The MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo, begins the last quarter of the year with the opening of a new self-produced show in the galleries on the ground floor. WOMEN OF SILENCE. From Maruja Mallo to Angela de la Cruz is an updated review of A arte inexistente [Non-Existent Art] a show curated by Rosario Sarmiento for the Auditorio de Galicia in 1995, which brought together works by women artists in Galicia in the 20th century.

At that time, the binomial existence/non-existence was related to the possibility of entering the academic world as a means for professionalization and pioneered by Maruja Mallo and Julia Minguillón. Twenty years later, even when professional training is no longer a question, the reality still remains complex, and this evolution has not run parallel to the presence and visibility of women in the artistic framework.

From the perspective of the time elapsed since then, we now find ourselves emerged in the historical-temporal space of the first decades of the 21st century which permits us to visualize stories, protagonists, and broader visions of the contributions and of the role of some artists in contemporary artistic creation in Galicia. The exhibition spans various generations of women artists and includes the first artists in Galicia who could study at the School of Fine Arts in Pontevedra in 1990.

In terms of structure, the exhibition has been classified into four different areas which seek to analyze and delve into the contexts in which these artists developed their work. The exhibition calls our attention to questions such as the discrete role of women artists in the pre-Civil War avant-garde movements, the post-war period and the forced exodus to other artistic centres outside Galicia, the arrival of democracy, and the new cultural and educational scenarios in which the artist’s careers begin to develop in the early 21st century.

For the very first time, this exhibition brings together about a hundred works from a large number of lenders — institutions, museums, art centres and private collections —, alongside additional —sometimes unpublished— documentation compiled from art archives and collections. The historical and temporal context has always been taken into account in the selection of representative works from each period, with the intention of settling a chronological and theoretical leitmotiv.

Next January WOMEN OF SILENCE will co-habit with a new exhibition programmed for the galleries on the museum´s first floor. The show curated by Anxela Caramés signifies the first approach to feminist artistic practices in Galicia from the 90’s.