{"id":204462,"date":"2025-06-22T06:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T06:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/204462\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T06:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T06:27:09","slug":"photoespana-2025-chance-encounters-and-colonial-legacies-in-spains-photo-festival-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/204462\/","title":{"rendered":"PhotoEspa\u00f1a 2025: chance encounters and colonial legacies in Spain\u2019s photo festival | Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\"><a href=\"https:\/\/phe.es\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">PhotoEspa\u00f1a<\/a>, Spain\u2019s premier festival of photography, has opened in Madrid and other locations across the country including Barcelona, Santander and Zaragoza. The capital is hosting more than 80 contemporary and historical exhibitions in a range of venues that include the grounds of the Royal Palace, the Prado, a former water tower and an old sawmill.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Top left: Adelita: She Was Not Only Brave She Was Beautiful, 2023. Top right: Adelita: I Would Follow Her by Ground and Sea, 2023. Above: Toward a History of African American Women on New Spain\u2019s Far Northern Frontier, 2023. Photographs: Ayana V Jackson\/Mariane Ibrahim.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Nosce te Ipsum (Know Thyself) at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cultura.gob.es\/mnantropologia\/actividades\/agenda\/2025\/exposicionestemporales2025\/nosceteipsum.html\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Museum of Anthropology<\/a> showcases the work of the African American photographer and film-maker Ayana V Jackson, whose practice involves the creative use of archival documents and items for her artistic production.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">In this, her first exhibition in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/europe-news\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Europe<\/a>, the ironic referencing or quoting of existing imagery, for example her re-stagings of portraits of 19th-century Black horsewomen in the series You Forgot to See Me Coming, enable her to imaginatively address the representational legacies of colonialism and the Black diaspora. Her portraits of Adelitas \u2013 the name derives from that of Adela Velarde, the famed nurse of the Mexican revolution \u2013 engage with the often overlooked activities of African-descendant women during the uprising.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Five decades of pictures by the Spanish photojournalist Marisa Flo\u0301rez are celebrated in the austere confines of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.comunidad.madrid\/centros\/sala-canal-isabel-ii\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sala Canal de Isabel II<\/a>. A veteran of the Informaciones and El Pa\u00eds newspapers, her work comprises a fascinating chronicle, spanning politics, showbusiness, art and culture, of the initially male-dominated spaces of the post-Franco years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Flo\u0301rez was on hand to cover the implementation of the country\u2019s new constitution; she saw the motorcade return to Spain of Pablo Picasso\u2019s exiled Guernica; she covered the terrorist attacks of the Eta years; and she documented the growth in newly permissible street demonstrations. She even photographed Margaret Thatcher opening a Marks &amp; Spencer store.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">More broadly, Flo\u0301rez\u2019s pictures, and indeed her own presence in the newsroom, testified to a cultural shift within the nation. \u201cWhat happened during this period of time: we had the incorporation of women in every sphere \u2013 because women before that were limited to the home,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was a mother, a daughter, a wife, and nothing more. Finally, we had not only women in the army, but everywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">A survey of landscape photography by the Granada-born artist Jos\u00e9 Guerrero at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fundacionmapfre.org\/arte-y-cultura\/exposiciones\/sala-recoletos\/jose-guerrero-a-proposito-del-paisaje\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fundaci\u00f3n Mapfre<\/a> reveals his nuanced and studied investigation of the sociopolitical or, more recently, formal possibilities of the genre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">In many of his early series he appears interested in landscapes that might display evidence of change and transition. Elsewhere, he is drawn to iconic territories or spaces, \u201cplaces that we recognise through other references, pictorial, also photographic, or cinematographic\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">He said: \u201cSo I\u2019ve worked in the American US with some references to western movies. I\u2019ve worked in La Mancha, I\u2019ve worked on the River Thames.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>House and Pool, Ja\u00e9n, 2007, from the series Andaluc\u00eda. Photograph: Jos\u00e9 Guerrero\/VEGAP.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">During visits to Mexico in 2017-18, Guerrero took pictures inspired by the architecture of Luis Barrag\u00e1n. In the subsequent BRG series he undertook to recreate aspects of those pictures by photographing his own specially constructed, naturally lit models, thereby introducing to his practice questions of veracity, scale and trompe l\u2019\u0153il.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">In 1966, the American photographer Joel Meyerowitz embarked on a year-long European road trip, visiting 10 countries, travelling 1,900 miles (30,000km) and taking about 25,000 pictures. An expansive exhibition at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teatrofernangomez.es\/programacion\/exposiciones\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fern\u00e1n G\u00f3mez Centro Cultural de la Villa<\/a> presents the results, with particular reference to the time spent in Spain, especially the six months he stayed in M\u00e1laga.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Top: Ma\u0301laga, Spain, 1967. Above, clockwise from top left: Ma\u0301laga, Spain, 1967; E87, near Trikala, Greece, 1967; Paris, 1967; Wales, 1966. Photographs: Joel Meyerowitz.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Though he was already familiar with the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, and the street pictures of Tony Ray-Jones and Garry Winogrand, Meyerowitz was to credit his European trip as vital to his understanding of the medium and his ability to respond to its demands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">\u201cI saw photography as a chance medium, in which you never know what\u2019s going to happen next, and what\u2019s going to interest you,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen something totally unexpected reveals itself in front of you, it happens precisely because you are there, ready to recognise it. I think my year in Europe offered me the opportunity to realise how important it is, in photography, to be present.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Top: Friend of El Friki and Pink Wall. Photograph: Felipe Romero Beltr\u00e1n. Middle: One Mile of Crosses on the Pavement, 1979. Art action opposite La Moneda Palace, Santiago de Chile, 1979. Photograph: Lotty Rosenfeld Foundation. Above left: Las Horas del Sol by Bleda y Rosa at the Campo del Moro Gardens. Above right: Work by Bernd and Hilla Becher on display at Serrer\u00eda Belga.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">There is much else besides. <a href=\"https:\/\/phe.es\/exposicion\/bravo\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bravo<\/a>, Felipe Romero Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s study of life, and waiting, at the border between Mexico and the US, employs a compellingly poetic form of documentary. By Pass celebrates the interventions and political activism of Lotty Rosenfeld, a central figure in Chilean video art of the 1980s. Las Horas del Sol (The Hours of the Sun), a project by the duo Bleda y Rosa, is installed with aplomb in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.galeriadelascoleccionesreales.es\/exposicion\/las-horas-del-sol-bleda-y-rosa\/77ddffa9-25bd-2173-dd5f-2326289ea41c\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Royal Collections Gallery<\/a> and Campo del Moro gardens. And a potted overview of German documentary practice, including work by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Thomas Struth, Candida H\u00f6fer, Andreas Gursky and Axel H\u00fctte is displayed in the suitably utilitarian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.serreria-belga.es\/actividades\/despues-de-todo-fotografia-en-la-coleccion-helga-de-alvear\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Serrer\u00eda Belga<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Not least, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fundacioncanal.com\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">retrospective<\/a> of Duane Michals\u2019 photography attempts to do justice to his commitment to picture the invisible. The titles of his pictures, or more often sequences, give a flavour of his aims: Grandpa Goes to Heaven; The Spirit Leaves the Body; The Young Girl\u2019s Dream; The Bogeyman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Given his ambitions, it is not altogether surprising that his astute portraits of altogether more visible sitters \u2013 Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol and Ren\u00e9 Magritte among them \u2013 threaten to steal the show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Guy Lane travelled as a guest of PhotoEspa\u00f1a.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PhotoEspa\u00f1a, Spain\u2019s premier festival of photography, has opened in Madrid and other locations across the country including Barcelona,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-204462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114725600912612547","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}