29/05/2026
To celebrate the opening of our next exhibition we are honoured to present In Praise of Beauty, a talk followed by the opportunity to talk with Dr. Santiago González Casares.
What would become of humanity without beauty? What meaning would our existence have if we did not pursue beauty in one way or another? If we did not throw ourselves into the sheer wonder of a magnificent sunrise, if we did not enjoy a defiant song, if we did not roar with joy at the goal of our secret passion? What would the world be without artists, without those who pursue the ephemeral, without creators, without poets? Would we still be human beings? Would we be the same—predators at the top of the food chain? What distinguishes us from other beings? What makes us superior? Is it the violence of thought, the gratuitousness of war, the senselessness of competition? Or is it beauty? The remote possibility of seeing a child’s smile in the near future, or the certainty of seeing her again, of singing her a silly song once more? The truth, after so many questions, is that beauty is on strike these days; everything is just a big facade to hide the imperfection necessary to reveal it. What does the absence of beauty tell us about the state of things? What does its disappearance imply? Or its concealment? What does the virtual trick behind which it hides reveal? But let’s pause the questions for a moment; let’s begin to analyze the facts. All celebrations—the manifestations of a people’s tangible happiness—are known today through the mediatization of the image; that is, they are shared through the biased copy of a screenshot. It is the same screen that tells us where we must travel, the same one that chooses among our desires, that settles our judgments, that guarantees the fidelity of our memories and the daily certainty of what we no longer even get right. Let us agree, then, that under the rule of digital reason we have delegated our knowledge of things; the law of least effort robs us not only of the satisfaction of discovery but also of the effort required to reach it.
