Our exhibitions

Previous exhibitions

Shame. European stories

Victims of child abuse share their stories
From 16 February to 15 March 2023

An exhibition that sought to shed light on an issue that affects us all: child abuse.

The rights and dignity of thousands of children across Europe have been violated. Violations that have occurred in various contexts and in various ways.

The exhibition was intended to give visibility to these children, now adults. Their portraits, large black and white photographs, and their own words denouncing the shame: the unjustified shame that intoxicates those who have suffered violence; the shame that those who have abused should feel; and the shame of a Europe that fails to manage this dramatic situation.

To raise awareness; to promote legislative changes; to break the silence, the stigmatization, the impunity, the cover-up and even the complicity. These were the objectives of the exhibition.

Exhibition organized by the Guido Fluri Foundation (Switzerland) and Justice Initiative, with photographs by Simone Padovani.

Luis Paret in Bilbao

From 9 July to 17 October 2021

The painter Luis Paret y Alcázar (Madrid, 1746-1799), a strict contemporary of Goya, was one of the best representatives of the Rococo aesthetic imported from France. His eventful life led him to settle in Bilbao between 1779 and at least 1787. During this time Paret was intensely active in the town, where he left an impressive artistic mark. He painted, but also designed furniture, altarpieces and fountains, decorated public and private rooms… This was probably the richest and most varied period of his production.

The double exhibition – split between the Museum of Sacred Art and the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum – brought together a wide range of works by Paret produced during his stay in Bilbao. It also included works by other court artists who worked for/in Bizkaia in those years and by local artists who followed in their footsteps. The aim was not only to show the work of Paret, but also the aesthetic change that the Territory was undergoing at that time, from Rococo to Neoclassicism, a leap in which the painter from Madrid had a great deal to say.

The exhibition was complemented with other activities: guided tours of the places where Paret lived and worked, some by land and others by river; installation of panels with works by Paret in the places in Bilbao where Paret had painted them (in order to contrast the paintings with the current reality); restoration of one of the fountains designed by Paret (the one located in the Plaza de los Santos Juanes); and an Art Conference in the form of a congress on the subject studied.