Prado in the streets: Madrid's famous museum takes to the road in Spain

IF you can’t take people to the museum, take the museum to the people.

Madrid’s world famous Prado museum has set up an exhibition featuring life-size photos of some of its most important works in the streets of Guadalajara (Castilla-La Mancha) in a bid to bring art to the masses.

This project, dubbed The Prado Museum in the Streets, aims to ‘promote knowledge and and the cultural identity of its historical heritage by launching educational programmes and cultural outreach activities’ according to a museum spokesperson.

The spokesperson added: “It also aims to virtually recreate the experience of visiting the museum by allowing visitors to contemplate the paintings in their life-sized dimensions, providing an experience similar to that of being in front of the actual works of art.”

Prado Museum In The Streets Pic Iberdrola — Prado Museum in the Streets. Picture courtesy Iberdrola

Until 27 January the project will be showing photos of 50 of the most important works in the Madrid collection on panels in the Parque de la Concordia, one of the city’s most iconic locations.

This large, open-air exhibition, curated by Fernando Pérez Suescun, Head of Educational Content at the Prado Museum, enables visitors to tour the different artistic schools covered by the Prado Museum’s permanent collections and learn about the history of Spain, Europe and Western art in general, as painted by the great masters. The Spanish, Italian, Flemish, French, German and Dutch schools will be represented through artists from the 12th century to the early 20th century.

The show also has bilingual information panels on each of the works, as well as bilingual panels with information on the history of the Museum and its collections.

Funded by the Iberdrola Foundation, The Prado Museum in the Streets began its journey through Castila-La Mancha on July 13 in Sigüenza and will travel to eight cities in Castila-La Mancha over10 months. In addition to Sigüenza, Puertollano, Tomelloso, Ciudad Real, Toledo and Guadalajara the exhibition will visit Cuenca and Talavera de la Reina.

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