La Arquería, New Ministries, Madrid (Spain)
The exhibition owes its name to the work of Antonio Buero Vallejo, "El tragaluz. It has been organized by the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory of the Ministry of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, the Enaire Foundation of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda and Spanish Cultural Action (ACE). It contains more than 600 original works from a wide range of cultural institutions such as the Museo Nacional del Prado, Centro documentary de la Memoria Historico de Salamanca, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, and Museo del Ejército, among others.
The exhibition puts us in front of the mirror of the multiple struggles for the achievement of freedom and democracy in Spain, and the individual and collective rights that we enjoy today. It consists of four thematic units, spanning chronologically from the mid-19th century until the end of the Franco dictatorship. El Tragaluz proposes a journey through the Revolution of 1868 - the Glorious - and the Democratic Sexennium, the processes of decolonization, the proclamation and development of the Second Republic, the coup d'état of 1936, the war that triggered the failure of this coup, the dictatorship of Franco and the origins of the Transition.
The struggles for rights and freedoms - including the abolition of the death penalty, the end of slavery, the advancement of women’s rights, rights of association and publication, secularism and religious freedom, universal suffrage, and finally the democratic system - had a very high social, political and human cost and involved both institutions and civil society.
It has been curated by Germán Labrador Méndez, professor at the University of Pricenton. With this exhibition, the Art Center of the Archery of the New Ministries is reopened after an important restoration that makes it an essential cultural reference of Madrid’s cultural life.
"The democratic skylight. Policies of life and death in the Spanish State (1868-1976)" can be visited until next July 23, from Tuesday to Saturday from 11 to 20 h and on Sundays and holidays from 11 to 13 h.