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Recovering a figure such as Marisa González,
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who won the Velázquez Prize in 2023,
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is fundamental for the institution.
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Above all because it opens up the possibility of getting to know,
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of researching, of really delving into a generation
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of women about whom we know little or nothing.
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It is a living memory, a memory that is still
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there and that we have not researched enough.
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An exhibition of these characteristics, which is an anthology
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that brings together her main works
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over the last 50 years,
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really allows us to open a gap so that
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new generations can project ourselves
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into that past that we do not know
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from the voice of its own protagonists,
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who are women understood as subaltern subjects
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who had to somehow reverse and crack a context
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in order to be able to project themselves as artists.
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And above all, figures like Marisa,
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with works in relation to feminism and social movements.
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Marisa is an artist very present in the
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context of Madrid from the associationism.
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She was always present as a student,
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from the associative movement,
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as a student at the School of Fine Arts.
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But she had to leave for the United States
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in search of a contemporary education.
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Let's say that Marisa came
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from an anti-Franco militancy.
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She did not come from that double feminist and anti-Franco militancy,
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but she was more anti-Franco.
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And suddenly she arrived in the United States and opened up,
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like the whole United States in the 70's,
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to all the activism
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that was happening in Chicago and Washington
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in relation to feminism, feminisms, civil rights movements, pacifism.
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When I finished Fine Arts in Madrid
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I went to the United States,
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to the Art Institute of Chicago,
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and there I met my mentor
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and teacher Sonia Sheridan.
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And, among other classrooms and other subjects,
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I decided to focus on one thing,
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which was called generative systems.
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There we had many machines to create art.
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The world's first colour photocopier
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had been invented 2 or 3 years earlier
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and we had it there in the classroom.
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It worked wonders to such an extent
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that the inventor of the photocopier said
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“I have created a machine that reproduces reality
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as faithfully as possible
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and you transform that reality”.
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And he came to see
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what we were doing, he said
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“I can't believe that this machine
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is an instrument of creation”.
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I try to keep up to date,
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but as I always say, when I started
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there was only one machine,
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two, three types of photocopiers,
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but now there are a thousand resources,
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a thousand machines and a thousand ways.
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So I don't want to spread myself
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thin by trying all kinds of tools,
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so I concentrate on one, although
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I have already tried artificial intelligence.
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She is an artist who is still active.
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So the conversation remains open.
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Furthermore, Marisa's work is never closed,
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she continually reconfigures her series.
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For this exhibition you will see many posters
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that end in 2025 because she has reconfigured,
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she has finished, she has gone back to her
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archive to produce some new work as well.
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Come and see the exhibition and
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you will see different stages.
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It is not a collective exhibition,
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it is a individual exhibition,
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although it could seem to be a collective exhibition
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because of the diversity of resources
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and themes that I have developed
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over more than 50 years.