The hundred-year-old Zachêta Gallery in Warsaw, Poland, holds an exhibition of Spanish Art from the Eighties and Nineties featuring the work of forty-seven artists. All of the works selected belong to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Collection, which opens and consolidates its activity throughout the Eighties.
The arrival of democracy in Spain sees the proliferation of initiatives that make a significant contribution to the development of contemporary art. One of these is the ARCO exhibition, founded in 1982 with the aim of promoting Spanish artists internationally and setting in motion national collections in Spain. Around the time there are also numerous art centres and Contemporary Art museums being established.
The Eighties are characterised by the return to painting, particularly through artists such as: Alfonso Albacete, José Manuel Broto, Miguel Ángel Campano, Guillermo Pérez Villalta and Manolo Quejido, and others participating in the exhibition. At the end of the Eighties sculpture rises to the fore as Miquel Navarro, Adolfo Schlosser, Francisco Leiro, Susana Solano, Cristina Iglesias and Sergi Aguilar, all present in the exhibition, play their part in the innovations that take place within the discipline. With the exception of artists such as Julio González, at the turn of the century, and Eduardo Chillida and Jorge Oteiza in the second half of the 20th century, Spain saw very few significant modifications.
In the Nineties artists experiment with new techniques, disciplines and mediums and the art scene maintains close ties with the art that is developing internationally. Painting expands beyond its usual support and is highly influenced by photography, while sculpture broadens its range of materials and installation becomes consolidated in exhibition spaces, together with video and other new mediums. Artists such as Javier Baldeón, José Manuel Ballester, Susy Gómez Txomin Badiola, Dis Berlin, Concha García, María Gómez, Begoña Goyenetxea, Pedro Mora, Marina Núñez, Perejaume, Darío Urzay, Juan Ugalde and Juan Uslé are involved in Spanish Art's internationalisation at the end of the Eighties and Nineties, a time when different generations of artists intermingle and a bond forms between the youngest artists on the scene and the most established.