Museo Nacional de Artes DecorativasRetiro / Paseo del Prado
Textile artist Gema Polanco turns the museum's second floor into a site-specific, ritual-charged domestic space, part of PHotoESPAÑA 2026.
You meet the show on the stairs. A large tapestry hangs in the museum's stairwell as a welcome, and past it Gema Polanco, a Valencian artist born in 1992, has filled the second floor with flags, collages, costumes, amulets and talismans.
It's part of PHotoESPAÑA 2026, but the festival itself says Polanco pushes photography into textile installation, past the still image, mixing the domestic and the sacred with punk. The work was made for this building and settles into its rooms alongside the museum's own objects. The question behind it, in the museum's words: what makes a space a home, worthy of care, faith or memory? The festival has also published a Spotify playlist for it.
Come for an artist taking over an old house museum, not for a photo show. Entry is free, and the museum has extended it to 8 November. It's open Tuesday to Saturday 9:30 to 15:00, Thursdays also 17:00 to 20:00, Sundays 10:00 to 15:00.
The stairwell tapestry
Look up on the way to the second floor: a large tapestry hangs in the stairwell and works as the show's front door.
You came to PHotoESPAÑA for prints on walls: this one is textiles, flags and costumes.