Rocío Garriga’s “Being Exposed II” in Madrid: Hamburg Zoo, War and Shared Fragility at Galería Freijo

What happens to a zoo when a city is bombed? The question sounds marginal to the history of war, yet it opens onto almost everything: how humans rank living beings, how spectacle is built, who is protected and who is left exposed. It is the question behind Rocío Garriga’s “Being Exposed II” at Galería Freijo in Madrid, open from 13 November 2026 to 9 January 2027.

Rocío Garriga and Zoos at War: a project in chapters

Being Exposed II is the Madrid presentation of the third chapter of Zoos at War, a research-driven project Garriga has been developing for years. Each chapter takes a single zoo in a moment of conflict. The first, The Mirror Rule (2018), looked at the Warsaw Zoo; the second, The Double Image, turned to London Zoo. Both were shown at Freijo, so Madrid audiences have been able to follow the project as it unfolds — something more common in publishing than in gallery programming.

The new chapter centres on Hamburg Zoo during the Second World War bombing raids. It premiered this summer as Verse expuest_ at the Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània in Valencia (2 July – 27 September 2026), where press coverage described an exhibition of nine sculptures and installations accompanied by photographs, documents and original objects.

A difficult history

Hamburg’s zoo was not a neutral site. As reported in coverage of the Valencia show, the family that ran it held a near-monopoly on the trade in exotic animals and also staged so-called ethnological exhibitions, displaying people from other cultures to European audiences. Garriga’s project does not separate these threads. The violence of the air raids, the commerce in animals and the exhibition of human beings appear as parts of one system of looking — a system in which some bodies are spectators and others are specimens.

Glass, velvet and mirrored photographs

In Valencia, Garriga worked with a deliberately delicate set of materials: glass, velvet, paper treated with aluminium, mirror-printed photographs and strips of paper. Among the works shown there were Negro sobre blanco (2024–26), a piece that can be read as a flock of birds or as a formation of bombers, as well as The War in the Air, La lluvia, Rorschach-Test and The Sight. The ambiguity is the point. Like a Rorschach blot, the forms shift depending on who is looking and what they expect to see. Galería Freijo has not yet published a work list for Madrid, so visitors should expect a selection rather than a full restaging.

Through human and animal bodies, the gallery says, the project reflects on what we share — above all, our fragility. In a moment when images of bombed cities circulate daily, that framing feels anything but historical.

Who is Rocío Garriga?

Born in Spain in 1984 and based in Valencia, Garriga combines an artist’s training with a philosopher’s. She holds degrees in Fine Arts from the Universitat Politècnica de València and in Philosophy from the Universitat de València, and completed a PhD in Art and Research at the UPV in 2015. Her practice spans installation, sculpture, sound, video and photography, and moves through what the gallery calls hybrid territories of history, memory and language. Recognition has included an Extraordinary Doctoral Thesis Award (2018), first prize for sculpture at Askatasunarte (2017) and a DKV Grand Tour grant (2009).

Freijo and the Madrid gallery season

Galería Freijo, on Calle Zurbano in the Chamberí district, sits within one of Madrid’s densest clusters of contemporary galleries. Its long-term commitment to Garriga is notable: representing a project across three chapters and almost a decade requires patience from both artist and gallery. The November opening also places the show in the lead-up to ARCOmadrid season, when collectors begin scouting Spanish artists with sustained, research-based practices.

Why see it

For collectors, Garriga offers something increasingly rare: a coherent long-form project with institutional validation (the Centre del Carme premiere) and gallery continuity. For artists, the show is a case study in how archival research can become material form without turning into a history lesson. And for general visitors, the works are quietly beautiful — glass and velvet holding stories that are anything but gentle.

Visiting information

Galería Freijo, Calle Zurbano 46, 28010 Madrid. 13 November 2026 – 9 January 2027. The gallery lists Thursday–Friday 4–8pm and Saturday 11am–2pm, with appointments on +34 629 40 34 36; main phone +34 91 310 30 70, email [email protected]. Please confirm hours before visiting. See the official exhibition page, our Being Exposed II listing, and more openings in Madrid, Barcelona and beyond on Upcoming Art Exhibitions in Leading Galleries.