Exhibitions
The return of the gaze: Paloma Polo activates history in La Virreina
The exhibition will remain open to the public until March 1, 2026.
La Virreina Centre de la Imatge has created a monographic exhibition by Paloma Polo entitled The Return of the Gaze. The Political Task of Narrating , which can be visited from October 18, 2025 to March 1, 2026 at the Palau de la Virreina, on La Rambla in Barcelona. Curated by Mabel Tapia, the exhibition brings together projects produced by the Madrid-based artist from 2010 to the present. It is an ambitious journey that organizes the work into four conceptual areas, each associated with a line of reflection on the production of knowledge and its political dimension.
The section The Mud of the Revolution focuses on scenarios of resistance and social struggle in the Philippines, confronting collective memories and community knowledge that have been historically relegated. In The Path of Totality , Polo analyzes Western scientific expeditions, highlighting the complicity between science, colonialism and domination.
Paloma Polo 'Dulcinea', 2023. Photogram.
The Dulcinea constellation revisits episodes of militancy and activism linked to the end of the Franco dictatorship and the period of democratic transition, while Se jeter au fond du lac pour conserver sa vie delves into the influence of North American indigenous thought, with special attention to the Haudenosaunee confederation, in the configuration of contemporary feminist currents.
Paloma Polo's work is characterized by a rigorous research methodology, combining archives, field research and collaboration with communities. Her practice questions the gaps in official historiography and the legitimacy devices that decide which narratives are incorporated into collective memory and which are silenced.
Paloma Polo 'The unobserved observation platform', 2024. Ambrotypes. AI generated images. Glass plates.
These constellations form a dense and nuanced network that makes visible the connections between specific historical situations and the great systems of power and thought that cross different contexts. The pieces presented do not aim to simplistically oppose the hegemonic narrative, but rather to directly impact it and the instruments that shape it, with the aim of activating and setting in motion the social and political structures that support it.
An exhibition that constitutes a privileged opportunity to delve into more than fifteen years of career of an author fundamental in the current artistic debate. La Virreina thus becomes an ideal space to explore proposals that question the construction of the gaze and its impact on discourses on politics, memory and social transformation, placing Barcelona at the center of critical debates on the contemporary image.
