Thinking about the World from Art and Science
CNIO Arte
Free, until full capacity is reached. Tickets may be collected at the Museo’s Ticket Offices or on the Museo Reina Sofía website from 10am on 28 October (a maximum of 2 per person). 20% of the visitor-capacity will be reserved for attendance without ticket collection on the day of the activity. Doors open 30 minutes before the encounter
Thinking about the World from Art and Science is an activity organised by the Museo Reina Sofía to present the CNIO Arte project, an initiative run by the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicos (the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre), which has combined contemporary art and science since 2018. The project seeks to spark dialogue between international scientists and artists to explore common territories and to produce work from this conversation.
In this instance, an encounter combines some of the most recent dialogues and features the participation of their interlocutors: the scientists María A. Blasco, Elizabeth Blackburn and David Nogués-Bravo; the artists Eva Lootz, Dora García, Amparo Garrido and Clara Montoya; and the curator Juan de Nieves.
Despite historically being understood separately, art and science occupy similar mental spaces — both disciplines require creativity and methodical work and organise our knowledge and experience of the world. In recent years, consumerist lifestyles, climate change and the pandemic have led artists to turn to science in search of alternative ways of understanding the present and, for the most part, to imagine other possible futures. Thus, with a common principle of exploring possibility, scientific research and artistic creation are involved in a profound and renewed exchange. As Susan Sontag said: “[…] every month we could have a new art movement just by reading Scientific American”.
Programme
6pm Presentation of CNIO Arte, by María A. Blasco
6:15pm Dialogue between Amparo Garrido and Elizabeth Blackburn
6:30pm Dialogue between Dora García and David Nogués-Bravo
6:45pm Break
7pm Dialogue between Eva Lootz and María A. Blasco, in memory of Margarita Salas
7:15pm Clara Montoya, a resident in the first edition of the CNIO Artistic Residences, in conversation with Juan de Nieves
7:30pm Discussion
Participantes
Elizabeth Blackburn is a molecular biologist and biochemist. In 2009 she won the Nobel Proze in Physiology or Medicine for her discoveries around genetic composition and the role of telomeres, and for her contribution to the discovery of the enzyme telomerase. Across her career, she has published a broad number of scientific articles and has received numerous awards, for instance the Gairdner Foundation International Award (1998), the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science (1999) and the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award (2006). She has been a member of the Royal Society of London since 1992 and the National Academy of Sciences since 1993.
María A. Blasco is the director of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre. For more than twenty years, her work has focused on showing the importance of telomeres and the telomerase in cancer, as well as ageing-related diseases. She has published over 260 scientific articles in national and international journals, with a h-index of 81. Her work has received numerous national and international awards, for instance the Josef Steiner Cancer Research Award, the Swiss Bridge Award in Cancer Research, the Körber European Science Award, the EMBO Gold Medal, the Rei Jaume I Award in Basic Research, the Lilly Foundation Award in Preclinical Research, and the Santiago Ramón y Cajal National Biology Award, among others.
Juan de Nieves is a curator and head of the CNIO’s Department of Institutional Image and Science and Culture Activities. He has held different positions in Spanish institutions, for instance as a curator at the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea and as head of exhibitions and later as artistic director at the Espai d’Art Contemporani de Castelló. Some of his curatorial projects most notably include Atención: algunas vueltas más para llegar… Un proyecto de Angel Vergara (EACC, Castellón, 2007); Cantos Cívicos. Un proyecto de NILC (Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo de México, 2008/EACC, 2007), and CNIO Arte. Diálogos entre arte y ciencia (Instituto Cervantes, 2023–2024).
Dora García is a multidisciplinary artist. Her work is part of collections belonging to the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid), the Fundació la Caixa (Barcelona), the Centre national des arts plastiques (Paris), the Henry Art Foundation (Seattle), MUSAC (León), the Fonds Régionaux d’Art Contemporain (Metz, Dijon, Montpelier and Paris), and the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). She has participated in international art exhibitions such as Manifesta (1998), the Istanbul Biennial (2003), the Münster Sculpture Projects (2007), the Biennale of Sydney (2008) and documenta in Kassel (2012), among others, and represented Spain at the Venice Biennale in 2011. Moreover, she has been honoured with the Obra Social La Caixa Art and Patronage Award (2018), the International Prize for Contemporary Art from the Príncipe Pierre de Mónaco Foundation (2013) and Spain’s National Award for the Plastic Arts (2021).
Amparo Garrido is a visual artist who works with photography and film. Her work is part of collections belonging to institutions such as the Museo Reina Sofía, the Photography Collections of the Comunidad de Madrid, Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani (Palma), the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (Santiago de Compostela Galicia) and the Coca-Cola Foundation Collection (Madrid), among others. She has also received awards that most notably include the ABC Prize for Photography, the Purificación García Photography Competition Prize and the Junta de Andalucía INICIARTE Prize, among others. Her feature film El silencio que queda (The Silence that Remains, 2018) received numerous awards, for instance the Human Ecology Award at the SUNCINE Environmental Film Festival and the Award for Best National Film at Ecozine, Spain.
Eva Lootz is an artist whose work is part of collections belonging to Spain’s major museums and art centres: the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA); Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM); the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del País Vasco-Artium Museoa; and the Museo Patio Herreriano (Valladolid). Her work has been honoured with numerous awards, such as Spain’s National Award for the Plastic Arts (1994); the Francisco Prieto Award from the Foundation of the Real Casa de la Moneda de Madrid (2009); the MAV Award for Women in the Visual Arts (2010); and Spain’s Art and Patronage Award (2013). In 2024, the Museo Reina Sofía held the exhibition Making as if Wondering: So What Is This? devoted to her work.
Clara Montoya is an artist. Her work is part of salient international museums and collections: the Museum of Contemporary Art of Istanbul (Istanbul), The Gfzk (Leipzig), the Seomi & Tuus Collection (Seoul), the Nirox Foundation (Johannesburg) and the Coleção Teixeira de Freitas (Lisbon); and in Spain: the Colección Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo (Madrid), the Marcelino Botín Foundation (Santander) and CAAC (Málaga), among others. The grants and awards she has received most notably include from the Botín Foundation, the Citè Internationale des Arts (Paris), The Cooper Union (New York), the Real Academia de España en Roma and the Jungen Akademie der Kunste (Berlin), proposed by Mona Hatoum.
David Nogués Bravo is a professor at the University of Copenhagen. His sphere of research encompasses the dynamics between biodiversity and climate change, including aspects of paleoecology and paleoclimatology, as well as mass extinctions and the impact of human activity. Some of his most noteworthy contributions include: An Anthropocene map of genetic diversity (Science, 2016); Cracking the code of biodiversity responses to past climate change (Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 2018); Abrupt change in climate and biotic systems (Current Biology, 2019); and Niches beyond borders (Nature Ecology and Evolution, 2024).