Sueños lúcidos. Artistas españoles de la colección TBA21
To mark the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Spain and South Korea, a major exhibition of Spanish contemporary art opens at Art Sonje Center in Seoul this spring. Clear, Lucid, and Awake, curated by Chus Martínez and co-produced by TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and Art Sonje Center, in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry of Culture, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), AECID, and the Embassy of Spain in the Republic of Korea, brings together ten acclaimed Spanish artists whose works resonate across borders, cultures, and ecological urgencies. This exhibition constructs a dialogue between two nations that are geographically distant yet culturally resonant—both peninsulas with deep maritime histories, industrialized transitions, and complex relationships with their rural landscapes. Clear, Lucid, and Awake emphasizes common trajectories of modernization, ecological transformation, and cultural reinvention.
Spanning sculpture, video, installation, and performance, the exhibition presents a powerful portrait of Spain’s contemporary artistic landscape—while offering space for connection with Korean cultural experience.
Reimagining Coexistence Through Art
The exhibition draws from the renowned TBA21 Collection and explores themes such as folklore, oral history, ecological trauma, and collective memory. The artists featured—many of whom are part of a generation invested in ecological, gender, and social justice—see art as a catalyst for regeneration, reconnection, and reparation. Their works propose alternative temporalities, where the geological and historical coexist with the mythic and imagined.
At the heart of Clear, Lucid, and Awake is a dialogue between Spain’s contemporary artistic community and the Korean cultural context—a resonance deepened through the show’s shared themes: coastal geographies, urban transformation, ecological precarity, and the overlooked wisdom of rural traditions.
Irene de Andrés’s film La Isla revisits Madrid’s polluted and forgotten Manzanares River through archival imagery and ecological reflection, restoring water as a site of memory, resistance, and joy.
Belén Rodríguez, known for embedding herself in remote natural environments, contributes a textile work crafted from her own recycled materials, dyed with oak and birch. Accompanied by photographs, her installation evokes care, cyclical time, and the recovery of artisanal memory in the Anthropocene.