iMuseo CerralboArgüelles
PHotoESPAÑA '26: Disfuncionarias
This exhibition has ended.
Tanit Plana's site-specific installation of large-format printed fabrics, a critical look at the museum professionals who research, collect and exhibit heritage, shown in the Ferraz Room.
Museum websiteMore in Madrid
Nothing here hangs flat. Tanit Plana printed her photographs on large lengths of fabric that cross the Sala Ferraz, then let them fold, ripple and spill out of shape. Between them stand covered volumes, wrapped forms that hint at something underneath without showing it.
The subject is the people who research, catalogue, conserve and display a museum's collection. Plana made this version for the Cerralbo after a first showing at Barcelona's Fundació Joan Brossa in the spring, and she treats artificial intelligence as the newest form of the urge to turn everything into data. For once in Madrid, you get to look at the funcionarios instead of queuing for one.
It's a single room in PHotoESPAÑA's official section, free and separate from the palace ticket. Tuesday to Friday you go in from Calle Ventura Rodríguez; on Thursday afternoons and at weekends, from Calle Ferraz. It closes on 25 October.
Look for
The printed fabrics
Look for photographs printed on long lengths of cloth that run across the room, folding and rippling so that no image keeps a fixed edge.
The covered volumes
Wrapped shapes stand in the room like bundles, suggesting something is there without letting you see it.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Cheap Culture
- Locals Who've Seen It All
Skip if
You want framed photographs on a wall: here every image is printed on fabric that bends out of shape.
Also at Museo Cerralbo
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
8
- Museo CerralboZarateman, CC0
- The Art of SafekeepingCourtesy of Galería de las Colecciones Reales
- 'De Madrid al cielo' VI Concurso de fotografía del Museo de Historia de MadridCourtesy of Museo de Historia de Madrid
- Los Moreno, Art PhotographersCourtesy of Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
- Galería de las Colecciones RealesJavier Pérez Montes (Nerve net), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Espacio Fundación TelefónicaLev (Flickr: _lev_), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Museo de Historia de MadridLuis García (Zaqarbal), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San FernandoStanislav Kozlovskiy (Ctac), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0