A huge exhibition in which almost 200 original pieces are presented, including documents, drawings, plans, printed publications and many other photographic reproductions that show us an exhaustive tour of the achievements of a large group of brilliant architects, among whom were José Antonio Corrales, José Luis Fernández del Amo, Alejandro de la Sota, Antonio Fernández Alba, José Borobio, Carlos Sobrini, Santiago García Mesalles, or Fernando de Terán, and artists such as Manuel Millares, Arcadio Blasco, Juana Francés, Pablo Serrano or José Luís Sánchez (some of whom would form the group El Paso).
Room Image. “Colonization Towns. Glances at an Invented Landscape”. Photograph by Julio César González.
A separate chapter will be about the important and unusual presence of women among the artists: Delhy Tejero, Teresa Eguíbar, Jacqueline Canivet, Flora Macedonsky, Menchu Gal, Carmen Perujo, and Isabel Villar, among others, produced numerous works for the elaboration of elements such as sculptures, liturgical objects, stained glass or ceramics from the churches of the colonization towns.
Juana Francés working on the San Isidro weir (Alicante), s/f. Author and date unknown. Image courtesy of IAACC Pablo Serrano.
The exhibition takes a complete tour of these 300 colonization towns from their creation by the National Institute of Colonization (INC), to their current situation, collected with photographs and interviews with the protagonists of that adventure, carried out by Ana Amado and Andrés Patiño.
Their presence has been highlighted in the exhibition and in the large audiovisual triptych in which their voices, their faces, and their accents appear, telling us about their work and testimonies - often forgotten - and serving as the ever-present background of the exhibition.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog co-published by the ICO Foundation and Ediciones Asimetricas. The catalog, with 220 images (149 in color and 71 in black and white) on more than 300 pages, offers exhaustive information on the creation process and on the current situation of the colonization towns with texts signed by the two curators, in addition to by Horacio Fernández, Patricia Molins and Víctor Pérez Escolano.
