The exhibition Goya. Fantasy and Reason: The Caprices brings together Francisco de Goya’s prints and the cinematic universe of Luis Buñuel at the Centro Buñuel Calanda. The exhibition, which opened on November 6, will run until January 10, 2027, in the filmmaker’s hometown.
Goya’s Caprices engage with Buñuel’s critical cinema in Calanda
The exhibition features the 80 prints from the Caprices series, published by Francisco de Goya in 1799, through editions identical to the originals. The prints use satire to challenge superstition, false beliefs, abuses of authority, the education system, marriages of convenience, prostitution, and social injustice.
Among the works included are The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, Volaverunt, Even His Grandfather, and They Have Taken Their Seats. Through these prints, Goya cast a critical eye on the vices and failings of human behavior, as well as on the power of the nobility and the clergy.
The exhibition establishes the same framework for reflection through the filmography of Luis Buñuel. Films such as Los olvidados (1950), Viridiana (1961), The Exterminating Angel (1962), and Simon of the Desert (1965) use dream logic, breaks with rationality, and unsettling symbolism to question the social order, religion, and power.
An audiovisual presentation connects reason, superstition, authority, and injustice
The exhibition includes an audiovisual presentation featuring excerpts from both artists’ films, structured around six concepts: reason, superstition, authority, ignorance, desire, and injustice. The proposal underscores a shared perspective marked by irony, sarcasm, and skepticism toward rationality and progress.
Goya and Buñuel also share an interest in the repressed, the marginal, the grotesque, and the carnivalesque. The exhibition positions the painter as a precursor of Expressionism and modern art, while presenting the Calanda-born filmmaker as a pioneer in renewing cinematic language and critical thought in contemporary visual culture.
Alongside the prints, the exhibition displays bibliographic holdings from the Fundación Goya en Aragón related to the works, including Buñuel’s screenplay for a film about Goya. The collection also explores the symbolic and cultural Aragonese connection between the two creators, from the harshness of the rural landscape to the richness of popular culture.
The exhibition is part of Aragón’s program leading up to Goya’s bicentennial
The initiative is organized by the Government of Aragón, the Fundación Goya en Aragón, the Calanda Town Council, and the Fundación Caja Inmaculada. It forms part of an exhibition program dedicated to Goya’s print series, developed by the Fundación Goya en Aragón together with Fundación CAI across Aragón ahead of the bicentennial of the artist’s death, set for 2028.
The facsimile editions held by Fundación CAI make it possible to exhibit the Caprices beyond their usual venues. In Calanda, the exhibition links Goya’s graphic work with Buñuel’s surrealist imagination in a space devoted to memory, criticism, and reflection.
The exhibition is open from Friday through Sunday, from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., at the Centro Buñuel Calanda.
