Faithful to the undertaking of this Museum-Centre to add new works of art to its collection every year in order to bear witness to the most recent developments in contemporary artistic creation, ARTIUM presents this, the third version of the exhibition Recent acquisitions. On this occasion, a selection has been made of the 835 works added to the museum's collection between 2004 and 2006 through deposits (Saénz de Tejada, Arco, etc) purchases and donations.

North Gallery
From 2006 November 8 to 2007 February 18

The exhibition presented on this occasion is only the tip of the iceberg of an on-going and continuous process that embraces the work of cataloguing as well as the analysis and individual study of each of the works as they are added, as well as their place within the collection as a whole. This investigative work, as well as other factors, has been a determining factor in the final selection of the works chosen for this exhibition, the major aim of which has been to highlight the different references and trends on which the most contemporary of artistic creations are based.

While none of the genres represented in the exhibition predominate over the rest, the artists whose works from part of this exhibition have employed a number of traditional supports such as painting, drawing and sculpture, or more recent techniques such as photography, video and installation, to generate discourses, which, in some cases, focus on the search for and analysis of form and, in others, delve into the message of the work.

Examples of the interest that pictorial research into the world of abstraction has awakened among certain artists can be seen in Madrid by Eduardo Gruber, in Pintura Amarilla by Iñaki Cerrajería and in Rotchenko Japonesa Blanca byManu Muniategiandikoetexea. For their part, the drawings of Juan P.Agirregoikoa make use of the aesthetics of comics, as well as a large amount of sarcasm, to criticise certain attitudes in our society.

The monolithic discourse of history is taken apart in the piece by Fernando Sánchez Castillo, in which the image of rigid monarchical power, conveyed by an equestrian sculpture, is reduced to small fragments, scattered over the floor. In contrast to that caustic viewpoint, Jose M. Guijarro confronts us with the expressive force of a rough and almost tribal piece of wood. Others, like Andrés Ángel and Alberto Peral, reveal the different routes taken by contemporary sculpture, which, on occasions, crosses its frontiers and uses sophisticated electrical devices to explore the limits of space and visual perception. This is the case of Sunoid, by Sergio Prego, consisting of an imposing 4-foot-long mechanical arm with fluorescent light tubes that move very slowly.

Everyday life becomes an intense generator of artistic ideas. This is the case of a contemporary still life by Gonzalo Puch, or those seemingly abstract particles of dust, enlarged by the lens of a microscope which Concha Prada photographs with great subtlety and poetry. Without doubt, daily life is a source of inspiration for artists, not only in order to focus on its most banal and indiscernible objects but also as a target for their criticism. This is the case of Mateo Maté and her installation Nacionalismo doméstico, a perfect example of how the external violence of the world creeps constantly into small details of our daily life. Barricadas by Esther Partegás, explores public urban spaces, invaded by the culture of consumerism: bags and cans of rubbish, notice boards, cash dispensers and benches to sit on, that the artist extracts from the day-to-day reality of our cities. The world inhabited by disposable objects, encouraged by a system that obliges us constantly to acquire new things, and to scorn everything that is old. Rubbish becomes the main subject of the work of this artist and is a metaphor of the consumerism that alienates us.

The polemic artist Santiago Sierra with his work Línea de 30 cm tatuada sobre una persona remunerada, is seen against the background of a scathing criticism of capitalism and globalisation. Sierra is concerned about the way that everything that exists is reduced to mercantile terms, including art and artists, and for this reason he does not hesitate to propose very controversial actions which in some cases cause us to question his own ethics.

The Monstruas of Marina Nuñez, representations on circular mirrors of deformed women, affected by physical imperfections, represent the unknown, the thing that we fear most because it is different from us. Marina Nuñez relates the exclusion and marginalisation of these monsters to that of women because she believes that throughout history, femininity has been associated with the concept of monstrous bodies on numerous occasions.