Matisse, blurring in art, Ashurbanipal, and an ode to nature in the new season at CaixaForum Madrid

In the 2025–2026 season, CaixaForum Madrid will host exhibitions dedicated to the career, evolution, reach and influence of French painter Henri Matisse; to artists who embraced the technique of blurring, taking inspiration from Claude Monet’s Water Lilies series; and to an immersive ode to nature. The programme also includes a monographic exhibition on Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria and one of history’s great forgotten rulers, among other proposals.

The director of Exhibitions, Collection and CaixaForum+ at the ”la Caixa” Foundation, Isabel Salgado, and the director of CaixaForum Madrid, Isabel Fuentes, presented the new 2025–2026 exhibition season, under the slogan “We believe in culture as a driver of social transformation”.

The ”la Caixa” Foundation has developed a multidisciplinary, innovative programme for its CaixaForum network of centres, the result of experience, rigour and hard work. It features both in-house productions and exhibitions in collaboration with leading cultural institutions, nationally and internationally. This unique model, embodied by the CaixaForum network, reflects the Foundation’s firm commitment to promoting knowledge, culture and science as drivers of social change. 

In line with the programming of recent years, the ”la Caixa” Foundation continues to promote culture, art and science in a cross-disciplinary and complementary manner. Thus, the CaixaForum centres and the CosmoCaixa Science Museum are consolidating their work within a single network and will be adding exhibitions that can also be seen in other parts of the country.

As is customary in the exhibition season at the CaixaForum centres and the CosmoCaixa Science Museum, the 2025–2026 season offers a wide range of proposals encompassing art, the humanities and scientific outreach. The presentation also includes the most notable upcoming premieres on the CaixaForum+ platform.

CaixaForum Madrid will host five exhibitions during the 2025–2026 season 

Throughout the season, visitors to CaixaForum Madrid will be able to enjoy the following exhibitions and programmes: 

Los visitantes también podrán seguir disfrutando de la exposición Voces del Pacífico. Innovación y tradición.

CaixaForum Madrid will open the new season on 16 September with the exhibition Out of focus. Another Vision of Art, a collaboration with the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris that explores the technique of blurring in art, particularly contemporary art. 

The group exhibition, which will be open until 12 April, takes as its starting point Monet’s Water Lilies series and the way the artist introduced the concept of blurring into art, using blurriness and imprecision as expressive elements. The show, which explores how this phenomenon became a new way of representing and understanding the world for later creators, features works by artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, Eva Nielsen, Claude Monet, Thomas Ruff, Alfredo Jaar, Soledad Sevilla, Christian Boltanski, Mame-Diarra Niang and Bill Viola, among others.

Long regarded as a paradigm of abstract painting, the Water Lilies series was also a forerunner of the large immersive installations that would follow. However, the blurred, out-of-focus effect that characterises the broad expanses of water in the canvases – and which was initially attributed to a visual impairment on Monet’s part – had never been analysed. Today, by contrast, this artistic technique is seen as a deliberate aesthetic choice and serves as the central thread running through the exhibition.

It will be followed on 28 October by the exhibition Chez Matisse. The Legacy of a New Approach to Painting, a collaboration with the Centre Pompidou in Paris. This occasion will offer an opportunity to explore the genius of the artist Henri Matisse, focusing on the career, evolution, reach and influence of the French painter. 

Henri Matisse’s art reflects his wholly innovative approach to colour, his critical rethinking of the painting as a purely pictorial surface, and his sense of being “out of place”, both emotionally and politically. In other words, it expresses his break with established norms and his quest for a new way of seeing and representing the world. The exhibition can be visited at the cultural centre promoted by the ”la Caixa” Foundation in the Spanish capital until 22 February. The exhibition devoted to Matisse marks the first show under the second major strategic partnership between the ”la Caixa” Foundation and the Centre Pompidou in Paris to jointly organise exhibitions. 

From 8 April to 4 October 2026, CaixaForum Madrid will host I am Ashurbanipal king of the world, king of Assyria, dedicated to one of history’s great forgotten rulers, revealed in all his splendour in this exhibition organised in collaboration with the British Museum.

The exhibition’s journey through the life of this complex and powerful ruler highlights the importance of preserving Assyrian cultural heritage. Between 669 BC and 631 BC, Ashurbanipal ruled the largest empire in the world from the city of Nineveh, present-day Mosul in northern Iraq. His reign marked the zenith of the Assyrian Empire, which stretched from the eastern Mediterranean coast to the mountains of western Iran, and also the flourishing of its economy and the spread of artistic styles, schools of thought and human movements throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

With more than 150 objects, the exhibition traces the life and influence of this figure, drawing on pieces from the British Museum’s collection and placing his historical importance in perspective. 

Finally, on 17 June the exhibition Root for Nature. An immersive audiovisual experience, will open its doors, offering a powerful and contemporary perspective on biodiversity through a striking journey that encourages positive action and environmental protection.  

In collaboration with Oasis Immersive Studios and National Geographic, the exhibition weaves an emotive and inspiring narrative that reminds us of the importance of preserving our planet’s habitats and strengthens the resolve to meet the commitments for protecting all ecosystems, challenges set out in the 2030 Agenda. Each gallery immerses visitors in its own unique world through stunning projections and surround sound.

This immersive audiovisual journey, which premiered in Montreal to mark the COP15 climate conference and is now arriving in Europe for the first time, is divided into three sections with a strong educational and emotional impact on visitors and on the schools that visit it. The exhibition can be seen at the centre until 7 March 2027. 

In addition to this season’s premieres, CaixaForum Madrid will continue to host the exhibition Voices of the Pacific. Innovation and tradition until 14 September. The exhibition pays tribute to the richness and diversity of the artistic traditions of the Pacific Islands peoples through 208 objects, most of them from the treasured collection of the British Museum.

Oceania is a complex tapestry of islands and cultures bound together by the Pacific. This ocean has not only been their means of subsistence, but has also inspired the development of their creativity. Fans and fishhooks, clubs and canoes, practically everything is beautifully crafted, with decorations imbued with spiritual meaning. This exhibition is the first in a series of shows forming part of the third major strategic partnership renewed by the ”la Caixa” Foundation and the British Museum to jointly organise exhibitions.