The María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation and the Cultural Center of Spain in Miami (CCEMiami), in collaboration with Barry University Department of English and Foreign Languages and the Studio for Languages and Cultures, present the photography exhibition ‘Visions of Asturias’ on February 8, 2023. This outdoors exhibition will be on view until May 7, 2023, at Barry University.

Visions of Asturias is a longstanding project of the Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson.

This patronage project, started up in 2012, involves commissioning acclaimed Spanish photographers, all winners of the National Photography Prize, to produce artistic work about the Asturias region and its peoples. The photographers are granted complete freedom and the unique works they create are incorporated into the Foundation’s art collection.

The exhibition reproduces—with full respect for the original works—a selection of more than twenty photographs by four of the photographers who have taken part in this initiative: Alberto García-Alix, José Manuel Ballester, Ouka Leele, and Chema Madoz. These pieces illustrate each photographer’s distinctive and personal vision of this region in northern Spain.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

ALBERTO GARCÍA-ALIX

Beloved Homeland

1st edition of Visions of Asturias (2012)

In “Beloved Homeland,” Alberto García-Alix (León, 1956) demonstrates his ability to humanize everything he photographs through a unique, rich, and diverse vision.

Nature, ever-mysterious and deep, is portrayed as wild and many-sided in masses of greys and blacks. The human figures carry the entire burden of a people in their faces, and the defiant architecture draws diagonals across the space, creating tension lines charged with emotion.

This intense, poetic vision—an inner journey between reality and allegory—draws us into a story told by one of the most important Spanish photographers of the past forty years.

JOSÉ MANUEL BALLESTER

Allumar

2nd edition of Visions of Asturias (2013)

José Manuel Ballester (Madrid, 1960) is an artist who works with spaces, silences, and contemplative experiences. His long professional career was been rewarded with many international prizes and exhibitions. From 2010 to 2013, he produced more than five thousand snapshots in Asturias, illuminating (allumando in Asturian) all its corners.

The photographs selected for this exhibition reveal inhospitable, active, isolated, or unfinished places that possess extremely intimate poetics, showing a region where the forces of nature prevail even in industrial spaces.

OUKA LEELE

Where the Light Takes Me

3rd edition of Visions of Asturias (2015)

Ouka Leele (Madrid, 1957) is a photographer, performer, painter, poet, and audiovisual director.

Her vision shows us her small universe, in an attempt to exorcize the fleeting moment, the uncertain light in which landscapes merge with the beings who populate them. It is a world full of enchantment and mystery, dominated by fantasy and the imagination.

In “Where the Light Takes Me,” the artist raises her voice to tell us there is something reassuring and eternal about the natural world that surrounds us. Positioned in an appropriate place, she brings us face to face with huge masses of fog or transports us to shadowy depths laden with irregular, watery forms.

CHEMA MADOZ

The Immobile Traveler

5th edition of Visions of Asturias (2017)

Chema Madoz (Madrid, 1958) creates his photographs by manipulating everyday images and objects to reveal new aspects of their symbolic potential. For “The Immobile Traveler,” Chema Madoz had to take an approach opposite to his usual way of working. This time it is not the objects that speak to the spectator; rather, the idea of Asturias becomes the object that is viewed.

These photographs are a journey through the imagination to discover the conceptual elements that make up the mental picture of Asturias. Drawing on the synthetic abilities of iconic representation, the photographer presents us with the landscape and its wildlife and inhabitants through a collision of the senses. He succeeds in combining observation of this small region with poetic representations of it that go back and forth from pure abstraction to the concrete, using his sense of humor.

ABOUT FUNDACIÓN MARÍA CRISTINA MASAVEU PETERSON

The Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson (FMCMP) is a private, non-profit, and general-interest Spanish cultural foundation. It was established in 2006 by María Cristina Masaveu to promote culture, training, and scientific research in keeping with the Masaveu family’s tradition of patronage.

The Foundation is intensely active in various fields and its wide-ranging patronage efforts are visible in its projects, its own art collection, and its management of the Masaveu Collection, one of the most important private art holdings in Spain. It has been involved in several initiatives in the United States, such as sponsoring the exhibition “Goya’s Graphic Imagination” held at the Met (2021), Alberto García-Alix’s exhibition “Visions of Asturias. Beloved Homeland” at the Instituto Cervantes in New York (2015), and a program of concerts performed by the VentArt quintet at Princeton University (2015).

The Foundation’s activities are international in scope. It has its headquarters in Madrid (Spain) and is currently working on opening new establishments, including a multidisciplinary center on the Yale University Campus to disseminate Spanish culture.

The FMCMP is furthermore the main shareholder of the Masaveu Corporation, a diversified business group based in Spain with significant real estate investments in several countries, particularly the United States.

https://www.fundacioncristinamasaveu.com/