This celebratory exhibition of the opening of the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía amalgamates three internationally renowned Spaniards: Eduardo Chillida, Antonio Saura and Antoni Tàpies beside three of the finest artistsom the second half of the twentieth century: Georg Baselitz, Cy Twombly and Richard Serra. The lack of historical and stylistic common ground that joins them here as well as the origins and diverse time periods of each has led the art critic, Francisco Calvo Serraller, to call the confluence an “eccentric encounter” in the exhibition notes. Having said that, is is in fact possible to consider the convergence of some of them in terms of the purpose and intent of their work. For instance, Saura clearly shares certain Expressionist references with Baselitz; the poetic and gestural nature of the material and the presence of calligraphy are also common in Tàpies and Twombly, and the preponderance of three-dimensions in Chillida's and Serra's work gives rise to analogical origins of their way of conceiving artistic creation.
Presented in the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Ileana and Michael Sonnabend's collection is an important testimony to twenty-five years of artistic activity in the United States and Europe. Many of the works in this collection are key to understanding the art of our times; it encompasses many of the predominant art movements, such as Pop Art, Minimal Art, Arte Povera, Antiform, Conceptual Art, American and German Expressionism, Neo-minimalism, Neo-conceptualism and multimedia practices.
A selection of the best works from the Beyeler Collection is presented for the first time in public. The exhibition in the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía brings together previous exhibits devoted to private collections, for instance the Panza di Biumo, Nasher, Sonnabend and Phillips collections.
The works that make up the exhibition Visiones paralelas. Artistas modernos y arte marginal (Parallel Visions. Modern Artists and Marginal Art) encompass questions on the limits of art and the nature of artistic activity - while incorporating romantic traditions and examining the same definition of what art is, this debate looms over twentieth century culture. The studies of Sigmund Freud devoted to the artistic-therapeutic production of psychiatric patients at the beginning of the century and the publication of doctor Hans Prinzhorn's book Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (1922)(Artistry of the Mentally Ill), which includes a collection of art created by the mentally ill and serves as an introduction to their images, form the primary foundations of the search and defence of a new model and paradigm of artistic creativity throughout the first half of the century, expounded by an ongoing reinvention that is not tarnished by established or received culture and traditions. By way of a chronological journey through twentieth-century art, and through premises of dialogues on formal analogies and historical relations, this exhibition endeavours to render the close relationship and interchanges between modern art and the artistic output of marginalised, alienated, mentally ill, self-taught and compulsive visionary figures.
Unlike other collections such as the Guggenheim, Nasher, Beyeler, Panza di Biumo, Gelman and Sonnabend collections, all of which have been exhibited in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Grothe Collection is remarkable in that is focuses on a very specific number of artists yet forms a complete and representative selection of the artistic career of each and every one.