After the Second World War, abstract art became one of the main spaces for artistic experimentation. Painting broke away from traditional ways of representing reality, and the canvas ceased to be merely a support, becoming a space for action in which the artist’s decisions, movements, and unexpected occurrences are recorded throughout the creative process.

Instinct. Gesture and color brings together works by Jean Dubuffet, José Guerrero, Hans Hartung, Joan Miró, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Sam Francis and Esteban Vicente, highlighting the diversity of ways of understanding and working with painting. Incisions, strokes, marks, traces and gestures become fundamental resources, together with a free and expressive use of color. Each artist thus develops a distinctive visual language based on experimentation and spontaneity.

The exhibition establishes connections between European Informalism, American Abstract Expressionism and other related movements. Although their careers followed different paths, these artists share an attitude of freedom towards the canvas and an understanding of painting as a process. Instinct. Gesture and color offers an open view of the transformations of 20th-century painting, highlighting its richness, diversity, and capacity for reinvention.