MADRID.- ’En el aire conmovido…’ (In The Moving Air…) is an exhibition curated by the French philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman (Saint-Étienne, 1953), recognised as one of the most significant and prolific contemporary thinkers in philosophy and the cultural history of images. This exhibition is open to the public from 6 November 2024 to 17 March 2025. Organised by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), it delves into the evocative power of images, exploring the transformative nature of emotions that transcend the individual to become collective experiences, and examining their potential for manipulation. Federico García Lorca’s influence is ever-present, particularly through the lens of childhood and his concept of ‘duende’1.
Featuring nearly 300 works by 140 artists, Didi-Huberman weaves a narrative that serves as a political anthropology articulated through the poetic expression of emotion, understood as “a concatenation of emotions, an event capable of affecting a whole, an environment, a relationship, and not just an isolated psychological subject”. The title ‘En el aire conmovido...’ is taken from a verse in ‘Romance de la luna, luna’, the opening poem of Federico García Lorca's Romancero gitano, with the original manuscript on display in the first room. In this exhibition, the philosopher invites a playful exploration of free associations, leading us through a journey structured into seven thematic chapters: Childhood, Thoughts, Faces, Gestures, Places, Politics, and once more, Childhood. Each section is inspired by and framed through verses by the poet. At the entrance to the exhibition, visitors will hear Camarón de la Isla’s song Nana del caballo grande, its lyrics based on a poem by García Lorca. Visitors are then led through 14 rooms showcasing an array of paintings, sculptures, installations, and documentation spanning back to the 16th century. The exhibition features works by a diverse array of artists, including Hans Bellmer, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Salvador Dalí, James Ensor, Lucio Fontana, Federico García Lorca, Alberto Giacometti, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Francisco de Goya (including three original drawings and nine engravings), Victor Hugo, Käthe Kollwitz, Charles Le Brun, Corinne Mercadier, Óscar Muñoz, Joan Miró, Pablo Ruiz Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Tatiana Trouvé, Única Zürn, and Waad Al-Kateab, among many others.
Childhood. ‘The child looks at her, looks at her [...] is looking at her...’
The childhood gaze permeates the entire exhibition and plays a pivotal role in the first section, where visitors can see fragments from Víctor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive, photographs by Robert Capa and José Val del Omar, and the film Ten Minutes Older by Herz Frank, alongside other works by Frank, Goethe, Goya, Lorca, Miró, Rossellini, and the German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht. Through a montage of images and brief lyrical poems, Brecht reveals the devastating effects of war as witnessed by the children of that era—horrors that, unfortunately, still resonate today.
The first section opens with the two verses that precede the line giving the exhibition its title in the ‘Romance de la luna, luna’: ‘The child looks at her, looks at her / the child is looking at her.’
Alongside the child's gaze, the moon emerges as another key figure in this section. Not only is it a recurring motif throughout Lorca's work, but it also serves as the central theme in the drawings by Goethe displayed in this room. Lorca was inspired by Goethe's notion of the ‘demonic’ to conceive the idea of the duende, which he reflected upon in his lecture “Play and Theory of the Duende” (1933), with the original typewritten text exhibited at the centre of the room.
Through his re-reading of Lorca's work, Didi-Huberman seeks to elevate the figure of the poet from Granada within the European history of aesthetic ideas, placing him alongside poet-philosophers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Georges Bataille. In doing so, he recovers Lorca’s concept of ‘duende’ as an aesthetic category, referring to the experience of the deep emotional resonance inherent in flamenco singing—an experience that is challenging to both experience and articulate theoretically.
Thoughts. ‘What mysterious thought moves the ears of wheat...?’
The exploration of this second thematic block, entitled Thoughts, begins in room 2, where an encyclopaedic space connects documentary and philosophical sources with a diverse array of graphic, musical, literary, photographic, and audiovisual productions.
Here, the theories of Descartes, Kant, and Darwin engage in dialogue with the drawings of artists like Charles Le Brun and Lavater.
This section is the most theoretical part of the exhibition, divided into two segments on either side of the room: Literacy and Emancipation, Didi-Huberman presents two distinct approaches to the experience of commotion: to explain or to understand. In the first segment, Literacy, the focus is on explaining the experience by distilling its various dimensions into a single organizing principle or methodical rule. This is how alphabets, grammars, and dictionaries of emotions are created, as illustrated in the first display cases featuring treatises and documents by figures such as Aristóteles, Barcelón, Camper, Comenius, Darwin, De Irala, Descartes, De Villafranca, Duchenne de Boulogne, Dumas, Esquirol, García Hidalgo, Gómez, Ignacio de Loyola, Janet, Lavater, Le Brun, Lersch, Londe, Michel, Richer, Rousselet, Spontone.
The second approach, Emancipation, seeks to comprehend emotions in all their complexity. The references presented here advocate for what Didi-Huberman describes as a heuristic approach to the experience of shock—a term derived from the Greek heúriskein, meaning to seek, investigate, or discover. The graphic representation of this room features texts, treatises, scores, engravings, and plates from notable names such as Bataille, Beethoven, Bergamín, Binswanger, Bruno, Calderón, Deleuze, Erasmo, Freud, Goya, Hegel, Hölderlin, Kant, Kluge, Lacan, Montaigne, Morente, Nietzsche, Nono, Saint-Simon, Scarlatti, Schiller, Spinoza, Warburg and Federico García Lorca himself.
Faces. ‘The face with little blood, the eyes with a lot of night...’.
The third block, Faces, is revealed in the third room. Here, Didi-Huberman centres on the human face, an embodiment of emotions where psychic movements and the essence of air converge. His selection of faces illustrates this intricate exchange, featuring portraits such as those of ‘El Chocolate’ and Inés Bacán captured in Michel Dieuzaide’s photographs, the two photographs of mediums by Albert Von Schrenck- Notzing and the silence of the Auschwitz survivors interviewed in Esther Shalev-Gerz’s video. We can also see pieces that capture the final expressions of life, like the death masks of Hegel and Nietzsche. We witness profound emotions, such as that of the mother grieving for the pain of losing her son to the war—Masque de Montserrat criant (Mask of Montserrat Screaming) 1938-1939—by the sculptor Julio González. This motif resonates with Picasso‘s drawings and Franco Pinna’s photographs of mourners, as well as the poetic faces reminiscent of surrealism sketched by Federico García Lorca. Additionally, the atmospheric quality generated by the movements of the sculptor Medardo Rosso's face is explored.
The Face chapter extends into the adjoining room with Óscar Muñoz’s series of mirrors, Aliento (Breath). Here, the spectator is invited to exhale on their own reflection, reviving the faces of the deceased, taken from obituaries and screen- printed onto the quicksilver of the mirror by the artist. Alongside these works, the exhibition also features pieces by Jacques- André Boiffard, Alberto Giacometti, Esther Shalev-Gerz and Curt Stoeving.
Gestures. ‘The duende rises from the inside, from the soles of the feet...’
Didi-Huberman introduces the thematic block of Gestures with the assertion that “gestures are very old: our own fossils in motion.” He references Aby Warburg's exploration of their survival in visual forms and their evolving significance throughout history. In this fourth room, gestures are depicted as movements that make the air swirl, creating a “choreography of bodies in the moving air”. This section showcases a selection of human gestures that capture the intensity of the commotion associated with the emergence of the duende.
The exhibition highlights the expressive power of hands, where tension and positioning generate new spaces and dramatic potential. This is illustrated in photographs of Auguste Rodin's sculptures, Hans Bellmer’s triptych, and the palms of Vicente Escudero.
The significance of hand gestures, particularly in dance, is also emphasised through works by Suse Byk, Israel Galván, and portraits of dancers by Man Ray and Nijinsky, along with Federico García Lorca’s drawing Torero sevillano, among others. The exhibition also reflects on automatic gestures, sometimes linked to madness or experimentation with psychotropic substances, featuring artists such as Antonin Artaud, Salvador Dalí, Henri Michaux and Unica Zürn. The chapter concludes in room five with a screening of the film Retour à la rue d’Eole by Greek filmmaker Maria Kourkouta. Additional works from artists like Bourneville, De Castro, Druet, G. Romero, Hugnet, Kafka, Klein, Manzon, Maspons, Pastier, Richer Farocki are also included.
Places. ‘Space and distance. Vertical and horizontal. Relationship between you and me’
In the fifth chapter, spanning rooms six through nine, Didi-Huberman delves into the concept of sites or places, not as spaces defined in a Cartesian sense, as universal extensions containing objects within coordinates of length, breadth, and depth, nor in the Kantian sense as conditions for the possibility of experience. Instead, he explores places as critical spaces, imbued with the psychic movements of human beings and, therefore, laden with obsessions and desires. Here, places serve as mediums affected by pathos, or, in other words, by the currents of emotion.
In the first of these rooms, room six, two paintings by Joan Miró are displayed alongside a large canvas by Simon Hantaï and a small study for that piece. In these works, Miró simplifies the composition to its essentials, introducing minimal and finite elements, such as a dot or a flash, on the vibrant surface of the painting. This approach demonstrates his fascination with infinite space and endless movement. The presence of a bird and poppies is suggested through a subtle, intermittent sequence of lines and dots in one painting, while the other features three red spots and two thin lines. With this subtlety, Miró evokes the infinite space that envelops these elements.
The painter manipulates the canvas by knotting and folding it before applying paint. Hantaï modulates the canvas while also moulding it, allowing the surface to come into intimate contact with itself. According to Didi-Huberman, Hantaï’s work transforms the canvas into a dialectical field, “a field agitated by battles that take place everywhere, both in extension and in thickness”. In room seven, the spectator is drawn into the commotion evoked by the suspended thread sculptures of American artist Fred Sandback. These delicate works require close observation, as the curator notes, “we must observe as Sandback likes to do: up close, in order to appreciate their material characteristics, as well as their resistance, appearance and elasticity”.
The exploration continues in rooms eight and nine, where the Places chapter delves into a more explicit visual representation of moving air. In the first of these rooms, Didi-Huberman presents a historical perspective on these representations, while the second room showcases a more contemporary selection. The works reflect the movement of fluids, skies, mists, and winds that flutter fabrics, carrying forces, particles, desires, and emotions. Alongside the previously mentioned artists, visitors will also see works by Baraduc, Duchamp, Ensor, Fontana, Goethe, Goya y Lucientes, Hugo, Marey, Mercadier, Penone, Richter, Salmon, Sjöström, Tarr, and Trouvé.
Politics. ‘They fought. They fought. They fought. And all night long. And ten. And twenty. And a year. And ten. And always".
“The victims of oppression are mourned by the survivors. But in these tears, in these gestures of lamentation, is there not already a call for justice? Is there not in the lament (plainte) an act of ‘denunciation’ (porter plainte), in other words, a political gesture? To fight, therefore, against domination, against oppression”. -- (Didi Huberman)
Didi-Huberman develops the sixth block of the exhibition, titled Politics, across two themes, Laments and Struggles, displayed in rooms 10 and 11. Here, Didi-Huberman presents political events as dual moments: lamentation and the move toward action. This exploration builds upon his previous exhibitions, including Atlas, How to Carry the World on Your Back? (Museo Reina Sofía, 2010) and Insurrections (2017/2019), which examined the collective act of rising against oppression and injustice.
In Room 10, Laments explores mourning through photographs, drawings, prints, and film excerpts that capture both still and moving images of grief. The gallery reveals the worst of human suffering: murders, anguish, and mourning, where pain radiates through tears, faces, and gestures, saturating the air around those who endure. A pivotal piece in this section is a fragment of The Turin Horse, a film by Hungarian director Béla Tarr, which portrays Friedrich Nietzche embracing a horse and slipping into madness amid a fierce gale that rages around him.
In response to the sorrow and injustice, we see the birth of conflict and the pursuit of justice. Room 11, Struggles, presents various forms of resistance: violent actions, public demonstrations, new approaches to communal living, impassioned speeches, books, photomontages, and films, all infused with a spirit of defiance and anger, epitomised by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s La Rabbia (The Anger).
This section also includes works by artists and activists such as Balafas, Berlau, Brecht, Capa, Esteva, Goedhart, Goya Y Lucientes, Hiroshima Survivors (Hibakusha), Jahnsen, Picasso, Smith, Pinna, Ubiña Andrieu, Caron, Dayot, Friedrich, Guareschi, Heartfield, Kollwitz, Masotti, Michel, Piscator, Rimbaud, the Ringelblum Archive, and Tucholsky.
Childhood. ‘An air with the smell of children's saliva... that heralds the constant baptism of newly created things’.
Ultimately, everything must be dedicated to children, Didi-Huberman reflects: “This is neither a naive cult nor a belief in pure innocence. Children stand at the crossroads, seeking a language between the real and the imaginary... Even under bombs, children are still capable of utopia”.
The final chapter of ‘En el air conmovido…’ returns to its beginning: Childhood. For Didi-Huberman, it is childhood, as understood by Lorca, which serves as the core and guiding perspective of the exhibition. “Children see death everywhere and are afraid of it, of course”, he notes. “But to them, it is not irreversible; it is still something they can play with”. Seeing the world through a child’s eyes, he suggests, “means being troubled by the presence of spectres–the ‘others,’ the ‘elders,’ the ‘world,’ the ‘threats,’ the ‘dead’–and filling the air with as many duendes as possible... those magic toys or little devils with which to escape and keep on laughing”.
In Room 13, the unsettling sculptures by French artist Pascal Convert (tree Clastres. stumps from the battlefields of Verdun, washed in Chinese ink) evoke the scars that time and violence etch on nature, juxtaposed with drawings by Guayaki children collected by anthropologist Pierre Clastres.
In Rooms 12B and 14, child survivors from tragedies of the past century, including the Hiroshima bomb and conflicts around the Mediterranean, voice their pain and memories alongside their hopes for a brighter future. “"At any cost, even amid these disasters, we must preserve the innocence of a child’s laughter within the tragedies of history”. In this spirit, Didi-Huberman reminds us of Federico García Lorca’s call for an “art of poetic memory”, a commitment to an ethics for the present adult, who must confront the harshness of history. Lorca’s ethic, he adds, must carry “a minimum of joy”, for, as Lorca himself writes, “this laughter of today is my laughter of yesterday, my laughter of childhood and the countryside, my wild laughter, which I will always defend, always, until I die”. In addition to these works, the rooms feature pieces by Al Kateab, Cartier-Bresson, García Lorca, Niños Migrantes Del Mediterráneo, Archivo Ringelblum, and Vigo.
Of the total works exhibited, 33 belong to the Museum’s collection. Among the standout loans are three original drawings by Goya from the Museo del Prado; the original manuscript of Lorca's Romance de la luna luna from a private collection; seven pieces from the Fondation Giacometti; eight drawings by Goethe from the Klassik Stiftung in Weimar; a sculpture by Rodin and period photographs from the Musée Rodin; a work by Gerhard Richter from Museum Morsbroich; four drawings by Victor Hugo from the Maison Victor Hugo. Additionally, several international archives and libraries contributed numerous pieces: Biblioteca Nacional de España (12), Bibliothèque Nationale de France (15), Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (15), and the archive of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (14).
Georges Didi-Huberman
Georges Didi-Huberman (Saint-Étienne, 1953) is a philosopher, art historian, and essayist. He has studied at prestigious institutions such as the French Academy in Rome, the Villa I Tatti in Florence, and the Warburg Institute in London. A professor with stints at universities around the around, he has been teaching at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris since 1990. His research spans from the Middle Ages to contemporary art, including theatre, literature, film, and dance. The author of over sixty books on the insights images provide, Didi-Huberman has also curated numerous exhibitions. This current exhibition builds upon his previous work at this museum, Atlas, How to Carry the World on Your Back? (2010). His publications include Images in Spite of All: Visual Memory of the Holocaust (2004), What We See, What Looks at Us (2004), Split Venus: Nakedness, Dream, Cruelty (2005), Facing Time: Art History and the Anachronism of Images (2006), When Images Take a Stand (2008), The Surviving Image (2009), and To Be a Skull (2009).
1 Federico García Lorca's concept of “duende” refers to a deep spirit or force that evokes passion and emotion in art, particularly in music and performance. It embodies a struggle between life and death, capturing the essence of human experience and creativity through raw, instinctual expression.
