Madrid 1978. Spain was coming out of dictatorship and its capital experienced a prodigious decade that shook the cultural and artistic landscape. That revolution in technicolour that made Madrid the headquarters of fun and creativity was called La Movida. Do you remember it?
Now an exhibition organized by the Foto Colectania Foundation in Barcelona recalls those experimental years under a rebellious title: ‘La Movida. Chronicle of an agitation ‘. This recently opened exhibition offers an approach to this historical moment from the perspective of photography, addressing radically different areas and perspectives. The exhibition, presented in summer at the prestigious Les Rencontres d’Arles festival, focuses on the work of four photographers who immortalized some icons of La Movida: Alberto García-Alix, Ouka Leele, Pablo Pérez-Mínguez and Miguel Trillo. These professionals lived this cultural revolution in person, sometimes lived together, sometimes came across each other or simply found themselves in different environments, but the interesting thing about the exhibition is how each of them immortalized it from a different perspective, showing different faces of the same reality.
Thus the exhibition presents this polyhedral look at the movement, in which extraordinary photographs can be contemplated that bear exceptional testimony to the time. Authentic visual jewels such as García Alix’s vintage photographs that testify to how the street was transformed and also the characters that inhabited it; Ouka Leele’s dreamlike and coloured snapshots full of freshness and imagination; the rebellious perspective of Pablo Pérez-Mínguez in whose study all the main characters were photographed under the slogan “Everything goes” and the urban tribes of Miguel Trillo who portrayed the freedom of the street and the youth of the moment, grouped according to their way of dressing and their behaviour. The exhibition also includes a selection of materials such as vinyl, fanzines or posters, as well as a projection of musical performances that complement the personal universes of the photographers.
The uniqueness of La Movida
La Movida was a unique and spontaneous era of contemporary Spanish culture. It took place in Madrid at the end of the seventies and extended throughout the 80s, coinciding with the mayoralty of Enrique Tierno Galván. After several decades of dictatorship and ostracism the Spanish transition saw a new generation fascinated by modernity and the idea of the new, which would crystallize in creators from different fields such as music, fashion, film, painting or photography . This cultural heyday was distinguished in other European cities as a phenomenon that directly connected with the daily life of the moment.
The exhibition ‘La Movida. Chronicle of an agitation ‘ can be visited at the Foto Colectania Foundation in Barcelona until mid-February. A look back at the past of the most fun and free city of the moment.
