Curated by João Fernandes

A luminous pavilion of glass and steel opened in 1887, Madrid’s technologically advanced Palacio de Cristal was capable of simulating equatorial climate conditions and was intended to showcase the exotic flora of the Philippines, a Spanish colony until 1898. In short, the structure—now owned by the Reina Sofía—already sounds like a work by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, so it is no surprise that the French artist was drawn to the site. In characteristic form, she is offering few details in advance of her show, a site-specific intervention. But given that the Palacio, with its evocative architecture and its history redolent of tropical modernity’s light-infused melancholy, itself crystallizes the atmospheric qualities fans (myself included) associate with her art, perhaps she will start from the premise that less is more.

— Daniel Birnbaum