The Spanish cities of San Sebastian and Wroclaw in the Silesia region in Poland, have been selected as the 2016 European Capitals of Culture. Succeeding Mons, Belgium, and Pilsen, Czech Republic, the two cities’ events programme will run throughout the year and include a wide range of subjects from food to technology and visual arts.
San Sebastián’s main visual arts exhibition is Peace Treaties: 1516-2016 (17 June – 2 October), which will include around 300 works of art (by artists including Francisco Goya, Peter Paul Rubens, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Francisco de Zurbarán, Pablo Picasso, Le Corbusier and Hans Haacke), as well as publications, seminars and conferences on the past 500 years of war and peace, as represented in the arts.
Wroclaw, meanwhile, has a cultural programme divided into eight parts (architecture, film, literature, music, opera, performance, visual arts and theatre) and its visual arts section is curated by Polish critic and curator Michal Bieniek. The programme includes the exhibition Wroclaw’s Europe (20 September – 31 December), focusing on the art historical legacy of Wroclaw and Silesia.
4 January 2015.
