“Connections” is a project launched thanks to the collaboration of the ABC Museum and the Banco Santander Foundation in which an artist is invited to develop a collection of pieces that open a dialogue between a selected work of the Banco collection Santander and others taken from the ABC Museum funds. This initiative tries to promote the diffusion and artistic production around contemporary drawing, so the invited authors work almost exclusively on this discipline.

Guillermo Peñalver, “Yo, dibujando” (detail), 2019

For this 17th edition of the program, the curator Óscar Alonso Molina has invited Guillermo Peñalver. This illustrator and paper lover has been inspired by the work “Modulation number 66” (1976) by the Argentinian artist Julio Le Parc, from the Banco Santander collection, and from the ABC Museum he has chosen three illustrations: “Brígida y su Boda ”(1929), by Emilio Ferrer; “The boy and the showcase” (1924), by Ángel Díaz Huertas; and "The Manly Man" (1932), by Antonio Barbero. Around these selected pieces, Peñalver has developed a project that takes as a starting point his day to day in a precarious context in which the most common and homely actions mix with the time and space dedicated to the creation of his work.

Julio Le Parc, Modulation no. 66, 1976. Banco Santander Collection

Under the title "Autorretrato en interior", the artist recreates scenes of his daily life in pieces of large format that merge the technique of collage with the pencil drawing. Overlapping cut-offs of different papers, he plays with the many shades of white, from ivory to pearl. The images take us to a known environment, to everyday situations in which we can recognise ourselves and find our own personal history.

Guillermo Peñalver, “Ser tú” (detail), 2019

Peñalver wants to convey with this collection the presence that the creative spirit has in his daily life and the lack of resources that artists sometimes face. The scenes show a shared space, where the resting area and the workplace blend in, making it clear that it is not always possible to own a private studio to create; but, at the same time, it is remarkable the naturalness with which the artistic desire is part of the author's life hardly without transition between the different activities of his daily work.

Guillermo Peñalver, “Máscara”, 2018.

The author shares with the viewer the intimacies of this creative process, where the smallest detail can trigger a desire to cut, fold and draw. The set of pieces condenses that uncontrollable impulse to create, which permeates each of the elements of its reality. The result is an intimate and honest work, where situations and thoughts materialise in clean and delicate pieces that need attention, not only to notice the depth of the white colour, always used intentionally, but to discover all the details, the invisible work, the care put into these everyday scenes. Peñalver subtly opens his inner world for us to find him as a spy looking through a window, and faces the naturalness of the home and things done without artifice or imposture.

ABC Museum. "Autorretrato en interior" by Guillermo Peñalver. Until 15th September.

The cultural agenda gradually recovers after the health-crisis halt and art lovers are eager to enjoy the rich cultural offer that the different spaces and museums throughout our geography have to offer. In addition, one must remember that these centres have made an enormous effort to adapt to the demands that the new situation imposes and have created abundant online-accessible content to overcome confinement. We bring you a selection of content that can be visited both in person and through the web. There is no excuse for not enjoying contemporary art again.

Olafur Eliasson, “En la vida real (In real life)”, 2019

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao continues with its exhibition dedicated to Olafur Eliasson and offers numerous resources to understand not only the exhibition but also the work of the centre in the assembly and installation process. The website allows us to expand content with interviews with the artist, the download of the audio guide and the vision of the curator Lucía Aguirre, who offers us different video-pills on the pieces in the exhibition.

"Olafur Eliasson: in real life" brings together a part of this artist's work since 1990 through sculptures, photographs, paintings and installations that play with reflections and colours. Likewise, the integration of elements such as moss, water, ice, fog... put the visitor in a situation that confuses the senses and tries to challenge the way we perceive our environment and move in it.

Regina de Miguel, “Isla Decepción”, 2017

The Botín Centre in Santander hosts the exhibition "Collecting processes: 25 years of Itineraries" which brings together the work of 25 of the 210 scholarship recipients who, to date, have enjoyed the Botín Foundation Plastic Arts Scholarship, started in 1993. With the works Lara Almárcegui, Basma Alsharif, Leonor Antunes, Javier Arce, Erick Beltrán, David Bestué, Bleda and Rosa, Nuno Cera, Patricia Dauder, Patricia Esquivias, Karlos Gil, Carlos Irijalba, Adrià Julià, Juan López, Rogelio López Cuenca, Renata Lucas, Mateo Maté, Jorge Méndez Blake, Regina de Miguel, Leticia Ramos, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Teresa Solar Abboud, Leonor Serrano Rivas, Jorge Yeregui, David Zink-Yi, the exhibition is a good example of up-to-date and young contemporary art contributed by artists with very diverse profiles.

Clemente Bernad. Series “Ante el umbral”, Madrid, 2020

The Reina Sofía Museum wanted to create a visual chronicle of what the confinement and the tragic numbers of infected and deceased have meant for the lives of many of us: a tale of pain, nostalgia and uncertainty made by the photographer Clemente Bernad. This exhibition, curated by Jorge Moreno Andrés, is entitled “Before the threshold”, a title that expresses the strange sensation that occurs when faced with something new and unknown, something that we cannot control or avoid, and that we all must go through. The alteration imposed on our lives unexpectedly is reflected in the streets, transformed into places of solitude and abandonment where life has been paralysed.

Mario Merz / No title, Triplo Igloo, 1984 MAXXI Collection

At the IVAM, the exhibition "What is our home?" brings together works from the IVAM collection and the MAXXI centre in Rome to propose a reflection on the space we inhabit seen from a personal and social perspective. It is about investigating the value that these spaces have as a home or refuge, as well as part of a city or community.

The exhibition, curated by José Miguel G. Cortés, also wants to delve into the feeling of those who feel like foreigners anywhere, because they do not identify with the habits or customs of the society, they do not fit into these social patterns, and home becomes the only shelter space that can adapt to their identity needs.

Martha Rosler, frame from “Backyard Economy I-II”, 1974 © Courtesy of Martha Rosler, 2020

Es Baluard Museu is committed to video creation and performance and hosts the monographic exhibition “Martha Rosler. How do we get there from here?” dedicated to this New York artist who pioneered the use of video as a mechanism for social and political analysis. This exhibition includes various works, from video to photography and several publications, which synthesise her main lines of discourse. Her concern for public policies and the social equality of women has led her to actively participate in numerous social movements in La Havana, New York, Mexico DC or Barcelona, and these experiences are present in one way or another in her work.

With the curatorship of Inma Prieto, a selection has been made within the abundant production of this artist, which presents one of the most coherent careers in towards-the-new-Millenium contemporary art.

Image from file, via meiac.es/turbulence/archive/acceso.html

The MEIAC - Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo, host the works of the prestigious international digital art archive "Turbulence", a platform dedicated to network and hybrid art. In view of the inevitable closure of this institution, the MEIAC has offered to host all this valuable content collected since 1996. The uploading of the file also served as an opportunity to restore numerous pieces and convert formats so that files that had become obsolete remain readable by new systems. A huge job of conservation and updating that can be enjoyed online today. The archive is made up of hundreds of digital works from around the world that can now be visited remotely.