The Ibercaja Foundation participates in the Europalia festival in Brussels with engravings by Goya from its Goya Museum. The main exhibition of the festival, titled «Light and Shadow: Goya and Spanish Realism», was inaugurated in the presence of the Royal Houses of Spain and Belgium, along with the Spanish Minister of Culture Ernest Urtasun and the managing director of the entity, José Luis Rodrigo. The exhibition will remain open to the public until January 11, 2026.
The international Europalia festival, held every two years at Bozar (Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels), aims to promote the culture and arts of a specific country or theme. In this edition, Spain is the guest country, with Francisco de Goya as the central figure of the program. The main exhibition is curated by Leticia Sastre and Rocío García, and organized by Acción Cultural Española in collaboration with the Ibercaja Foundation, the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Fine Arts, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, and Mensajeros de la Paz.
Works from the Goya Museum in the Exhibition
Ibercaja Foundation contributes to the exhibition with part of the series of engravings «Disparates» and «Tauromaquia» from its Goya Museum, currently undergoing expansion. These engravings are part of the artistic conversation that the exhibition presents, reflecting the expressive complexity with which Goya represented the reality of his time.
The exhibition establishes a dialogue between the works of Francisco de Goya and those of contemporaries and artists from later generations. With seventy artists represented—from the 18th century to the present—the exhibition analyzes how Goya’s formal, conceptual, and ideological legacy continues to intrigue, move, and inspire. The intense representations of the Aragonese master regarding injustice, abuses, and the horrors of his time made him a fundamental axis in the development of a modernity rooted in the Spanish realistic tradition.
The Heritage of the Goya Museum
The Goya Museum is the second largest space in the world for the pictorial works of Francisco de Goya, only behind the Prado Museum. Furthermore, it is the only place where all series of engravings by the artist created from 1778 to 1825 are permanently exhibited. The Ibercaja Foundation emphasizes that, although the museum is undergoing expansion, its commitment is to continue showcasing and sharing its artistic heritage with society as a whole.
