Diego Delas, at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza , 2025. Image courtesy of Maru Serrano
ITINERARIOS XXX
Centro Botín, Santander
From November, 2025 until Abril 19, 2026
On November 15, the Centro Botín will present Itinerarios XXX, the annual exhibition that brings together and showcases the work of the international artists awarded each year with a Botín Foundation Art Grant. These grants, established in 1993, support artists in their training, research, and production projects, and this years edition also celebrates the programs thirtieth anniversary.
This is a very special edition, as it marks three decades of unwavering support based on mutual trust between the Botín Foundation and the artists. It is a continuity that allows us to accompany artists through the different stages of their lives and creative journeys, nurturing artistic maturity with the same spirit with which we foster its beginnings, says Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz, Director of Exhibitions and the Collection at Centro Botín.
DIEGO DELAS (Aranda de Duero, Spain, 1983)
Diego Delass work explores the intersections and affinities between contemporary artistic practice and so-called folk art, following a personal fascination with the narratives and worldviews embedded in arts and crafts traditions.
Habla, memoria (2025) is part of Telesma, a project that investigates the connections between contemporary art and popular devotional practices such as the creation of votive objects, talismans, and amulets. The piece is conceived as a spatial installation made up of large fabrics suspended in the air, monumental in scale yet evocative of these protective charms. The exhibition space becomes an enveloping environment where materials and forms suggest a vast collective talisman.
In these works, two traditions intertwine: folk metalwork, represented by thin brass sheets reminiscent of traditional jewelry settings, and gestural painting, with brushstrokes inspired by the marks and symbols of artisanal trades.
At the center of the installation hangs a textile that holds seven giant amulets linked together in a chain. Each one combines materials, words, and cultural fragments, functioning as a symbolic knot of desires and memories—a chain of spells written in thread, fabric, and paint. The piece plays with the boundary between the votive object, which looks to the past in gratitude, and the amulet, which looks to the future as a promise or protection.
Through all these elements, the work becomes a reflection on the power of images and objects and their capacity to merge the spiritual and the material—to protect and to beautify at once—inviting us to move through the space and to recognize ourselves at the crossroads of art, devotion, and desire.
