The XVIII edition of the PHotoEspaña International Photography and Visual Arts Festival will present, from the 3rd of June to the 30th of August 2015, a programme made up of 101 exhibitions with works by 395 artists — 206 from Latin America, 104 Spaniards and 85 from another 18 nationalities — and a broad programme of parallel activities. Madrid, Alcalá de Henares, Alcobendas, Cuenca, Getafe, Huete, Lanzarote and Zaragoza will be the official premises for the Festival, which this year will deal with Latin American photography.
PHotoEspaña is now 18 years old, a period in which it has increased its map and calendar. From being an annual event in Madrid it has gone on to be a brand that impresses its seal through a vast range of activities which, having their origin in the Festival, have taken on an identity of their own. This is the case of Trasatlántica PHotoEspaña, the Alcobendas PHotoEspaña PIC.A International School, PHotoEspaña.br and OjodePez Photo Meeting Barcelona. PHotoEspaña has created a management model with an international vision that grows due to the sum of efforts, to a system of collective financing, to its sustainability and flexibility and to its great capacity for communication and openness to new publics. A model that allows the projects to mutually enrich each other, knowing that in the current context they cannot be unilateral but must involve participation and dialogue.
With this model as its support, PHE15 is presenting an exhibition and activities programme that deals with Latin American photography through its institutions and arts centres, its artists, specialists and curators, its collections and legacies, with the aim of showing a view of the photography of the continent from inside. With their support, added to that of the public administrations, businesses and brands that make the Festival possible each year, PHE is showing the energy that the photography medium of Latin America unfolds through classical authors, contemporary creators and collective views. A Festival built with a clear vocation for reciprocation and participation through the wealth, effervescence and solidity of Latin American photography.
If PHotoEspaña today is a group phenomenon it is thanks to the institutions, foundations, administrations, businesses, arts centres, galleries, artists and visitors and a major team in which people play a fundamental role. With the aim of inviting civil society and the business world to support one of the most important events on an international level, the programme of PHotoEspaña Patrons is born.
See You Over Here. Latin American Photography
PHotoEspaña 2015 presents classical authors with international recognition or who are deserving of such. The Círculo de Bellas Artes is receiving the work of Lola Álvarez Bravo, one of the most prolific Mexican photographers of the XX and a key figure in the post-revolutionary artistic renaissance in Mexico, thanks to the photographic collections of the Televisa Foundation. In its premises in Serrano 26 the Loewe Foundation is presenting the work of Tina Modotti, a photographer and intellectual with a thrilling biography and a small legacy of images, most of which were taken in Mexico over only six years. The CSIC–Royal Botanical Gardens is welcoming the work of the Guatemalan photographer Julio Zadik, a person to be discovered thanks to close collaboration with his Estate. The Cerralbo Museum is presenting one of the least known facets of Korda in the exhibition Female Portrait, produced by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. Bank of America Merrill Lynch is presenting a selection from the holdings of its collection around the figure of the “Mexican Maestro” Manuel Carrillo at the Lázaro Galdiano Museum. A more anthropological gaze on Latin American photography is been offered by In the Gaze of the Other. Historical Photography from Ecuador: Breaking into the Amazon, a photographic set that bears witness to western penetration into the Amazon presented by the Ecuadorian National Institute for Cultural Heritage.
The programme includes artists who have marked out Latin American photographic creation over the last 40 years. The CSIC–Royal Botanical Gardens is welcoming the first retrospective in Europe of the Brazilian Mario Cravo Neto, with urban photographs of New York and Salvador de Bahia, in Brazil, and his respective studio works. The Telefónica Foundation Space is organising Constellations of the Intangible, over 200 works by one of the most outstanding authors in contemporary Latin American photography: Luis González Palma. At the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Ana Casas Broda is presenting Kinderwunsch, an intimate and personal work from the Televisa Foundation Photography Collections, in which she introduces the spectator to the experience of motherhood.
CentroCentro Cibeles is offering two group gazes. Latin Fire. Other Photographs from a Continent 1958-2010. Anna Gamazo de Abello Collection is a selection from one of the most important Latin American holdings in Europe, showing, with over 180 works by about 60 artists, some little-known facets of Latin American photography. Revealing and Detonating. Photography in México, ca. 2015, organised with the Televisa Foundation, Conaculta / Centro de la Imagen and with the collaboration of the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Relations and AMEXCID, reviews the photographic production in today’s Mexico through the gazes of 52 authors who open up a debate about contemporary photographic production.
The National Chalcography is exhibiting the collective Central American Network, a collective look at migration, five photographic projects about the phenomenon of migration to the United States. The Casa de América is welcoming Latin America is a Town to the South of the United States, an exhibition produced by The Folio Club and Hahnemühle with the support of AECID, which presents works reviewed in the different activities developed within the framework of Trasatlántica PHE in the form of a list of musical reproduction. The dialogue among visual languages on each side of the Atlantic is established in Resonancias, a common project between the Brazilian artist Ding Musa and the Spaniard Iñaki Domingo, which will be shown at the La Fragua. Tabacalera Promoción del Arte, by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport.
Multiplicity of Photographic Proposals
PHE15 opens its programme to works proposed beyond Latin American photography. The ICO Museum is presenting Building Worlds. Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age, an exhibition curated and organised by the Barbican Centre, which explores the symbiotic relationship between photography and architecture through 18 photographs such as Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Ed Ruscha, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Guy Tillim and Bernd and Hilla Becher, among others.
The Polish Institute of Culture is presenting, at the National Museum of Natural Sciences, Heave Away, a photographic essay by Janek Zamoyski about the 21 days of crossing from Spain to Latin America that Columbus took on his second journey to the New World. The Museo Reina Sofía is participating in PHE15 with the group exhibition Not Yet. On the Reinvention of the Documentary and the Critique of Modernity, an approximation to the debates that took place in the 70s and 80s on the documentary genre. The National Library of Spain will receive the exhibition The Best Photography Books of the Year, produced by Sago.
Spanish Photograph, also a protagonist
As in every edition, PHE15 keeps its eye on Spanish creation. The Community of Madrid is organising two exhibitions by two major creators: Chema Madoz is presenting his most recent work in the Sala Alcalá 31, while Enrique Meneses is the protagonist of a major retrospective, the first one after his death, at the Canal de Isabel II.
Historical photography is the protagonist in two exhibitions. At the Espacio M125 at the Sala de Bóvedas de Conde Duque Mahou is exhibiting over 5,000 glass plates corresponding to the archive of the Almayso studio, revealing the passion for photography felt by Alfredo Mahou y Solana, head of the first Mahou brewery. The National Library is organising Gazes on Architecture: Monumental Photography in the Nineteenth Century, a review of its holdings that creates a narration of architectural photography in the nineteenth century, with works by Le Clercq, Clifford and Laurent and others from the Prado Museum and the Bibliothéque Nationale.
In turn, Matadero Madrid is offering the contemporary view of Florentino Díaz, whoreflects on the history of Europe over the last century, taking inspiration from the book by Walter Benjamin, The Book of Passages, as well as a showing of the works of the winners of the Descubrimientos PHE Award. Besides, Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo- CA2M will host This has-not-yet-become, a selection of works from the CA2M Collection and the ARCO Foundation Collection.
Alcalá de Henares, Alcobendas, Cuenca, Getafe, Huete and Zaragoza, premises for PHE15
Cultural institutions, galleries and exhibition centres in these five cities join PHE15 with a programme that is diverse, plural and open to all tendencies and photographic styles.
Alcobendas is participating with six solo exhibitions and two group exhibitions. The Centro de Arte Alcobendas is presenting the work of the Spanish artists Jorge Fuembuena, José Guerrero and Miguel Ángel Tornero, as well as that of the Chilean artist Magdalena Correa and the Argentinean Mariela Sancari, who is presenting Moisés, a project with which she obtained the Descubrimientos Award at PHE14. The same centre is organising Transvisiones, a programme of artistic residences in art centres throughout the world that culminates with an encounter and an exhibition. The Anabel Segura Cultural Centre will be exhibiting the work of Antonio Olazábal and the collective Instante continuo, with the works of the students from the PHotoEspaña Masters. Artistic Theory and Practices at the PIC.A Alcobendas PHotoEspaña International School.
At the Centro de Historias building the Zaragoza City Council is exhibiting two exhibitions. Bonadies+Caula: Cartographies of a Shared Territory, a dialogue between two photographers from two different generations: the Argentinean artist Ángela Bonadies and the Venezuelan Tito Caula, works taken from the Venezuela Urban Photography Archive. Schapiro. Retrospective, reviews the 50 years of the professional career of a photographer who documented the society of the United States and its myths. At La Lonja there is Nicolás Muller. Master Works, a re-reading of the work of an author who is exceptional due to his value and artistic quality through 125 photographs taken in Hungary France, Portugal, Morocco and Spain. The Carolina Rojo Gallery is presenting the work of Iñaki Bergera. Also, the Zaragoza City Council is organising a new PHotoWalk PHE, a photography itinerary guided by the photographer José Guerrero.
The Cuenca City Council joins PHotoEspaña for the ninth consecutive year, and, at the Antonio Saura Foundation. Casa Zavala is exhibiting the work of the Cuban photographer Osvaldo Salas, who oscillated between the glamour of movie and sports stars and the documenting of the Cuban Revolution, and his work will share space alongside that of his son Roberto. The town of Huete in Cuenca will be a PHotoEspaña premises for the first time, with the support of the Cuenca Municipality, exhibiting the exhibition Catalá-Roca. Master Works will fill the Antonio Pérez Foundation Photography Museum with mythical images by a key author for the history of Spanish photography.
For seven years the Alcalá de Henares Town Council has been participating in PHotoEspaña. In this edition it is organising Alcalá. Gateway to America, an open air exhibition that will fill the terraces of the city’s nerve centre, the Plaza de los Irlandeses, with a selection of photographs from the PHE15 Official Section.
The Getafe Town Council is back again as a premises for PHotoEspaña, receiving Get Your Portrait Taken!, a project that invites the citizens to be models for the photographers Jorge Fuembuena and Jonás Bel, and at the same time heading an exhibition that will occupy the Barrio de la Alhóndiga neighbourhood in Getafe.
Invited Premises: Madrid, Bogota, Cascais, Lisbon, London, Panama, Paris and São Paulo
For this great celebration of photography, PHE15 is inviting embassies, cultural institutions, schools, museums and foundations from eight cities. In Madrid, the Alliance Française is presenting the retrospective showing of its photography competition; the Casa de Velázquez shows the collective work of the photographers that this institution welcomes each year; EFTI is presenting the work of Pedro Armestre; the TAI School is organising L A T I N O, the view on the subject for this edition of PHE held by the TAI FOTO collective; Fnac Callao is exhibiting the work of Aitor Lara, PHE OjodePez Human Values Award; the ONCE Foundation. Cambio de Sentido Cultural Space is presenting the work of Chimo Serrano; the Galerie du 10 of the Institut Français de Madrid is showing Françoise Núñez; the Goethe-Institut Madrid is organising the group exhibition Iconic. The Image as a Reference. Visual Art of Germany and Latin America; the Hotel Iberostar las Letras Gran Vía is presenting Bernard Plossu; the Institute of Mexico in Spain shows the group exhibition Portable Light; the Italian Institute of Culture shows Valerio Bispuri; and the Spanish Royal Photography Society is paying homage to Paco Gómez.
Cultural cooperation with international institutions have made it possible to hold the exhibitions presented by the Republic of Bogotá Museum of Art, with the work of the Argentinean artist Graciela Sacco; the Cascais Dom Luís I Foundation within the framework of Mostra Espanha, with an anthology of the work of Nicolás Muller; the Lisbon Pombal Palace, with a group exhibition from the Carpe Diem Collection; London will show the work of Pablo Guidali, within the framework of the Spain Now! programme; the Panama Museum of Contemporary Art, with the new project by Matías Costa, Zonians; the Cervantes Institute of Paris, with the work of Rafael Trobat; and the SESC Vila Mariana with a selection of photobooks within the programme of PHotoEspaña.br.
39 Art Galleries form the Festival Off
The Festival Off is made up of a selection of exhibitions organised by the Madrid art galleries. 39 proposals of photography and video form a section that aims at promoting and developing the photography market. All the galleries compete for the Festival Off Award, decided upon by an independent jury that rewards the gallery which presents the best exhibition proposal.
Descubrimientos PHE Week
Decubrimientos (Discoveries) PHE celebrates its coming of age with an extensive programme of activities based at the PIC.A School between the 1st and 6th of June. Besides increasing the number of the viewers of the portfolios, both in the number of international experts and in the number of participating photographers, the PHE Discoveries Week offers the Campus PHE workshops and professional seminars. Among the over fifty participating specialists are Cristina de Middel, Iatã Cannabrava, Claudi Carreras, Mary Virginia Swanson, Anne Lacoste, Louise Clements, Gordon MacDonald and Lorenza Bravetta. Moreover, some of the participants in the portfolio review organized by Fundacion Ankaria in collaboration with PHotoEspaña in Tangier will take part in Descubrimientos PHE Week granted by Ankaria Foundation.
PHotoBook Week
The publishing of photography books, both on the more classical support, paper, and digitally, is the protagonist of the first PHotoBook Week. An encounter which, from the 8th to the 14th of June, will see La Fábrica bring together photographers and experts in order to participate in presentations, book signings, encounters and a book fair with a hundred self-edited and self-published books. Among the participants are Paul Wombell, Simon Bainbridge, Gonzalo Golpe, Matías Costa, Roberto M. Tondopó and Mariela Sancari. The programme includes the awarding of prizes for the best PHotoEspaña photography book as well as the Do It Yourself! Cultura in a time of crisis encounter, held by the French magazine The Eyes.
PHEstudios: Image Not Available
The Community of Madrid and PHotoEspaña create PHEstudios: Image Not Available, a project that intends to make the public a participant in artistic actions and place them in unexpected places and formats. The project will take place in different public spaces, such as streets and squares, places, digital channels, social networks and the communication networks of the Madrid Metro. Participating in the PHEstudios are Los Hijos, dedicated to non-fiction cinema and video-art; Estudio Mendoza, the priority disciplines of which are painting and sculpture; PlayDramaturgia, centred on stage activity; and Peña Difunta de Francia, which carries out interdisciplinary projects bringing together music, poetry, photography and graphic design.
Photography Workshops for Children and Young People and the Unsuspected Madrid Competition
The photography workshops for children organised by the Canal Foundation are now a classic element in the PHE programme. The gardens of the Foundation will receive courses that will take place over several Saturdays in the months of May and June in which young ones will learn to handle digital cameras and create stories with their own snapshots. Also, the online competition Unexpected Madrid: Latin American Scenes invites all lovers of photography to photograph prints of their own about Latin America without leaving the Community of Madrid and then upload them to the competition web page. The participants will compete for 3,000 euros in prizes.
A Day in the Life of Madrid
After the success of the first edition, in which over three thousand photographs entered the competition, this online competition sponsored by Samsung and with the participation of the Madrid City Council, intends to create a group, urban portrait of what takes place in the city over the twenty-four hours of a day. A new factor in this edition adds a special category to the jury prize and the public prize, which is "Madrid Nights, by Samsung Galaxy S6" dedicated to night photography. The three award-winners will receive Samsung Galaxy Sg Edge smartphones. The best images will make up an exhibition in the CentroCentro Cibeles and will be shown on the screens of the Plaza de Callao square.
#Madrid, Latin America and I
Madrid Destino and PHotoEspaña are organising a competition in which they seek the complicity of the public, proposing that they join in the fever of the selfie, using the places in Madrid where the names are most connected to Latin America as the frame or background. They can then share their self-portraits on the PHotoEspaña Instagram with the hashtag #selfiemadridlatam and compete for two awards that grant a Samsung Galaxy S6 telephone.
Polaroid Itineraries. A City without Reflections
PHotoEspaña and Polaroid are organising an activity created for learning to manage light and appreciate the different sensations and results provided by polarised lenses both at the time of photographing and observing them. To do this they are organising visits for one to enjoy the best views of Madrid from spaces such as the roof terrace of the Círculo de Bellas Artes building and from Conde Duque, the Crystal Palace and the belevedere of the Casa de Velázquez, among others. With the help of Polaroid sunglasses, the participants will photograph unique dusks accompanied by photographers who usually use this type of lens. A selection of images from these will be exhibited in the shop windows of opticians chosen by Polaroid.
Charity Auction. Photographers with the Balia Foundation for Childhood
The Balia Foundation is celebrating the II edition of its charity auction with the collaboration of PHotoEspaña, the BettyGuereta Gallery, Christie’s auction house and the support of the Jesús Serra Foudation, the Banco Sabadell Foundation and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.those who attend the event may bid for works by Miguel Rio Branco, Alberto García-Alix, JoanFontcuberta, Javier Vallhonrat, William Klein, Brassaï and Isabel Muñoz, and others. The takings from the auction and the entrance fees (on sale on www.ticketea.com) are for the development of socio-educational programmes for children in a situation of social, academic and economic disadvantage.
PHotoEspaña Books
La Fábrica is publishing the Guía PHotoEspaña 2015 and several catalogues and books that accompany some of the Festival exhibitions. Among these are Mario Cravo Neto. Mitos y ritos; Latin Fire. Otras fotografías de un continente; Construyendo mundos. Fotografía y arquitectura en la era moderna; Moisés, by Mariela Sancari; Zonians, by Matías Costa; Chema Madoz 2008-2014. Las reglas del juego; and the PHotoBolsillos editions of Korda and Cristina de Middel. They can all be found in bookshops, at La Fábrica and at the sales points authorised by the Festival.
PHotoEspaña Awards
Each year PHotoEspaña rewards the best in photography with seven awards: the PHotoEspaña award; the Bartolomé Ros award for the best Spanish professional career in photography; the Revelation Award, promoted by El Corte Inglés; the PHE Discoveries Award for the author of the Best Photography Book of the Year; the Festival Off Award for the best exhibition; and the PHotoEspaña OjodePez Human Values Award.
PHotoEspaña Patrons
PHotoEspaña is a project that has been held from and for society. Each year collective will makes it a reality thanks to agreements and collaborations that share effort, responsibility, enthusiasm and celebration. PHotoEspaña is only possible through the care of many hands, and thus the Festival invites civil society and the business world to become a part of the programme of Patrons of PHotoEspaña in order to continue to celebrate photography.
