Imagine an exact replica of the most iconic universally recognized masterpieces of art, but with the most important element, the human figures, removed from the scene. This is what characterizes the work of the contemporary Spanish artist and photographer José Manuel Ballester, whose works are in state museums and private collections in Spain, the United States, Japan, China and many other countries.

This is Ballester’s first exhibition in Russia. His works have been in personal and collective exhibitions in the Prado Museum of Madrid, the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao, the Genoa Art Museum, Pascal Vanoke Gallery in Paris and many others.

Since April 29, Ballester’s series “Hidden Spaces” has been on exhibit at the New Jerusalem Museum of Moscow, with the support of the Spanish Embassy in Russia.

The works in the exhibit include “Primavera” and “Birth of Venus” by Botticelli", “The Annunciation” of Leonardo da Vinci and “The Marriage of the Virgin” by Raphael. All of them were produced in collaboration with Haltadefinizione, which provided the ultra-high definition images of the original masterworks.

Each work in the series Hidden Spaces (Espacios Occultos) begins with a digital reproduction of the original work, done at a high enough resolution to allow the artist to perform the work of removing the central elements from the composition and filling in the empty spaces. Through this process of removing the people from these spaces, the viewer can see these works from a new point of view. Landscapes, architecture and inanimate objects take their place as protagonists, not only backgrounds or frames.

Since 2010, José Manuel Ballester has worked with Haltadefinizione to develop his artistic projects which have involved numerous works by Giotto, Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci. These formidable works of digital art are made possible by the application of new technologies in the field of digitalization in the fine arts.