Organized by the ICO Foundation and curated by María Toral, the exhibition brings together small-format works by 34 artists from the beginning of the 20th century to the 1980s, including both historical figures and contemporary figures in Spanish sculpture. The exhibition spans from the early avant-garde movements, with the Cubism of Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris, to more recent approaches represented by artists such as Jaume Plensa and Juan Muñoz.
Establishing a direct dialogue between line and volume, the exhibition combines sculptures with drawings by the artists themselves, offering visitors the opportunity to delve into the aesthetic and conceptual universe of each creator. An informative chronology complements the selection, contextualizing the pieces within the framework of international sociopolitical events that influenced the evolution of artistic movements in Spain.
"Navigating the 20th Century. Drawing and Sculpture in the ICO Collections". Photograph by Julio César González. Image courtesy of the ICO Museum.
A space between landscape and architecture
The exhibition positions Cubism as a turning point in relation to tradition. From the late 19th century, sculpture began to shed its religious, commemorative, or funerary functions, questioning its relationship with space. Throughout the 20th century, sculptural language expanded its formal and material boundaries, incorporating new resources and exploring increasingly experimental approaches that broadened its expressive possibilities.
The exhibition traces some of the main movements and contexts that shaped the evolution of 20th-century sculpture, from Surrealism and the practices developed in exile after the Spanish Civil War to the Informalism of the 1950s and 1960s. The journey extends to the years of the democratic transition and the 1980s, a period characterized by a greater diversity of creative languages and approaches.
"Navigating the 20th Century. Drawing and Sculpture in the ICO Collections". Photograph by Julio César González. Image courtesy of the ICO Museum.
The exhibition also includes a reflection on the link between sculpture and architecture, in keeping with the ICO Museum's work in promoting this discipline. In this sense, works by authors such as Antoni Gaudí, Álvaro Siza and Juan Navarro Baldeweg are incorporated, whose trajectories demonstrate a shared conception of space, volume and materiality.
