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An archetype is a symbolic model: a metaphorical figure that explains rules of behaviour, a narrative pattern that interprets an event, an interpretive framework that defines personal expectations… The symbolic meanings of archetypes are constructed historically and socially, and cultural narratives articulated through mythology, religions, stories, art, cinema, and literature have been fundamental to their transmission and survival. Images have helped to perpetuate some archetypal categories whose presence has, in many cases, extended to the present day: the nurturing mother, the muse, the femme fatale, the witch, the maiden, the leader, the warrior, the explorer, the mentor… The way in which the attributes and images of these archetypes have been codified is an illuminating example of the social, cultural and political role of men and women. 

The representation of women in art always speaks of something more than just their image. Women have been represented, fundamentally, by men in a cycle in which a series of symbolic conventions of the masculine and the feminine have persisted in art: the artist and the muse, the artist and his mother, the artist and his desire, the artist and the search for absolute beauty. These representations show an archetypal code defined by a masculine logic that left out women's voices, subjectivity and the agency of women, and placed them in a passive, subordinate and disempowered position in the creative process. 

ARQUETIPAS invites us to reflect on these models. The exhibition addresses the image of women in the visual arts through works from the Würth Collection from 1902 to 2022, and traces how the profound social transformations of the 20th and 21st centuries have changed the perception and self-perception of women in art. The exhibition brings together 100 works by 77 artists, including Gustav Klimt, Pablo Picasso, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Jaume Plensa, Roy Lichtenstein, René Magritte, Fernando Botero, John Baldessari, Marc Quinn and Xenia Hausner, members of influential modern and contemporary art movements such as Pop Art, Neo-Expressionism, Conceptual Art, Hyperrealism and Surrealism. Movements from different historical contexts engage in dialogue within the exhibition space, allowing the works to be viewed from a historical perspective and from different positions. The pieces address the symbolic dimension of what is feminine, the construction of subjectivity, the political significance of images, the historical construction of female (and male) archetypes, and the stereotyping of gender roles. 

ARQUETIPAS appropriates the symbolic meaning of the term and proposes a game that names an artistic territory that is as personal as it is political , challenging the conventions of the past to open up a space from which to imagine collective futures.

^{2 Hanisch, C. (1970). The personal is political. In S. Firestone & A. Koedt (Eds.), Notes from the Second Year: Women’s Liberation. New York.} 

Olle Agnell, Siegfried Anzinger, Elvira Bach, John Baldessari, Michael Blum, Herbert Boeckl, Fernando Botero, Oskar Bottoli, Corneille, Margaret Courtney-Clarke, Berenice Darrer, Naia del Castillo, Jana Farmanová, Till Freiwald, Vicente Gallego, Alberto Gironella, Mercedes Gónzalez de Garay, Günter Grass, Jonathan Green, Dieter Hacker, Beate Hamalwa, Martha Haufiku, Anne Hausner, Rudolf Hausner, Xenia Hausner, Barbara Heinisch, Karl Horst Hödicke, Sabine Hoffmann, Feodora Hohenlohe, Romane Holderried Kaesdorf, Alfred Hrdlicka, Karl Hubbuch, Johannes Hüppi, Robert Jacobsen, Lore Jahnel, Falk Kastell, Heinz Kleine-Klopries, Gustav Klimt, Christof Kohlhöfer, Roy Lichtenstein, Markus Lüpertz, Marcin Maciejowski, René Magritte, André Masson, Harding Meyer, Helmut Middendorf, Devin Miles, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Henry Moore, Othilia Mungoba, Chris Ofili, Pablo Picasso, Jaume Plensa, Marc Quinn, Arnulf Rainer, Markus Redl, Félix J. Reyes, Adolfo Riestra, Christian Rohlfs, Eva Rothschild, Francis Ruyter, Sabala, David Salle, Juliao Sarmento, Antonio Saura, Christian Schad, Philipp Schönborn, Elia Shiwoohamba, Ana Soler, Donna Stolz, Norbert Tadeusz, Rufino Tamayo, Wilhelm Thöny, Tomi Ungerer, Manolo Valdés, Cornelius Völker, Gabriel Vormstein