MADRID.- Following her receipt of the prestigious Velázquez Prize in 2023, Marisa González (Bilbao, 1943) is the subject of a major anthological exhibition that revisits her groundbreaking career. The show offers a comprehensive look at an artist who has consistently been ahead of her time, blending artistic innovation with technological experimentation and social commentary.

González’s journey into the intersection of art and technology began in the 1970s, during her time at the Department of Generative Systems at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. There, she produced a series of works that revealed her early fascination with communication and image reproduction technologies—an interest that would later position her as a pioneer of media experimentation in Spain. Her participation in Procesos (1986), the inaugural exhibition of the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, further cemented her role in exploring the dialogue between culture and emerging technologies.

Beyond her technical explorations, González has long engaged with pressing social issues. Her early works tackled themes such as gender violence and motherhood, earning her a place in recent studies on feminist genealogies in Spanish contemporary art.

Throughout her career, González has also focused on themes of waste and obsolescence. In the mid-2000s, she turned her lens on the abandoned Lemóniz nuclear power plant, while in her long-running series Presencias (from the early 1980s), she transformed everyday materials like laundry wadding into poetic, decontextualized forms.

Her work often gives voice to overlooked social realities. In Ellas, filipinas (2009–2010), she documented the makeshift Sunday shelters built by Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong’s bustling business district—a powerful reflection on migration, labor, and urban space.

The exhibition also highlights the diversity of media in González’s practice. From hybrid works like Grafías musicales (1989–1990), which translate musical scores into visual compositions using painting and photocopy, to immersive installations such as Ensueño. Escenas de la vida cotidiana (1998) and Luminarias from La fábrica (2000), her oeuvre is a testament to constant reinvention and interdisciplinary exploration.