The exhibition has been extended until January 10, 2027.
Colour does not exist, but the world is unimaginable without it. As a phenomenon —in every sense— it has existed in thought and in the arts from rock art to contemporary digital experiments. For many artists it has been at the centre of their practice, while for philosophers and scientists it has provided plenty of material for reflection and debate.
In art history, the importance of colour has often been discussed and challenged. It was the emergence of abstract art in the early 20th century that freed colour from the dictates of representation and the primacy of line. For the first time, colour could exist on its own in artwork, without being subjected to narrative models or other elements of graphic value: it ceased to be an adjective and it became a noun.
On Colour in Art (Coloramas) presents the work of a group of contemporary artists for whom colour is the essential principle of composition. All the artwork belongs to the collections of MACA. Museum of Contemporary Art of Alicante and they span 75 years, from the mid-1950s to 2025. The selection of artists, styles, techniques and materials conveys both the complexity of contemporary languages and the richness and variety of the museum’s collections.
Together with the artwork, the exhibition has two distinctive spaces. In the first, before going into the gallery, there is a small cabinet of curiosities where visitors can discover the origins of colour through minerals, dye plants, pigments, natural dyes and their uses in textiles. These are accompanied by samples of synthetic and industrial pigments, evidence of inventions —such as the patent for colour in tubes—, and documents that point to the ideological, political and social impregnation of colour.
Behind the white gallery and visually separated from it, is Coloramas. An expansive experience in a space that recalls early dioramas, camera obscuras and zoetropes, where an audiovisual tale tells the fascinating story of colour and its progression, first gradual and later disruptive, towards autonomy. Coloramas unfolds through scenes that explore colour as a physical phenomenon, a perceptual construction and a symbolic language.
This exhibition has its origins in Lo tienes que ver. La autonomía del color en el arte abstracto [You Have to See It. The Autonomy of Colour in Abstract Art], held at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid in 2025 and it is the result of the collaboration and support between institutions.
