27.06.2016
Bode-Museum
There is nowhere better than the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid for getting a comprehensive overview of Spanish sculpture. Berlin's Bode-Museum enjoys a comparable reputation as one of just a small number of places where it is possible to see the historical evolution of German sculpture. It therefore seems entirely natural that these two institutions should undertake a collaborative project. Spain and Germany remain relative strangers to one another's sculptural traditions. Two exhibitions now seek to address this.
The exhibition 'El Siglo de Oro: The Age of Velázquez', which opens next week at the Kulturforum, will for the first time give visitors in Germany the chance to see a selection of works that comprehensively showcases the tremendous variety of painting and sculpture in 17th century Spain. One of the main lenders to the exhibition is the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid, which has agreed to send masterpieces of Spanish sculpture on loan to Germany. The featured works are life-size, hyper-realistic sculptures, which depict the suffering of Christ and the saints so vividly as to be almost palpable.
The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin is extremely grateful for this generous loan. During the same period in which 'El Siglo de Oro: The Age of Velázquez' is taking place, a parallel exhibition of sculpture from the 'German Golden Age' (c. 1500) will be held in Valladolid. Such treasures as Tilman Riemenschneider's 'Münnerstadt Evangelists', and major works by Hans Leinbegger, Veit Stoss, and a variety of other artists, are scheduled for arrival in Valladolid on 22 June 2016. Opening on 5 July 2016, the exhibition boasts the wonderfully evocative title 'Últimos fuegos góticos'. The exhibition runs until 6 November 2016.