"Located in the very heart of the city, the MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo, is right in the middle of its most frequented shopping area. Shop windows, commercial precincts and public spaces surround what until1976 was a place associated with law and order, the administration of justice and punishment. The new museum repeats the architectural style and original structure of the prison in the shape of a radial panoptic building with a front entrance and a central point from which the different wings come out, separated by sizeable courtyards.

The CARDINALES exhibition draws its inspiration from this architectural layout, its meaning and its historical implications. It means to celebrate the transformation of the use of the building, as well as the notion of a contemporary art museum as a space dedicated to freedom, social interaction and to the achievement of knowledge and pleasure. From a place of imprisonment into a space of recreation, from being used for isolating individuals from society to bringing people together by means of an eminently socialising activity.

Linking the new use of the building with the daily lives of visitors and of the people of Vigo in general is one of the main aims inspiring the inauguration of the museum. The exhibition intends to be a metaphoric homage to Vigo's seafaring tradition, to navigation and, also, to sight, vision and its vicissitudes.

The notion of "cardinal" refers us to the compass card, to the reticle imposed on space and to time measuring.

CARDINALES spreads out in three sections that give way to each other on the route across the museum rooms, from its visual, architectural core towards the wings and finally onto the large glass-covered courtyards.

The first section is dedicated to the phenomena of monitoring, surveillance and social order. Echoing Jeremy Bentham's (1748-1832) original concept, the panoptic prison is an instrument to reinsert into society those individuals whose behaviour make them expendable. A prison is an instrument of punishment and control organised on the basis of the economy of space and the efficacy of surveillance. This surveillance is visual and it places the watchman in a position of being able to control from a single point the content and evolution of the whole building. The panoptic structure is a static one. In this section we can find works such as the sculptures and installations by the British Langlands & Bell, videos by Annika Larsson, Jeremy Bentham's drawing of the panoptic, or a multi-media installation by Harun Farocki. Other artists present in this section are: Muntadas, Tony Oursler, Montserrat Soto, Rui Chafes and James Casebere.

In opposition to the first one, the next section will deal with the topic of evasion, the escape towards a new horizon, the wish for freedom and travel. In contrast with the opacity and immobility that surrounds the life of a prison inmate, we will find the individual searching for new goals, open landscapes and the experience of time as something constantly moving, abrupt and furiously-paced. We will be able to enjoy here works such as Esko Männikkö's photographic series, a piece of filming by Tacita Dean, documents by Constant Nieuwenhuis on his ideal city-world "New Babylon", the "Cathedral of pleasure" by Nicolas Schöffer, or Bas Jan Ader and Jorge Barbi.

Linked with the panoptic structure and its particular summary of time, a series of works will exemplify the importance that visual devices, seeing-machines and scenographic apparatus have acquired in contemporary art. Works by Eulalia Valldosera, Sergio Prego, Anri Sala and Pavel Althamer, among others. Based on an interior-exterior relationship, the panoramic view will be introduced as a negative correlate to the panoptic; circular architectures will be considered as a space loop and the succession of images as the materialisation of the wish for totality.

CARDINALES is not a demonstrative exhibition but an evolutionary, representative one. It will be evolutionary as it will be structured in the form of visual toings and froings, in an escape from linearity. It will be representative since it will tackle with the current need to reinterpret the recent history of art, leaving aside official canons and being permeable to new formal and intellectual perspectives. The exhibition does not intend to dictate new directions to present-day art, but to be a meeting point from which to look around oneself, at a time when the world has grown so much that its cartographic study is impossible.