Goya 'world première' interactive exhibition opens in Granada

PROBABLY the largest Goya exhibition in recent memory, the world première of a display now open in Granada features over 1,000 pictures, set to music.

The late-18th and early-19th century painter's works will be in the Alhambra Palace city until June 20, heading to Madrid in the autumn, and will then tour other provincial capitals in Spain before moving overseas.

Instead of borrowing Francisco de Goya's artworks from museums all over the planet, these are shown on five-metre-high (16'6”) screens, 35 of them in total, via 40 projectors, and synchronised to music by some of Spain's biggest and best-known classical composers including Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909), Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), Luigi Boccherini – who was Italian-born but lived for many years in Spain before his death in 1805 – and Enrique Granados (1867-1916).

Having started on Monday this week (March 22), the #InGoya exhibition, naturally, follows all anti-Covid procedures, meaning limits on numbers and 'structured' entry via timed slots, seven days a week between 10.00 and 22.00, without closing for lunch.

Prices start at €9, but discounted tickets are available for groups, students, the disabled, the unemployed, and for family passes, with all children under five getting in free.

Described as an 'immersive experience', the exhibition content and its 'broadcasting format' is said to be 'sublime' and the mise en scène 'a work of art in itself'.

Visitors walk through three separate halls, 'soaking up an unprecedented, vibrant symphony of light, colour and sound', according to the organisers.

One of these, the Sala Emocional or 'Hall of Feelings', is a 'fusion of film and multi-media' where visitors step right into the painting, and the Sala Didáctica, or 'Hall of Learning', is a guided section where the public gains enough information about Goya and his works to get the best out of their experience of walking 'into the frame'.

Sponsors including CaixaBank and its social and cultural entity, the La Caixa Foundation, Hamman Al-Andalus, the Granada province hotel, catering and tourism traders' federation, the regional government's tourism and sports management company, the provincial government or Diputación de Granada, and the private-sector firms Flow Energy, Mercedes Premium, Abades Group, Jurado Mata, and Alsa coaches.

It is held at the Congress and Exhibition Centre, also one of the sponsors.

Tickets can be purchased, time slots consulted and Covid prevention requirements checked on the exhibition website, Ingoya.com.