Cutting-edge contemporary art – and challenging pieces by Spain's 20th century art 'superstars', Picasso and Dali – are among the works found in the Reina Sofía.
The Reina Sofía lies at the southern tip of Madrid's Golden Triangle of Art, just off the Paseo de Prado. Unlike its fellow temples to the arts, the Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Prado, however, this centre of Spanish contemporary art is not in a purpose-built museum – but in a hospital. The patients are long gone (the hospital closed in 1969), and its 17th century frame has now been transformed into a striking modern art museum. Sharp-cut glass elevators slice up its reworked front façade. Inside, the corridors and open-plan atriums are stalked by the best in contemporary and post-modern art – schools that Spain's 20th century artists had a large hand in shaping.Foremost among these are Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. And the Reina Sofía is home to one of the defining paintings of the last century's conflicts – Picasso's Guernica. More than any other painting, it captures the madness of war. Once displayed all over the world – as a reminder of Spain's Civil War atrocities – it came back to Spain in 1981, when democracy blossomed again, after Franco's death. Guernica arrived at the Reina Sofía in 1992, when its rebuilding was complete, together with the rest of the Prado Museum's modern art collection.There are also a large number of Salvador Dali's surrealist masterpieces housed here, with titles as wonderfully bizarre as his paintings – Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man is one of the loaned pieces, recently exhibited. And then there are fellow Spanish Surrealists like Joan Miró, assorted works by Spain's Abstract, Pop, and Minimalist artists – as well as those of La Movida Madrileña scene of the 1980s.But it's not only Spanish artists on display in the Reina Sofía. Look carefully, and you'll find the distorted nudes of Francis Bacon, the bold sculptural forms of Henry Moore, or even the odd Damien Hirst. A visit to the Reina Sofía undoubtedly leaves you elevated, and looking at the world through a new lens.
