The exhibition Lifes in Transit, in MEMORIA, is a tribute to the Spanish-Chilean artist Roser Bru (1923-2021), who died on May 26, 2021, in Santiago, Chile. The artist, who arrived in Valparaiso (Chile) on the Winnipeg ship chartered by Pablo Neruda in 1939, immerses us in a biographical journey through her intimate work on paper. This is the first individual exhibition, since 1976, dedicated to the creator of Catalan origin in the capital of Spain.

The opening will be held on July 8, within the framework of the Contemporary Art Fair (ARCO), which will take place in the city of Madrid between July 7 and 11, and will remain open to the public until October 30 of this year. The exhibition script poetically captures the evocation of life and death and her condition as a woman, mother and artist that characterizes her work as a whole, reflected through twenty creations and documents, between 1963 and 1995, from the Memoria Collection. Among the series presented we find Made in Spain (1966), currently exhibited in the new permanent collection on the fourth floor of the Museo Reina Sofía.

Also, some of her most iconic works on paper, inspired by characters from literature and arts of the 20th century such as: Kafka, Milena Jerenska, the Fallen Soldier by Capa, Anne Frank, José Hernández, Frida Kahlo or Velazquez. Likewise, the exhibition presents the Ten Odes (1965) by the Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda, and the fictional verses El Gaucho Martin Fierro (1968) by the Argentine José Hernández, both illustrated and fundamental points within the artist’s graphic work. The exhibition ends by paying tribute to Bru, with five works by two other artists who shared the transition from exile and her origins, these are her companions Marta Palau (Barcelona, 1934-2022) and Gracia Barrios (Santiago, 1927-2020). The first with her Stamps of Sealed Spain (1975), Homage to Lázaro Cárdenas (1981) and a tapestry from 1966, while the second is present with a highly historical mural work on silk, Faces (1973). In this space, the three artists share the stage again after the great exhibition organized by the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2017-18, titled Radical Women; Latin American Art 1960-1985.