• A major retrospective of more than 100 works by Spanish avant-garde artist Maruja Mallo, a leading female artist belonging to Spain’s ‘Generation of ’27’, a 20^th century movement of artists which comprised of figures such as Federico García Lorca, Luis Buñuel, and Salvador Dalí.
• The first solo exhibition in Spain of work by the artist duo Cooking Sections, who use food as a lens to trace landscapes in transformation. The show will uncover the signs and signals of extractivism etched onto coastal lands and include a new body of performative works deeply connected to the Cantabrian landscape that surrounds Centro Botín.
• A new series of sound installations by Portuguese artist Nuno da Luz in dialogue with works by artists such as Tacita Dean, Katinka Bock and Damian Ortega from Fundación Botín’s art collection. Da Luz’s installation will incorporate live ambient sound in real-time from outside the walls of Centro Botín.

Centro Botín’s 2025 exhibition programme begins in spring with Máscara y Compás, a long-awaited retrospective of Spanish avant-garde artist Maruja Mallo, co-organised with Museo Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. As part of Centro Botín´s commitment to present new insights into 20th century great masters, this ambitious exhibition – and its accompanying publication – will trace Mallo´s trajectory from 1924 until 1980, emphasizing how the popular, the performative and the telluric permeated her practice.

Mallo´s show will be followed by the first exhibition in Spain of work by Cooking Sections, a duo formed by Daniel Fernández Pascual & Alon Schwabe whose practice uses food as a lens to observe landscapes in transformation. Grounded in the artists’ recent research in the Cantabrian shores and valleys, the exhibition will combine the activation of projects from the last 12 years alongside new works that expose signs of human activity left in ecosystems.

In line with Fundación Botín’s mission to nurture and support the artistic community, the second edition of Enredos – a new programme centred on artists that have received a Fundación Botín Art Grant – will be led by Portuguese artist Nuno da Luz. Using sound as a relational practice, Enredos II will generate an atmospheric and sonic interplay between newly commissioned sound installations conceived by da Luz and a selection of works from Fundación Botín’s art collection.

Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz, Director of Exhibitions and the Collection at Centro Botín said: “I am beyond thrilled to present next year’s programme and bring to Santander a very necessary comprehensive exhibition of Maruja Mallo in partnership with Reina Sofía Museum. The show will honour the centrality of her practice in the international avant-garde scene as well as examining her works from current critical perspectives. It will be an honour to introduce Mallo’s practice to international audiences, who may be more familiar with her contemporaries. I expect our visitors will rejoice with the oceanic and the earthly ecosystems that are central to all the exhibiting artists. From Mallo´s pictorial constructions on the fertility of nature and women´s labour in the landscape, to Cooking Sections´ sharp ecological readings of oysters and waves, and Nuno da Luz’s streaming of ambient sound from Santander´s bay.”

2025 Exhibition Programme

MARUJA MALLO: MÁSCARA Y COMPÁS

11 April – 14 September 2025

Maruja Mallo (Viveiro, Galicia, 1902 – Madrid, 1995) was a leading artist of Spanish Avant-Garda and Surrealism, as well as one of the central figures of the ‘Generation of ’27’, an important group of artists and writers based in Madrid, which included Rafael Alberti, Salvador Dalí, Federico Garcia Lorca and Luis Buñuel. Her vibrant and diverse artistic output blurred the boundaries between the popular and the avant-garde, between aesthetics and politics, ultimately presenting a feminine worldview from the unprecedented perspective of the modern woman.

This ambitious retrospective will present around 100 paintings and drawings, together with writings and photographs by the artist that chart her entire career: from the new realism of her early days to the geometric and fantastic configurations of her final works. The exhibition title Máscara y Compás evokes ideas of theatre, carnival and performance through the word ‘máscara’ (mask), whilst ‘compás’ has a dual meaning in Spanish, referring to both a scientific compass as well as ‘beat’ or ‘rhythm’.

The show will emphasise how the popular, the performative and the telluric permeated the artist’s initial work, highlighting her ties with the theatre. The exhibition will trace the changes in her work due to the Spanish Civil War and her exile in Buenos Aires, where her portraits and still lifes metaphorically translate the impact of the environment and the culture of her adopted home. Lesser-known conceptual aspects of her late cosmic series will be made evident through her previously unpublished archival holdings, recently acquired by the Museo Reina Sofía as part of the museums acquisition of the Santander-based Archivo Lafuente.

The exhibition is co-organised by Fundación Botín and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, where the exhibition will take place from the 7 October, 2025 until 26 March, 2026.

 Curator: Patricia Molins

 NUNO DA LUZ: ENREDOS II

24 May – 19 October 2025

For the second edition of Centro Botín’s Enredos programme, Portuguese artist Nuno da Luz will present an atmospheric and poetic interplay between his newly commissioned sound installations and a selection of works from Fundación Botín’s art collection, by artists such as Javier Arce, Katinka Bock, June Crespo & Maddi Barber, Tacita Dean, Asier Mendizabal, Damian Ortega, Leticia Ramos and Jorge Satorre.

Titled Collected Airs, Nuno da Luz´s new series of works is conceived as a collective listening space composed of a growing and evolving ensemble of reverberation units that stretch and sustain any sound they receive in an echo. The analogue effect units will stream real-time ambient sound from outside Centro Botín, and later become a timestamp and record of a particular date and time of the day, with its changing weather patterns and unpredictable events. Enredos is an exhibition programme that seeks to support and work closely with artists that have previously received a Fundación Botín Art Grant, who are invited to reengage with the collection, the building and its audiences.

Nuno da Luz (Portugal, 1984) is a sound artist, publisher and researcher whose work circumscribes both aural and visual in the form of installations, performances, and printed matter. Grounded in attentive listening as an eco-sensible methodology, his practice undulates between the ecologies and pedagogies of noise-making and bookmaking.

Curators: Nuno da Luz and Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz

Cooking Sections

18 October 2025 – March 2026

Cooking Sections’ first exhibition in Spain will present a series of works that trace the unexpected contours of human-made waves, clouds, shells, or tides. These material records can be read like the palm of your hand, revealing stories of desires and alliances, labour and dreams, histories of both past and present. Through phenomena such as offshore dredging, eroding estuaries, fish farming, soil acidification and rising sea levels, the exhibition uncovers the signs and signals of extractivism etched onto coastal lands. A new body of performative works will create sensorial connections across different landscapes, proposing a hopeful vision to reimagine possible futures.

The exhibition follows on from Reading Ocean Imprints, a workshop led by Cooking Sections in September 2024 that took place in Santander and the Nansa Valley in Cantabria. The programme explored the natural environment of Cantabria and analysed the traces that human activity leaves in the ecosystems through readings, improvisations and performative actions.

Cooking Sections was established by Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe in London in 2013. Their practice uses food as a lens and a tool to trace landscapes in transformation, the spatial and metabolic legacies of extractivism. They have worked on multiple iterations of the long-term site-responsive CLIMAVORE project since 2015, exploring how to eat as humans change climates and how to metabolise climate breakdown.

ITINERARIOS XXX

15 November 2025 – 27 April 2026

Since 1993, Fundación Botín has awarded the Fundación Botín Art Grant to support Spanish and international artists in the research and production of new projects. The annual exhibition Itinerarios is the culmination of this grant, reflecting a broad range of interests and artistic practices. The thirtieth edition of Itinerarios will present the works of Gelen Jeleton (Murcia 1975), Javier Bravo de Rueda (Callao, Perú, 1989), Noa & Lara Castro Lema (A Coruña, 1998), Diego Delas (Aranda de Duero, Burgos, 1983), Nader Koochaki (San Sebastián, 1983) and Eduardo Navarro (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1979).