First Women Gazes Festival

Born in the city of Madrid, I Festival Miradas de Mujer (the First Women Gazes Festival) was conceived to showcase women's contributions to the art world. As well as to encourage the commitment of institutions, associations, gallery owners, and artistic agents toward ensuring the fair promotion of works by women artists; to promote institutions and cultural spaces that already support the need of unbiased visual art policies that ensure gender equality; to inform, both the specialized and general publics, about the actual scope and breadth of the work created by women across all artistic disciplines. The Festival was inaugurated on March 8 at the Museo Reina Sofia. The event involves every important institution and cultural space in Madrid and the community at large. Seventy cultural spaces participate in the exhibition of works by 300 participating artists. More than 30 public institutions participate in the program through their exhibitions: the Museo Reina Sofia presents Written in Celestial Bodies by Soledad Sevilla and Apparent Position by Paloma Polo; the Círculo de Bellas Artes presents Knots, by national award winning artist Eva Loots; and the Sala Alcalá 31 exhibits Millions and Abundant Reasons, by artist Elena Blasco. Likewise, 40 contemporary art galleries exhibit works by women artists that are associated with gender research. Some of these galleries are: the Galería Blanca Berlín, with a never before exhibited photographic series entitled Papua New Guiney (2011), by Isabel Muñoz; the Galería Aranapoveda, with drawings by Rosana Antolí; the Galería Raquel Ponce, with installations by Esther Pizarro; or the Galería Álvaro Alcázar with Megalopolis, an exhibition of works on paper by Chus García Fraile. The Galería Fernando Pradilla presents a group of photographs by Marta María Pérez-Bravo. For its part, video art-a discipline explored since the 1970s-also had a place in the Festival with the collective exhibition that Espacio Trapezio-an art space in the market of San Antón, in Chueca-inaugurated on Wednesday, March 7. This show included performance proposals by Momu & No Es, Minna Suoniemi and Lilibeth Cuenca-Rasmussen. The Museo Nacional de Antropología, in Madrid, programmed several events centered on Japan. La Casa Encendida plans to screen films by two contemporary female directors: Athina Rachel-Tsangari and Kelly Reichardt. By the end of March, La Casa Encendida will also present performances by two young international artists that standout for the range of their proposals: Martha Colburn-whose collage based animations have been accompanied by the live musical performances of musicians like Felix Kubin and Deerhof-and Grace Morales. The First Women Gazes Festival will continue until March 29, 2012. More information, including the complete schedule, is available at: http://festivalmiradasdemujeres.com/