PHotoESPAÑA 2025
After all
The title of the 18th edition of PHotoESPAÑA is ‘After All’ and declares that, without photography, nothing is known, nothing happens, and nothing can change. An invitation from the best photographers to not look away. Spanish talent will stand out again thanks to artists like Bleda y Rosa, Paula Anta, Nacho Criado, Isabel Coixet or Laura San Segundo, without losing sight of Latin-American talent.
The latest edition of PHotoESPAÑA opened its doors on the 30th of April. Once again, an event that brings together the best national and international photography will be sponsored by Iberia. Furthermore, on this occasion, the airline has launched its PHotoESPAÑA PRO Talento a bordo initiative, born from the intention to strengthen the photography ecosystem by promoting the professional development of dozens of creators. Until the 14th of September, PHotoESPAÑA will gather 360 artists in a total of 103 exhibitions spread across the peninsula: Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Santander, Segovia, Alcalá de Henares, and Toro. The historical evolution of photography and its relevance to social, political, and cultural issues, not only as a means of documentation but also as a creative tool during historical moments of uncertainty, are some of the themes the festival will explore.
The exhibition that lends its name to this edition, After All, will be installed at Serrería Belga (Madrid) and will share location with Espacio Iberia. There, visitors will be able to see photographs by artists such as Eugène Atget, Axel Hütte, Cami Stone, Frank Thiel, or Paul Wolff, among others. There will also be exhibitions about the guest country, Chile, such as those by Lotty Rosenfeld (The frontier of the sign), Julia Toro (Photographic state), or Michael Mauney (Chile, 1971). Other exhibits worth following are those of US artists Nicholas Nixon, Joel Meyerowitz, Duane Michaels, Edward Weston or Ayana V. Jackson, Mexicans Graciela Iturbide or Lourdes Grobet, the French Dora Maar, the English Julia Margaret Cameron, or the Portuguese Rui Ochoa. Spanish talent will also be well represented: Bleda y Rosa, Joan Fontcuberta, Isabel Muñoz, Emilio Penjean, Paula Anta, Nacho Criado, Espe Pons, José Guerrero, Laura San Segundo, etc.
It is precisely Spanish—and Latin-American—talent that stars in the exhibitions we feature below. Get your pen and paper ready!
The hours of sunlight, Bleda y Rosa
The Field Notebooks is a programme which connects renowned artists from our country with exceptional natural landscapes linked to national heritage. The goal is to raise public awareness of the need for protecting the environment. This year, Bleda y Rosa (2008 Spanish National Photography Award) have been chosen to take over from Javier Vallhonrat. Their exhibition (The Hours of Sunlight), developed at the Monastery of San Jerónimo de Yuste, focuses on the sun as a source of energy and life.
Location: Royal Collections Gallery. C. de Bailén, s/n (Madrid).
Dates: 4th June - 7th Sept.
Bravo, Felipe Romero
There is also space for Ibero-American talent at PHotoESPAÑA. The Colombian photographer Felipe Romero presents Bravo, the winning project of the second edition of the KBr Photo Award. These images, taken in a context of tension and conflict, specifically in a section of the Bravo River lying along the border between Mexico and the United States, writes a sombre, poetic visual essay around the idea of immigration and borders through images of people, landscapes, and architecture.
Location: Fundación MAPFRE. P.º de Recoletos, 23 (Madrid).
Dates: 5th June - 24th Aug.
Landscapes of resistance, Paula Anta
Paula Anta’s long artistic career has gravitated around the relationship between nature and human beings. The exhibition Landscapes of resistance recreates this dialogue seeking coexistence, not confrontation, through a selection of six recent photographic series where she works with in-situ installations. Thus, this photographer from Madrid creates a guide open to interpretations to encourage a more respectful relationship with our natural environment.
Location: Torreón Fortea. C. Torre Nueva, 25 (Zaragoza).
Dates: 3rd Apr. -8th June.
After all, Colección Helga de Alvear
The open wound left by the First World War, the industrial crisis experienced by West Germany from 1950 and the reconfiguration of the global political order after the fall of the Berlin Wall symbolise key moments that have represented the end of something—what comes after everything. The exhibition suggests a journey to each of these eras through photos—from the Helga de Alvear Collection—taken by Eugène Atget, Axel Hütte, Cami Stone, Thomas Struth, Frank Thiel, or Paul Wolff, among others.
Location: Espacio Serrería Belga. C. Alameda, 15 (Madrid).
Dates: 3rd June - 13th July.
White, Nacho Criado
A year before his death, Nacho Criado received the National Prize for Plastic Arts (2009). A recognition of one of the most influential artists on the Spanish contemporary scene. Although associated to conceptual art, his work was developed in harmony with experimental practices and escapes labels. The exhibition White is a collection of works from the first half of the 1970s and reveals the essence of the photographic process through a continuous play of opposites.
Location: Círculo de Bellas Artes. C. Alcalá, 42 (Madrid).
Dates: 4th June - 27th Sept.
A world full of shapes, Laura San Segundo
Photographer Laura San Segundo is playing a home game, in her hometown of Alcalá de Henares, and presents A world full of shapes, an exhibition where she explores the photographic image’s capacity for illusion. The starting point of this exhibition is her project The Circular Enclosure, inspired by a Borges short story that she uses to reflect on unconscious thoughts. Using an intuitive methodology defined by a particular use of light and colour, she is able to connect different types of images.
Location: Sala Antonio López. C. Santa María la Rica, 3 (Alcalá de Henares).
Dates: 25th Apr. -8th June.
Learnings in disobecience, Isabel Coixet
The film director Isabel Coixet presents some collages that connect to the great avant-garde tradition of the genre—as in Hannah Höch and Kurt Schwitters—and with her own films. Because the best-told stories are those made of snatches, of fragments; those that force the audience to make the effort to recompose their ultimate meaning. For this filmmaker, it is also a way of leaving your own comfort zone and exploring territories where you have to learn to count all over again.
Location: Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. P.º del Prado, 8 (Madrid).
Dates: 10th June - 14th Sept.
The turbulent decade (1929-1939), Joan Andreu Puig Farrán
This show revives the work of Andreu Puig Farrán from years of intense social and political unrest through a large number of photos from the La Vanguardia archive, one of the newspapers he worked for during the Spanish Republic. When the Civil War broke out, he travelled to the front in Aragón and, in 1939, he went into exile in France. Upon his return in 1945, he was unable to resume his work as a photojournalist, so he practised tourist photography, creating the postcard brand CYP.
Location: Centro de Fotografía KBr. Av. del Litoral, 30 (Barcelona).
Dates: 12th June - 31st Aug.
