This Tuesday, Spain presented the cultural program it will carry out at Europalia 2025, a festival held in Belgium from October to January 2026, focusing on Goya’s concepts of Los Caprichos, Los Disparates, and Los Desastres in music, literature, and cinema.
«Goya created a mirror in which we still reflect, even though our times are different. His contribution to the construction of the Spanish collective imaginary, both within and beyond our borders, is undeniable. Not from an idealized or idealizing vision, but, on the contrary, from a critical and visionary attitude,» stated artistic director Maral Kekejian during a press conference at the Residence of the Belgian Ambassador in Spain, Didier Nagant.
According to Kekejian, the Spanish project will offer a contemporary image of Spain through a multidisciplinary artistic program created in dialogue with the cultural fabric. The program will kick off with the exhibition ‘Goya Today, advancing by retreating,’ opening on October 7 at the Bozar Museum in Brussels and running until January 18, 2026.
«We have turned to Goya once again to help us look at ourselves. It is a good moment to reflect on the present and explore contemporary themes,» she noted.
Kekejian highlighted that the exhibition on Goya proposes a reflection on his work from a contemporary perspective. «We present Goya as a fundamental axis of an artistic tradition that advances by integrating its past,» she explained.
«The exhibition invites an examination of Goya’s impact on later art, showing how his work continues to shape the identity of Spanish art and how Goya moved between the two poles of establishing the Goyaesque genre, creating a picturesque and festive image of the Spanish people that endures over time, and being an artist who establishes a formal and iconographic tradition that delves into the darker or more somber aspects of society from a critical spirit,» she elaborated.
Santiago Herrero, the Director of Cultural and Scientific Relations at AECID, emphasized Goya as the «artistic epicenter» of this biennial because «without Goya, there is nothing.» Alongside Goya’s works, projects by other Spanish artists like Ignacio Zuloaga, Mariano Fortuny, José Gutiérrez Solana, Pablo Picasso, Ángeles Santos, Antonio Saura, Cristina García Padero, and Álvaro Perdíces will be presented.
Additionally, following the three goyesque terms -caprichos, desastres de la guerra, and disparates- will be contemporary proposals from established and emerging artists reflecting on these issues. In Belgium, artists like Niño de Elche, Silvia Pérez Cruz, choreographer and dancer Israel Galván, pianist Javier Perianes, painter and photographer Dario Villalba, visual artist Álvaro Sánchez del Castillo, Rogelio López Cuenca, Julio Linares, and Paloma Polo, among others, will be featured.
Other institutions participating in this Spanish program include the Cervantes Institute, Acción Cultural Española, the Prado Museum, and the Lázaro Galdiano Museum, among others. This will be the second time Spain participates as a guest country in Europalia, having done so in 1985, just three months after signing the Treaty of Accession to the European Union.