Gauguin and the Voyage to the Exotic

Paul Gauguin’s flight to Tahiti, where he regained his primitive style via exoticism, is the guiding thread of this exhibition. Through a comprehensive selection of works by a groupo of late 19^th and early 20^th century artists it will illustrate of the world how travel to supposedly more authentic regions brought about a transformation in creative language. The exhibition shall also analyse the degree to which this experience conditioned the rise of modern art.

Curated by Paloma Alarcó, Chief Curator of Modern Painting at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, this exhibition will focus on the results of the artistic explorations undertaken by artists including Gauguin, Matisse, Kandinsky, Klee and Macke. It will also look at Gauguin’s influence on the German Expressionists and the French Fauves, emphasising his role as the creator of a new and exotic canon, the starting point for the avant-garde artistic idioms that arose in the early decades of the 20^th century.