Disfrutar
in the Alhambra

The Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife (PAG) and Granada Science Park have organised the forthcoming exhibition M.C. Escher. Infinite Universes, in which Escher’s work is represented by approximately 135 of his best pieces, grouped into seven broadly monothematic environments spread over two venues: the Alhambra and Generalife complex and Granada Science Park. The exhibition will run from 29 March 2011 until 29 February 2012.
The Science Park exhibition will take a look at the scientific side of Escher, while the emphasis at the Alhambra will be on his facet as an artist. The exhibition also features several audiovisual works, including documentaries on his life and work and a series of films representing the visual tricks hidden in his works.
The Alhambra side of the exhibition includes approximately 25 works, in a range of techniques, covering different stages of Escher’s output. It analyses the effect on his work of his two trips to Spain and the Alhambra (1922 and 1936), particularly the geometry of its mosaics and stucco work of the Nasrid site. Escher was fascinated by the geometry of its tessellations and architecture, marking a before and after in how he approached his own work.
One of the most appealing results of this Moorish influence on his work was his fascination for including animals and other life forms absent from Muslim art into the geometry of his sketches and tessellations. The chapel of the Palace of Carlos V, with its fascinating octagonal architecture, will host a series of films explaining some of the visual tricks used in his works.
The idea for the exhibition came from and It was commissioned by Borja Ferrater, Juan Domingo Santos and Carlos Ferrater, and made possible thanks to the framework institutional collaboration document between PAG and the Granada Science Park Consortium.
Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972, Holland) is known world wide for his lithographs and woodcuts. His work shows a profound observation of reality and the expression of his own fantasies. Manipulating space, time and perspective, he reorganises them in accordance with his own ingenious logic. Quirks of perspective are commonplace, infinity is a direction, negative and positive are interchangeable and the result is fascinating.
Escher briefly studied architecture, but soon switched to graphic arts. His unique vision opened him to the importance of method in the creative process, leading him to study mathematics. It is on the basis of this discipline, particularly geometry, that Escher builds his optical illusions. His studies on three dimensional geometric grids and the regular division of the plane give his work a new spatial quality, smashing the rules of perspective that had remained valid since the Renaissance.
Location: Chapel of the Palace of Charles V.
Dates: 29 March 2011 – 29 February 2012.
Opening hours: Monday to Sunday, 9:00 am – 6:00 pm.
Free entry