Valdés In Monaco

IT'S BEEN 60 YEARS since the founding of Equipo Crónica, the influential collective that contributed to post-war Spanish art and launched Manolo Valdés’ prolific career. Blending political resistance with bold visual language, Equipo Crónica laid the foundation for Valdés’ artistic journey - one that has seamlessly traversed between the past and present. This autumn, Opera Gallery in Monaco celebrates this anniversary with “Valdés in Monaco,” a sweeping solo exhibition that brings together more than four decades of the artist’s career - spanning from 1983 to 2025 - with a striking selection of paintings, sculptures, and mixed media collages.

Born in Valencia, Spain, in 1942, Manolo Valdés studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos before his involvement with Equipo Crónica, which formally debuted in 1965 and disbanded in 1981. Together with the collective’s cofounders, Rafael Solbes and Juan Antonio Toledo, Valdés made art that challenged political and cultural norms by incorporating visual elements of American Pop Art to mount a biting critique of political repression, mass media, and the art historical canon. Over the course of their 16-year collaboration, Equipo Crónica staged landmark exhibitions across Europe and Latin America. The collective demonstrated the ways in which art can function as both cultural critique and historical dialogue - an influence that has lingered in Valdés’ own practice, where reimagining the canon remains central.

Since departing the collective and embarking on his solo career in the early 1980s, Valdés has become celebrated for his œuvre composed of painting, sculpture, and mixed media that reinterprets iconic images from art history through a contemporary lens. His works reside in some of the world’s most prestigious collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. His large-scale sculptures are also on view in public spaces from the New York Botanical Gardens to Chatsworth House in the UK.

With “Valdés in Monaco,” Opera Gallery marks its largest solo showcase of his work presented at their Monaco space to date - a fitting tribute to one of the most versatile and influential figures in contemporary art. Encompassing many of his most recognizable series, including the Reina Mariana, Infantas, and Cabezas sculptures, “Valdés in Monaco” features a diverse array of iconic works that reflect his ability to mine the depths of art history and create bold reinterpretations. From Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas (1656) to Henri Matisse’s Femme au chapeau (1905), Valdés takes inspiration and reference from a diverse array of historical and instantly recognizable motifs and breathes new life into them. In this way, Valdés’ work is less of an homage and more of a conversation across centuries, reflecting the ways iconic artworks take on new significance in different eras and mediums.

 

Offering an expansive survey of Valdés’ approach to materiality, this exhibition features mixed media collages like Retrato en azul y blanco (1999), layered with burlap and oil paint and thread, contrasted with the elegant bust sculptures such as Cabeza con mariposas azules cristal (2024), which depicts a striking sculptural bust surrounded by a large swirl of Murano glass and resin butterflies crowning a face - thematically representing the inception of ideas and their origins. The exhibition also features large-scale aluminum and wood interpretations of Valdés’ Infanta Margarita series, an homage to the central figure in Velázquez’s Las Meninas painting, while a towering piece from his Librería series evokes the striking façade of a packed bookshelf - emblematic of the knowledge, memory, and cultural heritage that Valdés consistently references in his work.

Opera Gallery hosts a major exhibition dedicated to the Spanish master in Monte Carlo from 20 September to 24 October.

 

Concurrent to the exhibition, Opera Gallery Monaco mounted an installation of monumental outdoor sculptures at Larvotto Beach, where a grouping of monumental sculptures are on display until December 25, 2025. Valdés’ œuvre will also soon find a permanent home in his birthplace of Valencia, Spain, with Espai Manolo Valdés, a museum dedicated to the artist that is slated to open by 2027. Its inaugural exhibition will feature around thirty sculptures, including several never-before-seen works. This institution will serve as both a cultural landmark and a testament to Valdés’ enduring influence in his hometown.

With “Valdés in Monaco,” Opera Gallery offers visitors not just an exhibition, but a journey through one artist’s lifelong dialogue with history, material, and form. By bridging the past and present, he offers a vision of art that is as intellectually rigorous as it is visually captivating. From the delicate tactility of his collages to the monumental presence of his public outdoor sculptures, Valdés’ works invite reflection on beauty, memory, and the shifting meanings of art from his Spanish cultural heritage and beyond.

OPERA GALLERY
1, av. Henri Dunant, Palais de la Scala
operagallery.com
Opening Hours: From Monday to Saturday, From 10am to 7pm

IMAGE 1: MANOLO VALDÈS; PHOTOGRAPHED IN HIS NEW YORK STUDIO IN 2025. PHOTO CREDIT: ©ON WHITE WALL
IMAGE 2: CABEZA CON MARIPOSAS AZULES CON CRISTAL , 2024, RESIN, STEEL AND MURANO; GLASS OVER BRONZE BASE, 263 X 410 X 210 CM
IMAGE 3: WHITE BUTTERFLIES , 2024, GLASS AND STEEL, 215 X 79 X 71 CM
IMAGE 4: RETRATO EN AZUL Y BLANCO , 1999, OIL, COLLAGED BURLAP AND THREAD ON BURLAP, 234 X 188 CM
IMAGE 5: REINA MARIANA BLUE , 2025, PAINTED WOOD, 180 X 130 X 90 CM
IMAGE 6: CABEZA CON VIDRIERA EN CÍRCULOS I , 2022, ALUMINIUM HEAD WITH BROWN PATINA AND MURANO GLASS HEADDRESS ON STEEL, 115 X 145 X 35 CM
IMAGE 7: ODALISCA II , 2018, MIXED MEDIA ON WOOD, 195 X 379 CM