Coinciding with the festival of photography PHotoEspaña 2007, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía proposes a selective journey through photographs from its Collection. The selection of photographs shown in five different spaces and that have been established according to a reflexive link between the subjective perception of the spectator and the return of the look in the image.
The “Guerra Civil. Imagenes” begins the journey. In this section the photograph Arenga al más joven ejército posible (1939) by Juan Pando stands out, taken on a site attached to the Coliseum cinema in Madrid at the end of the Gran Vía, in February 1939, when the end of the war was imminent. In the composition of the group the look of two boys directly towards the photographer stands out.
Within the section devoted to the creative process of Guernica (1937) by Pablo Picasso, "Dora Maar y la metamorfosis del Guernica" exhibits a selection of eight photographs taken by Maar regarding the metamorphosis of Picasso’s painting.
“Surrealismo. Luces y sombras” is dedicated to surrealist film and photography. In their attempt to revolutionise the look, surrealists rejected the eye as an instrument of rational perception and vindicated inner search, imagination and psychic automatism. Added to the projection of the films by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, 'Un Chien Andalou' (1929) and 'L'âge d'or' (1930), is a series of photographs by Man Ray, André Kertész, Jean Moral, Brassaï, Nicolás de Lekuona, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Dora Maar. The tour stops with, among other images, portraits of blind people produced by Maar, with the well-known eye with crystal tears icon by Ray, and with the Valencian boy on his way home photographed by Cartier-Bresson.
“Re/tratos” In this portrait gallery -not only of people- there is another kind of look, from the defiant self-portraits of Mapplethorpe, the perverse attitude of Loretta Lux or the sensuality implied by transvestite Andy Warhol by Christopher Makos to the cocker spaniel’s tender expression by Amparo Garrido.
The end of the route is presented under the title “Arquitecturas (reflejadas)” a section that presents new architectural approaches, with large-format photographs taken by Andreas Gursky and Alejandro Garmendia, as well as works by Jan Fabre and Per Barclay, in which reflection, the inverted view and distortion are key perceptions.
