Exhibitions in Sales (2018)

SALÓN ANTONIO WELCOME. FROM 28 FROM APRIL TO 12 FROM MAY

The Madrid artist César Palacios was the author of the poster that illustrated the Goyesca bullfight of May 2, a figurative work of expressionist style, of great visual force, which had the ring and the lines of the Las Ventas bullring as protagonists. The painter is an emblem of traditionalism and Las Ventas, where for more than fifty years he has worked as a sandbox while at the same time recording the life of the world's first bullring in his notebook. 

Some of his works, including the one chosen to symbolize the Goyesca 2018 run, were exhibited at the Antonio Bienvenida de Las Ventas, from the 28 from April to the 12 in May. 

SALÓN ANTOÑETE. FROM 30 FROM APRIL TO 13 FROM MAY

The Center for Bullfighting Affairs of the Community of Madrid organized an exhibition that paid tribute to the figure of the master Dámaso González, a bullfighter who died in August 2017, at the age of 68, a victim of cancer. His family actively participated in the show, providing unpublished photos of the Albacete right-hander, from his early years in the capeas to his last appearances at festivals, the dress of his alternative in Alicante in 1969, a walking cape embroidered with the image of the Virgen de los Llanos, some of the many trophies that Dámaso González obtained during his worthy professional career, various personal items and a video with several of his bullfighting milestones.

The Community of Madrid thus remembered one of the most beloved bullfighters by the fans, who received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts 2017 posthumously. In 1979, he opened the Puerta Grande de Las Ventas after cutting off both ears of a bull from La Laguna, on an afternoon in which he alternated with Andrés Vázquez and José María Manzanares. He came out on his shoulders again in 1981 with a bullfight by Álvaro Domecq. The fans still remember their work, in San Isidro in 1993, to a huge bull by Samuel Flores. Only in the Monumental Madrid he did the paseo 45 times as a matador.

In his long career, from his alternative in 1969 until his farewell in Murcia, on September 17, 2003 (the critic Joaquín Vidal came to define him as “the founder of contemporary bullfighting”), Dámaso González fought more than 1600 celebrations, dealing with all kinds of herds, including the toughest: Miura, Victorino, Pablo Romero, Guardiola or Cuadri; but also Núñez, Torrestrella, Jandilla or Atanasio. In the exhibition, several photos of his afternoons of glory were shown, sharing the poster with other unforgettable figures, such as "Paquirri", El Niño de la Capea, the aforementioned Manzanares, Antonio Ordóñez or "Miguelín". In his personal facet, he was seen distributing milk (as a child he worked in the family dairy while dreaming of being a bullfighter), together with his friend the rancher Samuel Flores, dressing up in lights or in the editorial office of "La Voz de Albacete".

SALÓN ANTONIO WELCOME. FROM 14 DE MAYO TO 27 DE MAYO

The Community of Madrid inaugurated, in the Antonio Bienvenida Room of the Las Ventas bullring, an unusual exhibition entitled “From the ring to the comic. Bulls and bullfighters between Superman and Rompetechos ”. Sometimes scorned by the elite and so-called official culture, both bullfighting and comics have often been viewed as a genuine expression of mass culture. Bulls and bullfighters have therefore had a major role in the so-called graphic cartoon, from the first babbling of the same at the end of the XNUMXth century to the more experimental comics and the graphic novel of the XNUMXth and XNUMXst centuries. The exhibition, curated by the writer, doctor in History and translator Fernando González Viñas, allowed a journey through the presence of the bull and the bullfighter in Spanish, French, American, British and even Japanese comics.

The attraction of bullfighting, both for comics for adults and children, can be seen in the list of characters who have appeared on a crutch in hand or fleeing from a bull that escaped from their farm. In the words of the curator, "in Spanish comics, from Mortadelo and Filemón to Zipi and Zape, from Anacleto to the Ulises Family, without forgetting, of course, Rompetechos and many others, the presence of the bull has been constant since the birth of the bull in 1917. TBO, which would give the genre its name. Also in countries close to the bullfighting phenomenon such as Mexico and France, bulls have found accommodation, with such outstanding examples as the pages of Asterix. The idea of ​​taking the bull and the bullfighter to the pages of the comic has found their place also in surprising environments: thus together with superheroes such as Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman, Spiderman, Daredevil and many others, they have found their place in the color pages of Bugs Bunny and Donad Duck; and also in countries like Japan, where the author Est Em has brought an aspiring heifer to the manga, the name given to the comic in the rising sun. And let's not forget the list of authors who have approached the bull from the cartoon: Ibáñez, Hugo Pratt, Jack Kirby, Carl Barks or Paco Roca, to name a few ".

SALÓN ANTOÑETE. FROM 15 DE MAYO TO 22 DE MAYO

Exhibition shared between the sculptor Alfonso Rey and the painter Paloma Velarde. Rey's work combined sculpture and panel painting; while Velarde brought a collection of portraits of bullfighters and oil paintings.

SALÓN ANTOÑETE. FROM 23 DE MAYO TO 31 DE MAYO

Exhibition shared between the painter Raúl Velloso and the sculptor Emilio Sánchez. Raúl Velloso was sponsored by Antoni Tapies, with whom he took his first steps in the art world. His exhibition proposal was made up of bullfighters' heads with a certain expressionist influence. Emilio Sánchez, for his part, proposed an exhibition of sculpture in polished stone joined to iron and glued and patinated wood. His work is in private collections in Spain, Germany, Japan and America; He has received several awards and has participated in different individual and group exhibitions. The sobriety of Sánchez's sculpture perfectly complemented Velloso's color and strength.

SALÓN ANTONIO WELCOME. FROM 29 DE MAYO TO 10 DE JUNIO

The Colombian painter Diego Ramos Ramírez, one of the most recognized artists currently on bullfighting, inaugurated, in collaboration with the Center for Bullfighting Affairs of the Community of Madrid, his fourth exhibition in the Las Ventas bullring, where he showed unpublished work in which light and movement stood out especially. 

In the selection of works that Diego Ramos brought to Madrid's Monumental, the modernity and mastery of drawing attracted attention, which the artist decomposes later until it ends in a kaleidoscope of styles: the effects of the natural light of impressionism, the pure colors and violent that they approach the Expressionism or fovis reminiscences in the strength of the line, always with a figurative base. Over the years, Diego Ramos has been inspired more intensely in "the rhythm of the elements", especially in the movement of bulls and bullfighters. To that adds the light contrasts, so characteristic of the afternoons of running.

Predominant paintings painted in oil, combined with some work of mixed media, with dry or oily cake, gouaches and acrylics on "collages". These "improvisations" marry especially well with the experimental character of the Colombian artist, who increasingly enjoys making flip-flop notes that refresh the archetypal figure of the bullfighter. "I try to study the past to express the present without falling into the cliché or the vulgar. In short, what I want is to capture images of bulls for a current audience without forgetting the roots, "declared Ramos, who was also the artist chosen by the Bullfighting Center to draw up the poster for the 2018 Extraordinary Charity Run.

Júcaro is a specialist in fashion photography and his work has been published in prestigious magazines in the sector, such as "Vogue" or "Vanity Fair". The elegant project that he brought to the Sala Antoñete de Las Ventas, entitled “Ephemerides and Liturgies”, was presented, with great success, in December 2017 in Paris.

VITRINES UNDER THE 1 LAYING. ALL THE SEASON

Through twelve large panels, the Bullfighting Center of the Community of Madrid paid tribute to the legendary book "Juan Belmonte, bullfighter", which Chaves Nogales published in 1935.

Although originally conceived as a serial, as was the journalistic custom of his time, the authentic novel that Chaves produced about Juan Belmonte is, without a doubt, the most relevant text in the entire extensive bullfighting bibliography developed over more than three hundred years , far exceeding the claims of author and publishers, and even those of Belmonte himself. In order to capture such success, the exhibition -which you can still visit in the galleries of the tenido 1- shows the internationalization of the Belmontino myth with covers of the book launched in different countries of the world, such as the United States, Chile, France and Italy.

Because without being a fan of bullfighting -or precisely because it was enough for him to be one of the best firms in the history of Spanish journalism- Chaves knew how to channel, embellish and contextualize with a masterly narrative technique everything that Belmonte represented, even carrying the literary inks , to compose a story that transcended the character and overcame the boundaries of bullfighting.

Fragments of the biography, original pages of "Estampa", photos of Juan Belmonte, foreign editions and the wonderful drawings by Martínez de León make up this exhibition about the book that aggravated, even more, a myth.

VITRINES UNDER THE 6 LAYING. ALL THE SEASON

With exquisite sensitivity and through black and white images, the photographer Álvaro Marcos showed, on several large vinyls located in the galleries under line 6, the conductive threads that unleash at the end of a bullfighting day in the first plaza de bulls of the world: Las Ventas.

VITRINES UNDER THE 2 LAYING. FROM 1 FROM APRIL TO 20 FROM MAY

The photographer Raúl Barbero made a review of many popular festivities celebrated in our geography: from the Carnival of the Bull of Ciudad Rodrigo to the running of the bulls in Cuéllar, passing through the Chinchón festival, the Toro de la Medinaceli or the "bous a la mar" of Denia. Shocking photos with the bull and the people as protagonists.

SHOWCASES UNDER STREET 2. FROM MAY 21 TO THE AUTUMN FAIR

The privileged position of Ramiro Curá - bullfighter Cayetano Rivera's swordmaster - and his status as a "novice" in this world with which he had no previous relationship, encouraged him to write his anecdotes and adventures as a faithful squire of one of the first matadors the ladder. A kind of catch-all or cabin of the Marx Brothers where illusions, failures, tensions, dramatic and joyful moments coexist, the car squad was conceived as a kind of blog, road movie, suitable for bullfighting and non-bullfighting who uses new technologies to bring bullfighting to all audiences updating the ancestral need of the human being to tell.