Der Greif X PHotoESPAÑA 2024: stretching photography into multiple forms

PHotoESPAÑA is a key player in the Spanish photography scene, bringing cutting-edge international projects to Madrid each year. PHotoESPAÑA is also extending its programming to other cities like Alcalá de Henares, Alcobendas, Almería, Barcelona, Valladolid and Zaragoza. The 2024 edition – its twenty seventh – opened on May 10th and is running through September 29th.

With the title “Perpetuum mobile” and under the direction of María Santoyo, the core theme of PHotoESPAÑA 2024 is “motion”, and some of the elements found in this year’s edition are the dynamism of both photography as a medium and creators in their work; the depiction of movement; collective, historical or social changes; and the adoption of new technologies that free photography from its static quality.

The headline exhibition is a collective show titled “Perpetuum mobile”, which is taking place at the Círculo de Bellas Artes. It’s essentially the outcome of the collaboration between the curator Alejandro Castellote, PHotoESPAÑA’s first artistic director, and the current director. The show brings together the works of twenty-seven photographers from a generation born under democracy who have been trained in the analogical/digital paradigm shift and have come into their own in the first few decades of the twenty-first century thanks to their overwhelming maturity and creativity.

Within the eighty four exhibitions taking place in Madrid and outside, we are especially looking forward to Pilar Aymerich and Paloma Navares, two essential women artists who were pioneers in the gender perspective in Spain. Public museums are focusing on forging creative dialogues between emerging figures in contemporary visual creation and the historical collections they house. Laura San Segundo, who’s part of our community, and Alejandría Cinque, filip custic and Sofía Crespo (one of the most prominent figures in generative art on the international scene today) have conducted investigation projects that will lead to installations in the Museo del Romanticismo, the Museo Cerralbo and the Museo Nacional y Centro de Investigación de Altamira.

Look out too for Bubi Canal’s work at “Truck Art Project”, a group exhibition in which his photographs, together with works by Manuela Lorente, Ana Palacios and Tanit Plana in a special format: on the Palibex transportation company’s lorries and is therefore visible on the roads along their commercial routes.

This year, PHotoESPAÑA is joining UNESCO’S Transculture programme to bring visibility to the works of a delegation of fifteen photographers living in seven Caribbean countries (Cuba, Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, the Dominican Republic and Barbados), and to enable them to establish contacts with creators and professionals in the photographic cultural sector, get training via specific workshops led by visual artists and in the PHE Master’s classrooms and enjoy the festival’s contents and calendar with expert mentors.