International Photoimagen Festival Opens in Santo Domingo with Prado Museum-Inspired Exhibition

The Bellapart Museum in Santo Domingo is hosting the 12th edition of the International Photoimagen Festival, opening with the exhibition "El Prado in the Center: Photography and Memory in Photoimagen." This event brings together the efforts of several cultural institutions, including the Eduardo León Jimenes Foundation, Centro León, Centro de la Imagen, Museo Bellapart, the Museo Nacional del Prado, and the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation.

The exhibition features works by three prominent Dominican artists, Polibio Díaz, Fausto Ortiz, and Mayra Johnson, alongside contemporary Spanish photographers from various generations. The pieces are inspired by the collections housed at Spain's Prado Museum, its architecture, and the public's interaction with the iconic institution. Visitors can view the exhibition starting Friday, August 21st, in the temporary exhibition hall of the Bellapart Museum. Visiting hours are Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, and Saturdays from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM.

During the inauguration, Maribel Bellapart, president of the Museo Bellapart, highlighted the museum's historical connection to photography and the Photoimagen festival. She recalled her father, founder Juan José Bellapart, who came from Barcelona and was invited by Dominican photography master Wifredo García, a childhood friend. "Once again, photography bursts into our temporary exhibition hall alongside Photoimagen," Bellapart stated, emphasizing the museum's long-standing relationship with the festival and its commitment to visual arts.

Carlos Acero, artistic director of Photoimagen, described the exhibition as an opportunity to reaffirm photography's power as a space for connection between territories, institutions, and memories. This exhibition is part of a residency program developed at the Museo Nacional del Prado, which allowed the Dominican artists to engage with the museum's collections through the lens of contemporary creation. Sara Hermann of Centro León noted that this is the first time the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation has invited three Dominican artists to interpret the Prado's holdings from their own contexts and artistic languages. Each artist has approached the Prado's legacy uniquely: Polibio Díaz fragments and recomposes images related to Goya's works to create new narratives about absence and memory, while Mayra Johnson offers a critical reading of Goya's legacy and the museum's associated representations.

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Polibio Díaz trabaja a partir de la fragmentación y recomposición de imágenes vinculadas a obras de Francisco de Goya, generando nuevas narrativas alrededor de la ausencia y la memoria.