50 fotografías con historia

50 fotografías con historia takes a look at the last eighty years of this discipline in Spain through its key participants: 50 images. Each of the selected photographs reflects an era, a way of understanding photography and, of course, its corresponding social and human burden.

Our visual journey will begin with the outbreak of the Civil War, when photojournalists such as Agustí Centelles and Martín Santos Yubero became the eyes and chroniclers of the conflict. In the post-war period and the years that followed, photographers such as Ricard Terré, Ramón Masats or Joan Colom made a name for themselves as they began using their art in a wide variety of ways: through documentary photography, satirical portraits, photojournalism and street photography.

The exhibition will then take us through a period in Spain that marked a necessary evolution in visual language as well: the Spanish Transition. This was a time when photography started being used in different ways and new voices emerged —Alberto García-Alix, Chema Madoz, Pablo Juliá and Marisa Flórez, among others— with new discourses that were necessary for a society in full effervescence.

We will then explore the boom in popularity of documentary photography and the lenses of Spanish authors who gazed abroad, which began in the 1990s and still continues today thanks to key authors such as Cristina García Rodero, Navia, Isabel Muñoz and Sandra Balsells. We cannot leave out the gazes of those who are now shaping the current photographic landscape of our country. A narrative wealth that is the result of our history and that we now invite you to discover with 50 photographs which tell us fifty different stories. The selection of photographers includes 17 National Photography Award winners and 2 National Fine Art Photography Award winners.

—José María Díaz Maroto and Gonzalo Revidiego, curators.