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The exhibition 'In the Shadows of Dreams - Magical Figuration from Spain' presents from 9th July to 23rd October 56 medium to large format paintings by seven contemporary Spanish artists.

'Magical figuration' may be understood here not as a style or even as the term for an epoch. Like the realms of the realistic and the fantastic it is shifting, energetic and varied, as well as unique in its every form, and it is a constant factor in Western art which can be traced from the present day to way back into the past, although it experienced a blossoming in the 20th century in particular, which continues to this day. However, Spanish painting from the last half-century has rarely been considered ... from this angle, or exhibited in such a large representative collection.

While 'In the Light of Reality' presented a panorama of contemporary Spanish realism in 2007, 'In the Shadow of Dreams' now offers for the first time a further insight into the 'other side' of present-day Spanish painting, art which in a unique manner combines the real with the magical, the visionary and the imaginary, with the symbolic, the grotesque and the dreamlike. The seven artists who are gathered together for this exhibition come from various regions of Spain and have followed different training routes; nor can they really be compared stylistically. They are revealed as magnificent individualists who nevertheless have much in common: a sense of being tied down to tradition, full mastery of their methods, representative reflection of the world and comprehension of its complexity, as well as a fusion of real with imaginary and magical elements, which confer on the works their unique sensual as well as spiritual, symbolic and mysterious character.