MADRID, SPAIN.- PhotoEspaña 2005 opens today in Madrid, through July 17. PHE05 comprises 52 exhibitions of the work of more than a hundred photographers and visual artists from 20 countries. Among the great names in this edition are Bernd and Hilla Becher, William Klein, Stan Douglas and Stephen Shore.

PHotoEspaña presents new projects produced specifically for the Festival by Martin Parr, Bertien van Manen, Miguel Trillo and Juan Ugalde.

PHE Campus organises workshops in Aranjuez with René Burri, Alberto García-Alix, Donna Ferrato and Massimo Vitali, among others. Oliviero Toscani will give a master class.

PHE05 continues the Festival’s progressive opening to all creative forms within the visual arts field, including films presenting a cycle dedicated to William Klein’s filmography and audiovisual projections on The Reina Sofía National Museum and Art Centre.

Encuentros PHE addresses the Festival theme with the participation of architects and urban planners.

PHotoEspaña leaves Madrid for the first time. Toledo will host two Official Section exhibitions. IVAM and the Instituto Cervantes join the Festival.

The eighth edition of the International Festival of Photography and the Visual Arts, PHotoEspaña 2005, begins in Madrid on June 1st. Once again, the city’s major museums, art centres, exhibition halls and galleries host more than 50 exhibitions with recent projects by outstanding visual artists and images by the great masters of international photography.

PHotoEspaña is photography’s fiesta: exhibitions, activities, professional encounters, a portfolio review, workshops and master classes with photographers are all ingredients of a festival that for a month and a half turns Madrid into the world capital of photography.

The title of PHE05 is Ciudad (The City). The 26 exhibitions in the Official Section are characterised by the use of documentary languages and the proximity of artistic work to common experience. Ciudad speaks of current urban reality by taking a journey into our daily existence in the single global city.

Ciudad is a route that tests the capacity of visual arts to give form in the richest and most critical way possible to the complex and confusing urban life of our time. It is a proposal committed to the present that describes the global city in which we live and simultaneously inspires in spectators possible interpretations of the future.

In this edition, PHotoEspaña increases the number of exhibitions produced specifically for the Festival. Eleven artists show new projects commissioned by PHotoEspaña.

Twenty-one art galleries and five guest halls participate in the Off Festival.