new forms of expression and created what he calls “anti-painting” (performances, sculptural paintings, collages, etc. ), but everything goes back to painting, as if it were the only truth for him.
The more than 30 works that make up the exhibition are a tribute to painting. While Ciria began working on figurative records, abstraction is revealed to her as the path of truth, as an “eternal” struggle between the chaos of expression and the order of geometry. And it is in that deep struggle, where Ciria finds the balance and develops her most personal and recognized language.
In this exhibition, the repetition in his work is the search within his subconscious, fleeing from the closest and known, in a courageous approach to the innermost of his creativity, seeking to explore his own limits.
On a visit to Santander Ciria, he meets his friend Marcos Ricardo Barnatán, an Argentine Hispanic writer, poet and critic who lives in Santander, who speaks with enthusiasm about an art center recently established in the city. Ciria visits the Naves de Gamazo, is enthusiastic about the space and proves that it is a project of the ENAIRE Foundation with whom she unites an artistic bond of almost 30 years.
Exhibition ‘Consciousness2’
The exhibition ‘Consciousness2’ brings together a selection of 15 photographs from the ENAIRE Collection of Contemporary Art. Through artistic beauty, this exhibition aims to provide unprecedented insights into the environmental, social and ethical challenges that we face and that are reflected in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Art undoubtedly plays a very important role in raising awareness in society. The gaze of art – whether of photography or of any other artistic manifestation – always represents an exercise in sensitivity to the great problems and challenges of today.
In recent years, the artists who annually participate in the ENAIRE Foundation Photography Award - some of whose images can be seen in this exhibition - have been shifting their gaze, increasingly intense and directly, towards the great challenges that contribute to the deterioration of the planet and the alienation of the human being.
Works by Santiago Sierra, Miguel Ángel Tornero, María Primo, Eduardo Nave. Jorge Fuenbuena or Estela de Castro, among others, can be seen in this exhibition with which the ENAIRE Foundation renews the cultural proposal of the Naves de Gamazo and which can be seen throughout this year.
