50 fotografías con historia

“50 Fotografías con Historia,” an open air-exhibition at our Cultural Center’s exterior fence, reviews the history of photography in the last 80 years in Spain.

50 fotografías con historia takes a look at the last 80 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, Ricard Terré, Ramón Masats or Joan Colom made a name for themselves as they began using photography 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. The exhibition in Washington, D.C. will be divided into two phases: 25 photographs will be shown during the spring/summer season, and the rest 25 in the fall/winter.

If you can't join us at our Cultural Center, don't miss out and view the full online exhibition in English. The original exhibit is also available in Spanish.