VALENCIA.- The Institut Valencià d’Art Modern has opened “Apoteosis Now,” a new exhibition by Alicante-born photographer Cristina de Middel that transforms Gallery 6 of the museum into a vivid, disorienting and deliberately excessive field of images.

Conceived specifically for IVAM, the exhibition brings together 252 photographs in different formats. Rather than arranging them in the orderly series usually associated with photographic exhibitions, de Middel has chosen to present them as a kind of visual eruption. The result is closer to a collage, a cascade or even a controlled detonation than to a traditional survey of an artist’s work.

The exhibition, on view at the Centre Julio González from May 21 through October 12, was presented with the participation of regional culture secretary Marta Alonso, IVAM director Blanca de la Torre, curator Iván de la Nuez and the artist herself.

Alonso described de Middel as one of the leading figures in contemporary international photography, noting a career that includes Spain’s National Photography Award in 2017 and her role as president of Magnum Photos, the agency recently recognized with the Princess of Asturias Award. She also praised the artist as a pioneer who has helped reshape the language of modern photojournalism.

For IVAM director Blanca de la Torre, the exhibition marks a departure from the way de Middel’s work has often been shown. Here, the images do not follow a chronological path or a thematic order. Instead, they appear as what she called a “visual avalanche,” arranged like a photographic explosion or waterfall.

The title, “Apoteosis Now,” plays with the idea of excess, spectacle and possibility. Curator Iván de la Nuez said the phrase is more than a word game: while apocalypse suggests collapse, apotheosis points toward intensity, transformation and the possibility of opening new ways of seeing. De Middel also connects the title with the idea of a grand finale, evoking the explosive energy of a Valencian “mascletà.”

Inside the gallery, visitors encounter a large collage made from the artist’s own photographs. There is no clear narrative, no sequence and no single subject tying the images together. That absence is intentional. De Middel wants viewers to confront the way images reach us today: all at once, without hierarchy, context or pause.

“The only concession I make to the public’s mental health is that the photographs are arranged by color,” the artist said. Everything else, she explained, has been designed so the images do not create an obvious connection.

For de Middel, the exhibition is also a response to exhaustion with storytelling. In a culture where everything is packaged as a narrative — even commercial products — she wanted to step away from the pressure to explain, persuade or organize experience through a fixed story. Many of the photographs in the exhibition come from projects, commissions or journeys that left certain images behind. Here, those “orphaned” photographs return with a new purpose.

“I like giving photography back a non-utilitarian dimension,” she said.

The installation itself reinforces the exhibition’s tension between chaos and order. The photographs are mounted on grid structures, offering a minimal framework for the flood of images. The gallery’s staircase, which connects the two levels of the room, has been turned into a cardboard tower that recalls the Tower of Babel as well as the precarious architectures of the Global South, including Brazil, where de Middel currently lives. The museum also emphasized the sustainable nature of the installation, which was made entirely with reused cardboard boxes.

One of the exhibition’s most striking gestures is the placement of the explanatory wall text. Instead of greeting visitors at the entrance, it appears on the second floor, near the end of the exhibition. De Middel said she is interested in giving images the chance to speak first, before interpretation conditions the viewer’s experience.

For curator Iván de la Nuez, “Apoteosis Now” is not simply an exhibition about photography, but about images themselves. The idea of a “cataract” of images carries a double meaning: an overwhelming flow, but also something that clouds vision.

With this exhibition, IVAM continues its long-standing engagement with photography while opening a broader reflection on how images shape contemporary life. In an age of constant visual consumption, “Apoteosis Now” asks visitors not only to look, but to become aware of how they look — and of what may be hidden by seeing too much.