THE IMAGINED WORD. Dialogues between the plastic arts and literature in spanish art

THE IMAGINED WORD.

Dialogues between the plastic arts and literature in spanish art

March 2 – June 17, 2007

Ever since Horace spoke the famous words, “Ut Pictura Poesis”, a lot has transpired on Planet Art right up to the present day, feeding and enriching the symbiotic relationship of equality between the visual and the textual; the incursions and excursions made by verbal registers and text in general within the realm of the plastic arts have now become customary practice in the art world. To date, the few exhibitions which have made a more or less direct reference to the dialogue between the word and the image have generally focused on visual art (mainly painting) produced by writers, or on the presence of text within works of art.

The aim of this exhibition is to therefore try, possibly for the first time in Spain, to take an equal look at the word and the image, giving a simultaneous and dialectical view of different instances of these two creative spheres. Furthermore, this view – nearly always related to poetry – goes beyond painting to include other visual processes (sculpture, photography, visual poetry, installations, objects) in their relationship with the textual world, undoubtedly endowing it with a more distinguishing and enriching angle.

Although the exhibition centers around art produced in and after the middle of the 20th century, it was felt necessary and appropriate to contextualize it with a representative selection of artists and writers which dates back to the beginning of the avant-garde and includes Rafael Alberti, Federico García Lorca, Ernesto Giménez Caballero and José Moreno Villa. This initial and seminal stage is followed by another moment of inflection with the appearance in the nineteen-sixties of conceptual practices (equally interwoven with the textual world and the world of ideas) as well as the emergence of visual poetry and other non-discursive poetical styles which are very close to the visual world. To this effect and practically for the first time, the exhibition presents a collection of works by eight of Spain’s leading visual poets: Pablo del Barco, Julio Campal, José Luis Castillejo, Juan Eduardo Cirlot, Bartolomé Ferrando, Antonio Gómez, Fernando Millán and Francisco Pino. Furthermore, the last few decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of this century have seen a continuation of this mutual interest expressed in many works and by artists who, in many cases, use new technological and digital languages which obviously find a wide and novel echo in this exhibition.

From the geographical point of view, the exhibition is confined to Spain, though it does accommodate some foreign artists whose lives and works are associated, to a greater or lesser extent, with Spanish art.

After this initial introduction, represented by the avant-garde artists we have already mentioned, the exhibition focuses on three basic themes. The first is “La Palabra Plana” (The Flat Word) which includes works produced using various two-dimensional techniques. José María Báez, Miquel Barceló, Chema Cobo, Evru, Ferrán García Sevilla, Manuel Hernández Mompó, Juan Hidalgo, Rogelio López Cuenca, Manuel Millares, Elena del Rivero, Ana Sánchez and Fernando Sinaga are the artists who belong to this plural territory of painting. For its part, photography is represented by Joan Fontcuberta, Chema Madoz and Gonzalo Puch. Finally, we also have Alberto Greco, Fernando Renes and Wolf Vostell who use drawing and the collage as languages of expression.

The second theme is “Orografías de la Palabra ” (Orography of the Word) which represents those artists who explore the rugged landscape of the three dimensional, mapping space through sculpture, installations and the world of objects.

Chema Alvargonzález, Joan Brossa, Pep Llambías, Alicia Martín, Xavier Mascaró, Jaume Plensa, Antoni Tàpies and Manolo Valdés are the artists chosen for this unique journey.

Finally, we have “La Palabra Eléctrica” (The Electrical Word), one of the most original sections in the exhibition, which includes works by Eugenio Ampudia, Pepe Buitrago, Félix Curto, Antoni Muntadas, Javier Núñez Gasco, Miguel Ángel Rebollo and Fernando Sánchez Castillo. All of the works have been created using a variety of luminous ingredients in a syntax of light: neon lights, holographs, video, light boxes, etc