Exhibitions
Faro Santander brings together five centuries of art and Mexican modernity
Faro Santander begins a new exhibition phase with two major shows that place collecting at the heart of its programming. The cultural center will open its doors this Monday with Masterpieces from the Banco Santander Collection and Modern Mexico in the Gelman Santander Collection , two exhibitions that allow visitors to explore centuries of art history and delve into one of the fundamental chapters of modern Mexican art. Both exhibitions will run concurrently with Symptomatic Surrealism: Leonora Carrington .
The fourth floor of Faro Santander will be dedicated to the Banco Santander Collection, the result of over 160 years of collecting and conceived as a living collection with a permanent and dynamic presence within the center's programming. The exhibition, curated by María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco, offers a journey through almost five centuries, connecting different eras, artistic languages, and approaches to artistic creation.
The itinerary begins with The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist , by Lucas Cranach the Elder, created between 1537 and 1540, and reaches contemporary creation with I Dreamed You Were Revealing , by Juan Uslé, from 2018. Between these two extremes appear some of the great names in the history of art, establishing relationships that allow us to observe how the ways of representing spirituality, landscape, objects and the human figure have changed.
The exhibition is structured around four main themes. Sacred Stories brings together works in which spirituality and mystery meet through artists such as Titian, El Greco, Velázquez, and Zurbarán, in dialogue with contemporary creators such as Chillida, Tàpies, and Torner.
Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Necklace, 1933 © 2026 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico City / VEGAP. Photograph © Gerardo Suter.
The second section, Places and Landscapes , proposes a view of the territory as a space of memory, identity, and cultural construction. The idealized vistas of Canaletto and Beruete thus coexist with the abstract approaches of Chirino, Guerrero, Soledad Sevilla, and Cristina Iglesias.
The representation of objects takes center stage in "Things: Still Lifes and Nature Paintings ," a journey through the evolution of this genre from the Baroque period to the end of the 20th century, featuring pieces by Juan de Arellano, Luis Meléndez, Luis Gordillo, and Miquel Barceló.
The final section, Portraits, Types, Figures , delves into the representation of the individual and society through works by Van Dyck, Giuseppe Bonito, Francisco de Goya, Sorolla, Miró, Millares, Equipo Crónica and Niki de Saint Phalle.
Modern Mexico as a second territory
The other major exhibition shifts its focus to Mexico, presenting a selection from the Gelman Santander Collection. Titled Modern Mexico in the Gelman Santander Collection , the exhibition is curated by Marisol Argüelles, director of the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, and brings together some of the essential figures of the country's artistic modernity.
Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, María Izquierdo, Rufino Tamayo, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Gunther Gerzso and Francisco Toledo are part of a collection that is complemented by an important photographic archive.
The exhibition offers a glimpse into the richness and diversity of a period marked by the construction of new artistic and cultural identities. The works of these artists showcase different approaches to the body, landscape, society, and Mexican identity, while also highlighting the international reach achieved by the country's modern art.
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