Cave art exhibition in the MARQ (Alicante), ‘Rupestre. Los primeros santuarios’
The exhibition, in Alicante´s Archeological Museum (MARQ), opens on July until January 2019. The collection on display includes 250 pieces from 19 national and local museums.
This exhibition commemorates the 20th anniversary of the inclusion of cave art from Spain’s Mediterranean arc in UNESCO’s World Heritage list (1998).
‘Rupestre. Los primeros santuarios’ is a complete exhibition focused on cave art in province of Alicante but also includes other parts of the Iberian Peninsula. The visitor is led on an extraordinary journey through easy-to-read panels, 3D reproductions and interpreter points.
It covers around 815 square meters and is distributed in the three temporary exhibition rooms:
- Room I ‘Santuarios Paleolíticos’, evokes the Altamira Cavewith images of European Paleolithic art, accompanied by pieces of furniture art from the north and center of the peninsula.
- Room II ‘El primer Arte Neolítico’, evokes the sanctuary of Pla de Petracos, in Castell de Castells, a place of meeting and worship that gathers the artistic manifestations in small open shelters.
- Room III ‘Naturalismo y Abstracción’, focuses on the Levantine Art (characterised by naturalism and care taken to draw the images) and Schematic Art (the figures are reduced to their basic lines).
Rupestre. Los primeros santuarios also aims to highlight cave art as an art only the most skilled could master, whose codified images were not only accepted as admired by past societies that choose these caves to their sanctuaries and shelters, that is their meeting places and places to share information.
Winter timetable (from September 16 to January 5)
- From Tuesday to Friday: from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
- Saturdays: from 10:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
- Sundays and holidays: from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
