iFundación Juan MarchSalamanca
The Aesthetic Transition: Spain, 1960-2020
How Spanish audiences encountered modern and contemporary art from the 1960s to today, told through exhibitions, institutions and countercultural spaces.
More in Madrid
International contemporary art reached Spain roughly thirty years after it reached other Western countries, starting in the 1960s. The Fundación Juan March builds its autumn show around that delay, and around the places that slowly closed it.
You walk in past a kiosk of art magazines, a reminder of how little specialist press Spain had sixty years ago. Then come densely hung rooms and 71 case studies of reception, from Picasso's 1960 show at Barcelona's Sala Gaspar, so crowded that entry had to be controlled, to 1983, when Warhol opened at Galería Fernando Vijande a street away from Lichtenstein at the Foundation itself. In 1977 a Juan Gris show at Galería Theo sold nothing at all, so your unanswered Wallapop listing is in good company.
Qué! advises setting time aside: there is as much to read and listen to as to look at. Entry is free, and free guided tours in Spanish run on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Wednesday and Friday evenings, first come, first served.
Editor's pick
Sixty years of how Spanish audiences met modern and contemporary art, told through the exhibitions, institutions and countercultural spaces that shaped it. Free entry.
Look for
The magazine kiosk
Look for the newsstand of art publications at the start of the route, charting Spain's move from almost no specialist press to international magazines on sale.
The 1960 Picasso queue
A photograph shows crowds waiting outside Barcelona's Sala Gaspar, where just thirty Picassos drew so many visitors that entry had to be controlled.
Warhol's portrait of his Madrid dealer
Warhol painted the gallerist Fernando Vijande in 1983, and the poster for his 1982 Guns, Knives, Crosses show at Vijande's gallery is here too.
Matisse's children at the Foundation
An archive photograph catches Marguerite Duthuit and Pierre Matisse at the opening of the Foundation's own 1980 Matisse show of oils, drawings and cut-outs.
John Cage in Pamplona
Look for the poster for John Cage and David Tudor's 1972 concert at the Encuentros de Pamplona, an early sign of the avant-garde arriving.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Going Solo
- Nerding Out
- Rainy Days
Skip if
You want a straight hang of paintings: press clippings and recordings carry as much weight as the art.
Also at Fundación Juan March
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Image credits
9
- The Aesthetic Transition: Spain, 1960-2020Courtesy of Fundación Juan March
- Apertura Madrid Gallery Weekend 2026: Entre la retícula y la vidaCourtesy of Museo Lázaro Galdiano
- Tras la casa del artista. Arquitecturas del Museo Sorolla (1905-2026)Courtesy of Museo Sorolla
- Fueron tejidos. Teresa LancetaCourtesy of Museo Arqueológico Nacional
- Fundación Juan MarchLuis García (Zaqarbal), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Museo Lázaro GaldianoLuis García (Zaqarbal), CC BY-SA 3.0 ES
- Museo SorollaJavier Rodríguez Barrera / Museo Sorolla, via Wikimedia Spain, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museo Arqueológico NacionalCoralma*, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0
- Museo Nacional de Ciencias NaturalesLuis García (Zaqarbal), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0