1,350 documents.

In Spain in the seventies a series of artistic practices dubbed ‘conceptual’ or ‘alternative’ began to gain momentum. In the words of the professor Simón Marchán Fiz: ‘The emphasis shifts from the traditional artistic object in favour of conception and the project, towards the creative, interrogative and perceptive behaviour of the recipient’. In the early eighties a historian (Teresa Camps) and two artists (Nacho Criado and Concha Jerez) agreed on the need to examine conceptual practice in the Spanish art scene. The project took shape in the form of an exhibition titled Fuera de formato, which was held in February and March 1983 at the Centro Cultural de la Villa in Madrid, curated by Jerez and Criado.

This collection brings together the working archives of the exhibition, in addition to preparatory correspondence with participating artists and technical documentation related to its organisation, including photographs of the installation and many of the original plans, just as they were when sent to the curators for its production. In addition to the group Zaj—invited as a special guest—the artists who participated in the show were some of the most prominent figures in Spanish conceptual practice in the seventies and eighties: Francesc Abad, Ángel Bados, Eugènia Balcells, Nacho Criado, Leopoldo Emperador, Albert Girós, Eulàlia Grau, Concha Jerez, José Ramón Morquillas, Muntadas, David Nebreda, Pere Noguera, Carles Pazos, Joan Rabascall, Àngels Ribé, Francesc Torres, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina and Jaume Xifra.