This exhibition aims to chart the artistic and personal relationships of three of the great figures in early twentieth-century art, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Francis Picabia.

Together they created the Dada movement in New York during the First World War, and, unusually within the history of modern art, they remained friends, with periods of varying intensity, throughout their lives.At the heart of the friendships lay a shared outlook on life, manifested in their works through jokes and a sense of irony, iconoclastic gestures, and a pronounced, if often coded, interest in sexual relations and eroticism. Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia aims to explore the various affinities and parallels between the work of these three, showing how they responded to each others’ ideas and innovations.

Picabia was a painter, Man Ray worked in all media but became celebrated as a photographer and Duchamp abandoned the life of a professional artist, yet became a revered figure for later generations of artists. The exhibition begins in the 1910s, with works showing the artists’ attempts to respond to and go beyond the implications of Cubism and abstraction. It will feature seminal early works including Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (No.2) 1912 which created a furore when it was exhibited in America in 1913, Picabia’s I See Again in My Memory My Dear Udnie 1913-14 and Man Rays The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her Shadows 1916.

Covering the period to the end of their careers and spanning nearly 40 years, the show will also feature Duchamp’s ready mades and optical experiments.

Spanish artist Juan Muñoz (1953 - 2001) came to international prominence in the mid 1980s with dramatic sculptural installations that placed the human figure in specific indoor and outdoor settings. They were known as "conversation pieces". This exhibition includes well-known sculptures such as Many Times (1999), The Prompter (1988) and Conversation Piece (1996), the “raincoat drawings”, and important pieces with sound, light and mechanical elements.

The broad time span covered by this exhibition (1400-1600) and its Europe-wide approach make it the first to provide an overview of Renaissance portraiture. It explores portraiture as a genre in its own right, focusing principally on painting but including medals, sculptures, drawings and engravings while leaving aside the donor portrait.

The exhibition reveals two constant features in the evolution of the Renaissance portrait. The first is its “democratisation”, as although portraiture was initially reserved for the privileged clsses, it eventually embraced the whole social spectrum. The second is an increase in size as a result of portraits becoming
incorporated into the decoration of interiors. The earliest examples were designed to be viewed and stored away in chests, not to be hung on walls.

In demand from very heterogeneous sectors of society, portraits served diverse purposes and acquired a social, symbolic and even documentary dimension that gave rise to an extraordinary variety of types. The exhibition includes portraits of individuals proclaiming their intellectual pursuits, social aspirations and religious devotion; portraits designed to seduce, attack or convince; portraits as impressive images of power; and portraits that illusionistically project the sitter beyond the picture plane or distort the image.

The first phase of a new state-of-the-art zoo has opened in Spain ’s third largest city.  At the $94 million Bioparc Valencia, visitors can watch antelope, zebras and gazelle gallop over the African savannah and gorillas and leopards roam a lush, bird-filled equatorial forest.  One of the most advanced zoos in Europe , the 25-acre park is home to 4000 animals from 250 species.  Plans call for a second phase to include nearly five more acres to showcase the ecosystems of South-east Asia and Central and South America . 

“Zoo immersion,” the latest in zoological park design, gives new meaning to the phrase “up close and personal.”  By reproducing vegetation, the undulating terrain of a specific ecosystem and the authentic sounds of the wild – while concealing barriers and man-made structures – the architects have replicated the habitats of these wild creatures. 

Open every day of the year from 10 am and closes between 6:00 pm and 9:00 pm depending on the season.