Third “Miradas de Mujeres” Festival Presented at ARCOmadrid

The director of Miradas de Mujeres Festival, Monica Alvarez Careaga; president of Mujeres en las Artes Visuales association (MAV), Marian Lopez Fernandez-Cao; and director of Miradas de Mujeres Festival in Andalusia, Mariana Hormaechea, presented in ARCOMadrid the third edition of Miradas de Mujeres Festival (www.festivalmiradasdemujeres.es), the only cultural event that is simultaneously carried out throughout Spain, in March, to vindicate and shed light on the work developed by women in all professional spheres of visual arts, from the artistic creation to the position of curators, art review, research and management.

Following the slogan “The artist is present”, this year’s edition has been named after the title of the show dedicated by MoMA to the popular artist of performance art Marina Abramovi? “First of all, because it’s all about a successful and popularly acclaimed artist; because most solo shows are carried out by male artists and, finally, because MoMA is the museum that has defined the canon of western contemporary art for decades, the one that depreciated the work of female artists. These ideas summarized what we are willing to communicate in this edition of the festival”, the new director of Miradas de Mujeres Festival, Monica Alvarez Careaga said.

As for the Festival, she has pointed out that the main new element in this edition is going to be “the decentralization of the event and the creation of a motivated team network in the autonomous communities, led by important regional directors, which has helped to increase the number of venues, over 300, and participating artists, more than a thousand”.

Furthermore, beyond the invitation for museums, galleries, art centers and universities to join the event with exhibitions and activities involving female artists, the Festival has its own contents, just like the shows created for Cantabria’s Central Library, Torrelavega’s Photography National  Center, Aragon’s Caja Rural Foundation, Gijon’s Barjola Museum or Pamplona’s Sala del Horno de Ciudadela; and it has collaborated in many activities, including the MAV Video Marathon at La Casa Encendida or sessions entitled “Women, subject of history” at the National Archaeological Museum.

Miradas de Mujeres Festival, with over 300 cultural activities spread in 95 localities throughout Spain, will be showcasing works of over 1,000 artists, such as Carmen Calvo, Ouka Leele, Teresa Margolles, Rebeca Menendez, Cecilia Avendaño, Cristina Lucas, Tracey Rose, Almudena Armenta, Hélène Crécent, Paula Anta, Ruth Gomez, Mari Puri Herrero, Mapi Rivera, Maria Jose Gallardo or Cecilia de Val, in spaces like Reina Sofia National Museum Art Center, Dos de Mayo CA2M Art Center, Madrid’s Mostoles, Gijon’s Laboral, Valladolid’s Patio Herreriano Museum, Malaga’s Carmen Thyssen Museum, Seville’s Andalusian Center of Contemporary Art or ARTIUM, the Basque Museum-Center of Contemporary Art, among others.

Beyond the exhibitions, the festival is going to include different activities, such as the lectures to be held on March’s Tuesdays at Museo Nacional del Prado, the video-art program on March’s Mondays at La Casa Encendida, “Women, subject of history” sessions at the National Archaeological Museum on March 27 or the show made up of concert, dance and parade of haute couture designed by Leyre Valiente, 2013 National Fashion Award for Young Designers, to take place at the Museum of Decorative Arts on March 17.

Likewise, the Festival is going to be attended by 140 art galleries, including Espacio Líquido, from Gijón, Rafael Ortiz from Seville, Luis Adelantado from Valencia, Trinta from Santiago de Compostela, Maior from Mallorca, Adora Calvo from Salamanca, Cànem from Castellón, Álvaro Alcázar from Madrid, Ángeles Baños from Badajoz, Moisés Pérez de Albéniz from Madrid, which also participate in ARCOmadrid. The program also includes 17 universities from Malaga, Zaragoza, Cantabria, Salamanca, Vigo or Santiago, as well as a broad network of cultural centers and Fine Arts schools.