The delegate of the Area of Culture, Tourism, and Sports, Marta Rivera de la Cruz, presented this morning the exhibition hosted by the Fernán Gómez Theater. Centro Cultural de la Villa from May 15 to July 13 as part of PHotoESPAÑA, Joel Meyerowitz: Europe, 1966-1967. The exhibition is dedicated to the work that the American photographer carried out during a key trip for his artistic formation. The event also featured the presence of María Santoyo, festival director; Miguel López-Remiro, curator of the exhibition, and Meyerowitz himself.
Over the course of a year, Meyerowitz traveled through ten European countries and took over 25,000 photographs. This exhibition, curated by Miguel López-Remiro, brings together for the first time over 200 images from that itinerary, many of them unseen in Madrid. The exhibition includes vintage prints and new impressions in color and black and white, covering the most significant moments of a journey that was also a process of personal discovery.
It was in the summer of 1966 when Meyerowitz left New York and embarked on a road trip through Europe with his first wife, Vivian. Over 30,000 kilometers, they crossed England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Spain, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. The journey is structured into geographical and thematic blocks, from his early photographic experiences in the UK to his immersion in southern Spain, the hustle of Turkish markets, or the calm of Corfu.
Through portraits, street scenes, landscapes, and views from his moving car, the exhibition allows us to follow the transformation of his visual language: a more open photograph, less tied to the decisive moment, and more interested in capturing the complexity of the moment.
The project also engages with the exhibition that Meyerowitz presented at the MoMA in 1968 titled My European Trip, where many of the keys to his later style were already hinted at. As the artist himself described it, the camera was his way of being present, understanding what he was experiencing, and mapping out his own desires.
Joel Meyerowitz: Europe, 1966-1967 not only shows the birth of a gaze but also portrays a continent in transformation. From the vitality of cities to the political and social contrasts of the time, the exhibition offers a vibrant and fragmented visual narrative that anticipates many of the tensions of the contemporary world. /
