Alicante Contemporary Art Museum (COOKIES) will open to the public October 11 Exhibition Art in a wasteland, 1939-1959 with works from the collection Valencia Institute of Modern Art (IVAM). The official opening of the exhibition, which has passed through the Museu de Belles Arts de Castelló, will be held. An exhibition of new works on 19 October in Alicante.
The exhibition proposes “read it again” IVAM funds In the historical context of the Spanish Civil War and the end of the Second World WarAs IVAM points out, it proposes “antagonistic worlds, different scenarios, but both built on a wasteland”.
Consisting mainly of IVAM studies, Art in a wasteland, 1939-1959 includes his works: Albers, Alfaro, Blasco, Brossa, Buch, Buñuel, Chillida, Dubuffet, Duchamp, Ferrant, Juana Frances, Manolo Gil, Jacinta Gil, Julio González, Gorky, Gottlieb, Gumbau, Lucebert, Soulages, Masson, Michaux, Millares, Miró, Newman, Oteiza, Pala-zuelo, Pascual de Lara, Renau, Matilde Salvador, Saura, Sempere, Tàpies, Reinhardt, Val del Omar… and a photographic look at the reconstruction of everyday life Català-Roca, Miguel or Swimwear Brothers. Although the information provided by IVAM does not indicate this, the studies are likely to dialogue with part of the MACA collection.
this after two wars They assumed a pause or a radical interruption in cultural history. In Spain of the dictatorshipThe aesthetic project imagined from the Phalange, reducing culture to state propagandabreak with the experimentalism of the avant-garde and return to a certain academy based on the idea national and catholic. in the rest of the worldmournful after the war and its horror, search with previous avant-gardes It will come from the troubling question about the relationship between civilization and barbarism. In either case, totalitarianism, violence, or cultural misery forced countless artists to emigrate, go into exile, and work abroad.
Director of IVAM, Nuria Enguitahe wanted “Thanks to MACA for opening its doors to IVAM. The presentation of this exhibition in the Alicante museum responds to two key objectives for the current IVAM: on the one hand, the desire to be a traveling museum with an open and closed collection throughout the Valencian Community; on the other hand, reviewing inherited contexts and discourses”.
Rosa Maria CastellsThe curator of MACA said, “I appreciate the importance of the exhibition organized by IVAM, focusing on one of the most contradictory historical periods and contextualizes the work of art to a concrete social reality and sociopolitical conditions of the moment, conditions that even question the possibility and meaning of creation. Reading a novel in the exhibition program so far at MACA It allows the establishment of connections, synchronicities, intentions and gestures between artists, works and collections”.
Three areas in the exhibition
for him first french (1939-1959), art and culture was an important propaganda tool. Inside fortiesPhalangist culture and National Catholicism suggested forgetting previous avant-garde experiences and a return to academic forms linked to the formation of the “national spirit” rather than free individual expression. However, despite censorship and the desire for absolute control of cultural production, there were still artists who tried to perpetuate or reinvent this innovative spirit, individually or in groups.
this fifties it will assume progressive tolerance of the state with more experimental artistic forms and practices. Abstraction will emerge victorious in the artistic field from an intense debate about its meaning and possibilities. Paradoxically, sacred art became one of the gateways to more contemporary forms. In the context of the Cold War, avant-garde art began to be used to promote an image of openness and freedom, just as it was done there, in parallel with the intensification of diplomatic relations with the United States.
this Victory of Nazism in Germany It resulted in a serious suspension of liberties, persecution of all cultural and artistic forms unrelated to the Third Reich, and forced exile of a large number of creatives and intellectuals. In 1939, German troops invaded Poland; By 1941 Germany had already occupied almost all of Europe. As the Nazi occupation progressed, crowd of artists will take a long flight. The defeat of the Republicans in Spain led to a mass exodus of great artistic and cultural figures. As in the twenties and thirties, avant-garde art was nourished by the Spanish immigration to Paris; now living between nostalgia, hope and harmony, this forced migration will enrich many host regions. Thus, Spanish exile in Mexico or European exile in the USA would be the basis for artistic renewal.
After World War II a new geopolitical orderEurope is no longer the economic or cultural center. On both sides of the Atlantic, the experience of war and the sense of failure of cultural traditions—even accompanying ones—that have proven powerless to stop barbarism creates the need for a profound renewal of both sources and media, materials and artistic work. apps. There is a feeling that a reboot is necessary, that the previous thing contains a failure.. Then, the spontaneous or the illogical, the exploration of the limits of reason or knowledge, the purely visual versus the narrative, individual freedom, subjectivity, trace, scar or breakage on canvas or matter are resorted to. It is an effort to forget learning and start over. Art thinks more and more of itself. Art makes art its subject.