The Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory has presented today, in the Congress of Deputies and within the programming of the commemoration ‘Spain in freedom.50 years’, the catalogue of the exhibition ‘Art in the fight for freedom. Celebrating the Spanish Constitution 28.11.24-21.03.25’, organized by the Congress of Deputies, and the ministries of Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts, and Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory.
As Ángel Víctor Torres, Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, has pointed out, this is a “complete tour, in the form of pictorial works, sculptures, press clippings and posters, for our Constitution; and also for that Spain that was devoid of fear and looked with hope to the future. A future of hope that had been built with enormous sacrifices, above all, of the citizenship of our country, the true engine of change.”
The minister also wanted to underline that “art, in its secrecy and marginality, became a vehicle of resistance, a tool of struggle against the Franco regime.”
“Today we are reclaiming not only the text of the Constitution, but the democratic spirit that paid for its birth and that is reflected in each line of the works that make up this exhibition,” added Torres in the presentation, in which Francina Armengol, president of the Congress of Deputies, and Isabel García, curator of the exhibition, have also participated.
The catalogue presented today includes a reproduction of the 38 works on display, ranging from Joan Rabascall’s Mai 1968, created in 1968, to Marine Hugonnier’s Art for modern architecture, Coup d’état attempt by Tejero (24.02.1981), created in 2011. It is, therefore, and like the exhibition itself, a journey through almost 50 years of Spanish contemporary art. According to the curators of the exhibition, the aforementioned Isabel García and Javier Pérez, “only a glance like the artistic could offer a more or less approximate idea of that time of Spanish society.”
In this way, ‘Art in the Fight for Freedom’ aims for the public to embrace the same central idea of freedom that emanates from art; dividing the exhibition into three large blocks.
The first, ‘Claims and slogans at the end of the dictatorship’, begins with the inevitable shaking and aftershocks that the May of French 68 produced on Spanish soil – with works such as the aforementioned Mai 1968, by Joan Rabascall or the image 17 of May 1968, by Manuel Pérez Barriopedro – and continues with works such as El Tribunal de Burgos (1971), by Team Chronicle, La Getaway (1971), by Rafael Canogar, Spectator of Spectators (1972) of the Team Chronicle or Freedom (1974), by Agustín Ibarrola. The block ends with the games of textures and colors full of tension by Antoni Tàpies or Joan Miró, explicitly vindicating works such as Class Consciousness (1977) by Alberto Corazón, or iconic images of photographers such as Colita, Pilar Aymerich, Manel Armengol, or the creations for press of myths of cartoons such as Forges or Peridis.
In the second block, ‘Other looks in democracy’, art addresses the political violence present in those years with works such as Manuel Rivera’s Altarpiece for the Victims of Violence (1976-1978) or Juan Genovés’ iconic The Embrace (1976), as well as political criticism as in Portraits series 1977-1981 (Felipe González, Adolfo Suárez, Santiago Carrillo, Manuel Fraga Iribarne) 1981, by Alberto Schommer, or the denunciation of machista violence with La descargar, serie Violencia marisa, 1975-1976.
Finally, “New challenges, new visual languages”, addresses from the new languages of art topics such as environmentalism, the housing crisis, feminism, LGTBI equality, the HIV crisis, immigration or media criticism, with works among others by Joan Fontcuberta, Carmen Calvo, Ignasi Aballa or Pepe Espaliú
The exhibition can be seen until March 21, 2025 in offices of the Congress of Deputies, by appointment