• More than a dozen national and international artists are intervening in the building del Círculo and they propose to think about the power of art in the city, in institutions and in collective life.
• The proposals activate little-seen and unexpected places in the building, functioning as small cracks that open new forms of listening and presence.
• The program includes projects by Dagoberto Rodríguez, Elo Vega and Rogelio López Cuenca, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, Itziar Okariz, Los Carpinteros, María Salgado, Pedro G. Romero, Regina Silveira, Silbatriz Pons and Tino Sehgal.

March 3 2026. El Círculo de Bellas Artes The Owl of Minerva has been presented, a series of interventions, curated by Isabella Lenzi, which will continue for the next two months in the building and which, in the year of its centenary, provoke a critical reflection on art from a border territory between body and architecture, writing and space, matter and memory.

Organized in collaboration with Azotea Grupo and Collegium / Colección Adrastus, the starting point is two exhibitions that took place in el Círculo In the early 1990s, Madrid: Space of Interferences, curated by Javier Maderuelo, presented the works of eleven artists (Nacho Criado, Concha Jerez, Sara Rosenberg, and Eva Lootz, among others), who occupied galleries, corridors, and streets with their pieces, exploring the institution as a physical and symbolic structure susceptible to alteration. A year later, The Imperative Dream (1991) presented the work of six Spanish artists and six

international, coordinated by Mar Villaespesa, who transformed el Círculo in a field of political and poetic friction. Inaugurated in the midst of the Gulf War, the exhibition directly incorporated the political and social context of the time. Its proposals disrupted traditional exhibition logics and intervened in the institution as a space of resistance against dominant discourses on power, gender, and identity.

In this sense, Minerva's Owl will activate a disruptive energy from the present, allowing us to rethink the role and power of art through the interventions of more than a dozen artists who will transform various, usually overlooked, areas of the building: Dagoberto Rodríguez, Elo Vega and Rogelio López Cuenca, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, Itziar Okariz, Los Carpinteros, María Salgado, Pedro G. Romero, Regina Silveira, Silbatriz Pons, and Tino Sehgal. Their proposals will function as interferences, small cracks that open new forms of listening and presence.

The project also envisions a rediscovery of a part of the building's history that has remained hidden until now. With no guarantee of success, restorer Rocío Casasus will undertake a process of material archaeology and field research, aiming to recover, at least in part, the artwork Minerva, Sky Goddess (1991), created on the rooftop by American artist Nancy Spero for The Dream Imperative.

With "The Owl of Minerva," the centenary celebrations of the building are completed in the exhibition section. The House of Arts, open since 1926, analyzes in depth the construction process of the current headquarters.el CírculoWith Eclosión, we glimpse the institution's most experimental period (in the 80s and 90s). Minerva's owl now invites us to ask ourselves: what institutions do we need today? What bodies can inhabit them? And what frictions allow us to rethink them?

Elo Vega and Rogelio Cuenca are participating with a proposal titled Danĝero. Their work traverses the building like a warning, utilizing the main staircases and intervening in the mirrors and sculptures on the landings, the elevators, and La Pecera (The Fishbowl). Danĝero (danger, in Esperanto) pierces the monumentality with an image of urgency.

Elo and Rogelio also work with publicly circulated formats (posters, postcards, publications, etc.) as tools for critical intervention, shifting art into the realm of the reproducible and distributable. Danĝero's postcard uses the altered image of the building as both a warning and uncertain evidence.

Itziar Okariz presents Irrintzi, Repetition, 2006-2026, a recording of the irrintzis (high-pitched, long, and sustained shouts in a single breath) that Okariz has performed in different spaces of the building. The sound will be activated at regular intervals, like chimes.

The Los Carpinteros collective presents in the lobby del Círculo Two pieces from the series Twisted Nails: large, oversized, curved, and unusable corten steel nails. Associated with manual labor and the act of fixing, supporting, or building, these impossible nails suspend their function and destabilize the rhetoric of architecture as a symbol of stability and power.

The building's facade (banners on Alcalá Street) will feature María Salgado's intervention in the pamphlet displayed the following day in front of the gates, where poetry is exposed to noise, speed, and the fleeting gaze. It functions as both interruption and listening, as a phrase measured against the traffic and clamor of the city.

Also noteworthy is Regina Silveira's participation with The Saint's Paradox. Through the distortion of a gigantic projected shadow, the work evokes the dark side of the seemingly innocent. The paradox of a shadow that does not coincide with the object that produces it activates a temporal and geographical displacement: it allows for the superimposition of different historical narratives and highlights the persistent connections between power, militarism, and religion in the shared history of Latin America, Spain, and Portugal.

Also part of La lechuza de Minerva is a series of live arts and mediation interventions that will be active, in some cases, continuously throughout the exhibition period and, in others, on specific dates.

PERFORMANCE ARTS AND MEDIATION PROGRAM

Guards Kissing. Tino Sehgal

From March 3 to May 10

This work unfolds solely through bodies, voice, and movement, without objects or visual documentation. Activating lobbies and circulation areas, the piece proposes a direct experience that questions how the institution is inhabited and what forms of presence and relationship are possible within it. It features the participation of graduates of the Escuela SUR.

Untitled (Real Reflection). Performance by Pedro G. Romero with Rocío Márquez

March 3.

Pedro G. Romero revives a work conceived in 1991. The sound and spatial action, in collaboration with Rocío Márquez, unfolds a system of mirrors that prevents the viewer from seeing the singer directly: image and voice arrive as reflection and echo. The piece proposes a critical reflection on “reality,” power, and its forms of representation, in dialogue with historical memory, flamenco, and institutional architecture.

Untitled (King of Dreams). Performance by Pedro G. Romero with Perrate

March 3.

This action stems from an earlier work linked to the monarchical imaginary and the symbolic construction of power. Perrate performs traditional lyrics a cappella, questioning the figure of the king and activating a tension between popular culture and institution. Recorded with period equipment, the performance transforms the everyday space of transit into a critical stage where "the real" and "the real" merge as both set and representation.

The traces of Pedro G. Romero's two performances will be transferred to different spaces in the building, merging with the rest of the proposals of La lechuza de Minerva.

Forged and air. Performance by Silbatriz Pons

From March 3 to May 5

Every Tuesday at 18 p.m., Silbatriz Pons will whistle while seated on the main staircase, transforming the building into a resonating chamber. The whistling—born from breathing—

It traverses space and transforms it into a vibrant body. A minimal intervention that crosses the everyday and the transcendent, making sound wall, ceiling and floor until it disappears.

Dream diary, 2013/2026. Itziar Okariz

From March 3 to May 10, at the top of the main staircase (6th floor), Itziar presents a selection from her Dream Diary (a project begun in 2013). Each page records a dream from the previous night.

As a performative gesture, the artist writes it and reads it aloud. This reading functions as a transcription device: the text is fixed on the paper following the rhythm, pauses, breathing, and inflections of the voice, until it becomes a visual trace. Within the framework of Minerva's Owl, the diary expands and is activated with sound recordings that will be broadcast daily on Radio Círculo.

A clean sweep. Performance by Dagoberto Rodríguez with Andiley Mojena, Arnaldo Lescay, Jorbel Isturiz, Julio Rigal and Lenny X

March 6.

A palo limpio expands a previous project by the artist into a live performance featuring four musicians who embody his rhythmic drive. The piece confronts celebration and repression: each percussion beat oscillates between festive rhythm and punitive violence. The military march transforms into a rumba, revealing how spectacle, power, and control share the same sonic structure.

at night / silver / towards. A reading by María Salgado, with Eddi Circa

April 24

The artist and poet María Salgado combines writing and performance in a search for a sound that reconnects with the world and with desire, with the desire for the world. In La lechuza de Minerva (Minerva's Owl), she proposes opening the Billiard Room—a space usually reserved for members of the club.el Círculo— for a nighttime reading of poems and essays from her latest book, Lírica, accompanied by composer and singer Eddi Circa.

In addition to the program of interventions, a series of guided tours of the exhibition will be offered. On March 7, the tour will be led by artists María Salgado, Elo Vega, and Rogelio López Cuenca. On April 11, Silbatriz Pons will lead the tour. Finally, the tour scheduled for May 10 will be led by Dagoberto Rodríguez. The curator, Isabella Lenzi, will accompany the artists on these tours.