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Activity
Ground Floor
18 January 2026
Dubbing has been a tool through which the Spanish population has approached cinema and shaped its social and political life. In this performance, the silenced voices of women artists from the 1980s will be recovered, when conceptualism, abstraction, or informalism had no place in a moment of escapism and celebration. Experimenting with this cinematographic resource allows us to speculate on new readings of the transition, generating a new un-doubling.
08.10.2025 - 25.01.2026
Juana Concepción Francés de la Campa (Alicante, 1924 - Madrid, 1990) is one of the most forceful artists in the Spanish artistic panorama of the second half of the twentieth century, a pioneer of abstract informalism and the only woman in the emblematic El Paso Group. She exhibited in important international artistic events such as three Hispano-American Biennials, the Venice Biennale, in as many as five editions, and the São Paulo Biennale. She exhibited in group shows alongside her generation's peers at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and at the Tate Gallery in London, and in notable solo exhibitions at institutions in Spain, France, and Portugal, among other places. She was recognized by critics from her early figurative period through the end of her career, but has been forgotten by art historiography. In recent years, her figure has been strongly reclaimed, affirming her quality and relevance, and at the MACA we have delved deeper into separate exhibitions on her abstract paintings. Now we propose to review the origins of her painting: the years of training, her more symbolist figurative period, and her personal transition before embarking on the generational adventure of abstract art. It is the least known period: paintings where figurative work of Italianate influence moves between restrained symbolism and surrealism with metaphysical roots, featuring rounded and voluminous figures of geometric character. Among the themes presented are maternities, portraits of children and women, families, and enigmatic still lifes as well as allegorical scenes that present an air of intriguing mysticism and that contain a spirituality that we will see emerge in later periods. On a technical level, Francés works innovatively to achieve certain textures and impastos using the encaustic technique, where she mixes wax, resin, and solvent on a rigid support, superimposing different layers of paint to "wound" them afterward with a nail. An experimental will that remains intact throughout her entire career, marking her strong plastic personality. Juana Francés is the most prominent of a group of women artists who began exhibiting in the 1950s and whose professional determination defied the society of her time: an exclusionary system that relegated women to the domestic sphere or to decorative roles in culture. Facing a hostile, normative, and rigid environment created by the social ideology of Francoism, Juana Francés managed to remain attentive to plastic concerns and to be an active part of a generation of artists who revolutionized the art of their time. Her trajectory allows us today to rethink the role of women in art history, as well as the complex relationship between aesthetic modernity and social commitment.
Workshop visit, Mediation

Early Childhood Education
09.09.2025 - 18.06.2026
Workshop visit, Mediation

Primary Education
09.09.2026 - 18.06.2027
Workshop visit, Mediation

Primary Education
09.09.2026 - 18.06.2027
Workshop visit, Mediation

Primary Education
09.09.2026 - 18.06.2027
Workshop visit, Mediation

Primary Education
08.10.2025 - 23.01.2026
Workshop visit, Mediation

Secondary Education, Upper Secondary Education...
09.09.2026 - 18.06.2027
Workshop visit, Mediation

Secondary Education, Upper Secondary Education...
09.09.2026 - 18.06.2027
Workshop visit, Mediation

Secondary Education, Upper Secondary Education...
08.10.2025 - 23.01.2026
Workshop visit, Mediation

Primary Education, Secondary Education...
09.09.2026 - 18.06.2027
El doblaje, ha sido una herramienta con la que la población española se ha acercado al cine y ha configurado su vida social y política. En esta performance se recuperarán las voces silenciadas de mujeres artistas en la década de los años 80, cuando el conceptualismo, la abstracción o el informalismo no tenían cabida en un momento de evasión y celebración. Experimentar con este recurso cinematográfico permite especular sobre nuevas lecturas de la transición generando un nuevo des-doblaje.
The Collection was bequeathed to MACA by Alicante-born artist Juana Francés, one of the most relevant artists in the Spanish artistic landscape of the second half of the 20th century, a pioneer of abstract informalism and the only woman in the emb...