To summarise so far the exhibitory history of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía at the Abbey de Santo Domingo de Silos, this exhibition shows the work of each of the twenty-four Spanish artists who have participated until now. This project started in 1998 through the collaboration between the Ministry of Culture, the Monastery of Santo Domingo Silos and the Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Burgos. Entitled Silensis, this exhibition is a unique opportunity to discover the excellent relationship that has developed over all these years between the many contemporary artworks exhibited here and the historical space of the Abbey de Silos itself.
A real miscellany of disciplines and artistic aspects emerge for the spectator where some of the artists have shown their most intimate, poetic and spiritual facet, linked to the spirituality and mysticism of the space that hosts them, they were in many cases unknown facets of these great creators.
For Silensis, an exhibition by way of synthesis, a piece created by each of the authors who have gone through the Benedictine monastery has been selected. This collection has also been established with the aim of capturing each of the artistic disciplines that have taken place in this project. Pieces that make the exhibition include: paintings by Antoni Tápies, Joan Miró, Esteban Vicente, Albert Ráfols Casamada, Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Manuel Rivera, Manolo Millares, Juan Carlos Savater and Lucio Muñoz; sculptures by Sergi Aguilar, Eduardo Chillida, Martín Chirino, Susana Solano y Xavier Mascaró. Alongside these pieces the sculptures and drawings by Carmen Laffón are also exhibited; the ceramics by Miquel Barceló; sculpture, collage and gouache by Gustavo Torner; drawings by Cristino de Vera; engravings by Carlos Franco; works on paper by José Manuel Broto and José María Sicilia; the photography and video by Sergio Belinchón; books by Miguel Ángel Blanco and the work in comic format by Francesc Ruiz.