Manolo Valdés in Monaco

Opera Gallery Monaco

20 September - 24 October 2025

Opera Gallery is proud to present ‘Valdés in Monaco’, a luminous exhibition of works by Manolo Valdés, one of Spain’s most celebrated contemporary artists. This exhibition brings together a constellation of paintings and sculptures that traverse centuries of art history while remaining unmistakably rooted in the present moment.

Revered for his bold reinterpretations of art historical imagery and motifs, this exhibition showcases the inspiration he draws from reference points ranging from Diego Velázquez’s Las meninas (1656) to Henri Matisse’s Femme au chapeau(1905).

In this exhibition, Valdés’s dialogue with history takes on fresh resonance. Monumental heads adorned with delicate butterflies crafted from Murano glass, resin, and steel hover between gravitas and lightness. Nearby, oil and burlap collages carry the trace of the artist’s hand, their textures echoing a long tradition of painterly surface while resisting easy categorisation.

What emerges across these works is a meditation on identity and permanence; how figures endure through time, how form can be both enduring and ephemeral.