Exhibitions
A century of Basque art dialogues between the modern and the contemporary in San Telmo
100 Years. The Modern and/or the Contemporary is an exhibition that breaks with the museum's traditional chronology, expanding its historical journey beyond the 1980s to incorporate contemporary Basque art up to the present day. Opening in April 2024, it will remain open to the public until April 2026. The exhibition, curated by Peio Aguirre, inaugurates a biennial series conceived to offer different perspectives on art. Its journey transcends the Basque art gallery and integrates other spaces in the museum, such as the entrance hall, the turret, the industrialization room, and the choir, generating an expanded and dynamic experience.
Gonzalo Chillida, Segovia, 1953.
The exhibition, running parallel to Dressing a Garden and open until September 28, offers a journey from the 1920s to the present, tracing the evolution of modern and contemporary Basque art. It features key figures such as Jenaro de Urrutia, Arteta, Tellaeche, Zumalabe, Lagarde, Oteiza, Lekuona, Celaya, Chillida, Basterretxea, and Sistiaga, among many others.
Visitors can also delve into the avant-garde and local movements that shaped the second half of the 20th century, with particular attention to the Gaur Group—represented by figures such as Chillida, Basterretxea, and Sistiaga—as well as the so-called new Basque sculpture, with artists such as Badiola, Bados, Moraza, and Mendizábal. The tour is also enriched by works that engage with pictorial movements such as Neo-Cubism, New Dream Figuration, and Expressionism.
Amable Arias, Of the Visible and the Invisible, 1966.
The exhibition is not limited to a historical focus, but also incorporates recent contemporary proposals, featuring artists whose careers began in the 1990s and continue today. Among them are Itziar Okariz, Asier Mendizabal, Isabel Herguera, José Ramón Amondarain, Ibon Aranberri, and June Crespo, whose works broaden our view of the present and demonstrate the vitality of contemporary Basque art.
100 Years. The Modern and/or the Contemporary stands out for its ability to renew our understanding of Basque art. First, it breaks with the chronological structure of the museum's permanent exhibition, which usually concluded in the 1980s, to integrate works and styles of more recent contemporary art into its narrative.
Far from proposing a linear narrative, curator Peio Aguirre offers a panoramic and cohesive vision that explores the links, ruptures, and continuities between different generations of artists. The result is a journey in which the past engages with the present, revealing unexpected connections.
María Paz Jiménez, untitled, 1968.
The exhibition is further enriched by an inter-institutional collaborative effort. Prominent among the loans are those from Kutxa Fundazioa, the Jorge Oteiza Museum Foundation, and the Reina Sofía Museum, in addition to contributions from various private collections. This network of collaborations transforms the exhibition into a collective project that expands both the scope and value of its artistic offering.
“ One hundred years, a century, is a sufficiently long period of time to reflect the changes in cycle and era. (...) Around 1924, news of the European artistic avant-garde spread far and wide. At the same time, the foundations for a definition of “Basque art” were beginning to be laid. One hundred years later, this term is nothing more than a provisional expression used to connect the local with the international, the particular with the universal. This exhibition, based on the collections of the San Telmo Museum, along with pieces from other institutions (Gipuzkoa Provincial Council, Kutxa Fundazioa, etc.), establishes a non-linear journey from the past to the present of art produced in our closest territory: from the city of San Sebastián to Gipuzkoa, and from there to the whole of the Basque Country. The aim here is to let the works speak, to connect them in a dense tapestry of links and associations.” Peio Aguirre
