The Autonomous Community of Madrid’s CA2M opens a major exhibition of its collections: Dialecto CA2M

September 16, 2021  - The Autonomous Community of Madrid’s Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo Museum opens the season with a major exhibition of the Collection: Dialecto CA2M, which can be seen from October 21^st. For the first time, over 400 pieces by 250 artists come together in an exhibition that showcases the CA2M collections, taking up the entire museum space.

It is a celebration of the type of museum that was envisioned when the CA2M was founded, a museum with a permanent exhibition that would provide an account of Madrid’s contemporary art history, as told from Móstoles.

Installing the CA2M collections for the first time all over the building, occupying every space, responds to the desire to explain its raison d'être, to show publicly the reason for its programme and, above all, the importance of a collection built up collectively since the mid-1980s. The exhibition consists of thirteen chapters, introducing important figures from the international scene in order to also display the cosmopolitan nature of its collections.

A dialect is a common language that has been slightly transformed to suit a particular context, with features pertaining to a particular place. The language of the exhibition will also be dialectal: The montage will be different in each room and use an original approach.. Carrying on from the research previously carried out for other collection exhibitions, and irrespective of the fact that the usual spaces are neutrally objective, each period will be laid out differently, with its own particular montage.

Many of the pieces have never been shown before, as they are the result of the important acquisitions effort and of the Collection’s work in recent years.

EXHIBITION ROUTE

The exhibition’s journey begins with the historical avant-garde – featuring all the artists who accompanied Picasso at the Pavilion of the Spanish Republic - “The promise of modernity”, followed by “Tradition and desire under Franco”. "The many beginnings of contemporary art" will tell the story of the different simultaneous beginnings of experimental art in different places: the Centro del Cálculo at the University of Madrid, Catalan conceptualism, the Zaj group and the pioneering figures in Latin America and the United States.

Continuing with the early 1980s and the consolidation of the national and international art market, these stories are told in "The most painted painting" and "Facing the second modernity". "Junkie Genealogy / The aesthetics of AIDS" explains a particularly important critical representation moment that led to a revival in conceptualism in Spain, which was called "The cold auras”. The relationship between La Movida madrileña and the construction of an institutional panorama for contemporary art are reflected in "Spain on fire" and "The expansion of new artistic behaviours".

The art of recent decades is divided into two large spaces: "Art and politics of representation in Madrid" and "The world is a stage for objects". As befits the very nature of the Collection, there is also a special section dedicated to photography: "A small history of photography". Finally, in "What if you do it yourself?", the public will be able to create their own exhibition with a selection of pieces from the collections and then view the video art and exhibition films at their leisure.

Big names, from Picasso to Ana Laura Aláez, Eduardo Arroyo, Antonio Ballester Moreno, Equipo 57, Equipo Crónica, Carlos Garaicoa, Luis Gordillo, Esther Ferrer, Joan Fontcuberta, Cristina Iglesias, Teresa Lanceta, Eva Lootz, Cristina Lucas, Ramón Massats, Antoni Muntadas, Isabel Muñoz, Teresa Margolles, Juan Muñoz, Palazuelo, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Richard Serra, Teresa Solar or Miguel Trillo, write a history of Contemporary Art told from Móstoles.