The poetics of freedom
27/07/2016.
Cuenca Cathedral [Cuenca] Spain 26.07>06.11.16
metalocus, ÁLVARO LAMAS
metalocus, ÁLVARO LAMAS
The genius creator of power to power. The battle against physical and mental captivity. The triumph of freedom and poetry in a dialogue that spans the centuries...
Farreras. 813A. 130 x 242. 2007. Image courtesy of exhibition.
Juan Barte-Alta Expresion-trabajos y dias. Imagen © Juan Barte.
Juan Barte-Alta Expresion-trabajos y dias. Imagen © Juan Barte.
Feito-N2491. Image courtesy of Feito.
Chirino-Alfaguara. Image courtesy of exhibition.
Canogar-Saturno-2013. Image courtesy of Canogar.
El laberinto del dictador. Image courtesy of exhibition.
Ai Weiwei_SACRED - Entropy. Courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio, Lisson Gallery.
Ai Weiwei_SACRED - Entropy. Courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio, Lisson Gallery.v
Ai Weiwei_SACRED - Entropy. Courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio, Lisson Gallery.
Cuenca Cathedral. Image courtesy of exhibition.
Cuenca Cathedral. Image courtesy of exhibition.
Ai Weiwei_SACRED - Entropy. Courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio, Lisson Gallery.
Ai Weiwei_SACRED - Ritual. Courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio, Lisson Gallery
Ai Weiwei_SACRED - Entropy. Courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio, Lisson Gallery.
Ai Weiwei_SACRED - Supper. Courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio, Lisson Gallery
In an unprecedented move, the Cuenca Cathedral, the main temple of the city and headquarters of the conquense dioceses in the ecclesiastical province of Toledo, becomes a big stage of contemporary art hosting The poetics of freedom, a unique exhibition project that is part of the official list of Cervantes celebration 2016, an event of exceptional public interest. The initiative also coincides with other major anniversaries of the city, as the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Museum of Abstract Art and the 20th anniversary of declaration of its old as World Heritage Town.
The project consists of three exhibitions, linked by an exceptional artistic and historical setting with a unique concept, which aims to disseminate the ability of art to become a vehicle of freedom, in a decisive weapon in the fight for individual human rights and collective. The three-different approaches exhibitions or "views" on the same matter-are located in different areas of the cathedral, but are solidly united by a common thread: The Poetics of freedom. The testimony of a single set of artists for whom there are no boundaries between artistic or literary expression and personal attitude itself. A concept that is embodied in a contemporary and highly aesthetic striking exhibition design, innovative approach.
Cervantes and freedom
Is a sign of "timeless look" that explores, in our time, in the way that freedom is an integral concept in life and literature of Miguel de Cervantes, for whom his years of captivity were definitive when trace, through writing, the moral portrait of his time, breaking all the molds and giving way, with Don Quixote, the birth of the modern novel. It is impossible to understand the cervantino canon without the concepts of captivity and freedom, which are the essence of his work. Freedom Cervantes becomes the key to his artistic work, in and out of the work. Imbues his characters, the author himself and the millions of readers who have followed in his footsteps, symbolically riding across the Channel in search of the highest ideals through the centuries. Marks his vision of man and the world and is present continuously in its reflection on society and in the literary practice: wide, ironic, tolerant, open to individual peculiarities, enemy of dogmatism and sign only claim values such as justice, tolerance, courage, honor and the right to dream. As a transition between the exhibition dedicated to Cervantes and installation libertady Ai Weiwei, an installation will be discussed Florencio Galindo original work entitled The Labyrinth of the dictator.
S.A.C.R.E.D.
Ai Weiwei installation, key and heart of this exhibition, which will be located in the cloister of the cathedral. Ai Weiwei, a cultural figure of the first order of his generation, stands as a symbol of the artist committed to freedom of expression in the XXI century. Its moral position gives full meaning to the descriptive narration and personifies the strength of a contemporary artist who favors with his work, his personal attitude and its active position against injustice and oppression, changing social attitude through art.
S.A.C.R.E.D. It is the interpretation and representation of the own life experience of Ai Weiwei, realistic and yet deeply lyrical time, when he reveals to the viewer the most painful and intimate moments of her captivity in China and underscores the relentless attack on the personal dignity and freedom he, like many others, have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of the authorities in China and other countries in the world where freedom of expression is subject by force.
The installation consists of six parts: Dinner, Prosecutions, Cleaning Ritual, Entropy and Duda. The proposal, historic in the work of the Chinese artist, consists of six large iron boxes with small openings like that WILL find in the door of a celda-, through which the viewer to dioramas that contain peeks inside. Each diorama includes a series of hyper-realistic models representing the artist and his captors, and thoroughly documents the details of the different stages of imprisonment, from the moment that is led to his cell to the interrogation, telling intimate and everyday moments of captivity and more humiliating, as when he was forced to use the toilet or wash naked under the gaze of his captors ...
It will be the first time that this installation is displayed in Spain, thanks to the collaboration with the study of the artist and Lisson Gallery in London.
High expression
Both complements and give unitary sense to the two previous samples. This is an exhibition that sets the "closer look", the closest to us in space and time, and is conceived as an exercise in collective, in which works of Martin Chirino be exhibited, Francisco Farreras, Luis Rafael Feito and Canogar, essential figures of Spanish informalism, interspersed with photographs of Juan Barte.
It will be an excellent opportunity to see the works, sketches, ideas and processes in creating these artists who fought, getting, for breaking the ethical and intellectual captivity of an era after them, and did not return to be the same in the territory of art. An artistic process shown in vibrant dialogue with the photographs captured them in full creative action, as frank as shocking snapshots.
At the end of the historical avant-garde, when abstract art extends worldwide, in Spanish art he had installed an autarchy that gripped artistic creation and, at the same time kept isolated from international currents. The Franco regime was belligerent with those aesthetic and artistic expressions that then spoke in a cryptic language unknown and subversive-the abstraction of a forbidden concept of freedom. expressive freedom and public freedom. The proposal on which these painters and sculptors developed their vision of art and the use of materials passed with relative ease the barriers of censorship, but was highly offensive to some academic institutions, who advocated a national art exalting traditional values against contact with art from abroad.
This project is the result of three years of continuous contact between the photographer Juan Barte and informalists artists. It is both a tribute to these myths still active as a personal narrative of fascination for art and the way the artist as a way of life. High expression in this sense is not a strictly documentary work, the story may seem fragmented and disjointed and probably speaks more of the photographer's own perspective and its universe of the photographed subject.
The project consists of three exhibitions, linked by an exceptional artistic and historical setting with a unique concept, which aims to disseminate the ability of art to become a vehicle of freedom, in a decisive weapon in the fight for individual human rights and collective. The three-different approaches exhibitions or "views" on the same matter-are located in different areas of the cathedral, but are solidly united by a common thread: The Poetics of freedom. The testimony of a single set of artists for whom there are no boundaries between artistic or literary expression and personal attitude itself. A concept that is embodied in a contemporary and highly aesthetic striking exhibition design, innovative approach.
Cervantes and freedom
Is a sign of "timeless look" that explores, in our time, in the way that freedom is an integral concept in life and literature of Miguel de Cervantes, for whom his years of captivity were definitive when trace, through writing, the moral portrait of his time, breaking all the molds and giving way, with Don Quixote, the birth of the modern novel. It is impossible to understand the cervantino canon without the concepts of captivity and freedom, which are the essence of his work. Freedom Cervantes becomes the key to his artistic work, in and out of the work. Imbues his characters, the author himself and the millions of readers who have followed in his footsteps, symbolically riding across the Channel in search of the highest ideals through the centuries. Marks his vision of man and the world and is present continuously in its reflection on society and in the literary practice: wide, ironic, tolerant, open to individual peculiarities, enemy of dogmatism and sign only claim values such as justice, tolerance, courage, honor and the right to dream. As a transition between the exhibition dedicated to Cervantes and installation libertady Ai Weiwei, an installation will be discussed Florencio Galindo original work entitled The Labyrinth of the dictator.
S.A.C.R.E.D.
Ai Weiwei installation, key and heart of this exhibition, which will be located in the cloister of the cathedral. Ai Weiwei, a cultural figure of the first order of his generation, stands as a symbol of the artist committed to freedom of expression in the XXI century. Its moral position gives full meaning to the descriptive narration and personifies the strength of a contemporary artist who favors with his work, his personal attitude and its active position against injustice and oppression, changing social attitude through art.
S.A.C.R.E.D. It is the interpretation and representation of the own life experience of Ai Weiwei, realistic and yet deeply lyrical time, when he reveals to the viewer the most painful and intimate moments of her captivity in China and underscores the relentless attack on the personal dignity and freedom he, like many others, have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of the authorities in China and other countries in the world where freedom of expression is subject by force.
The installation consists of six parts: Dinner, Prosecutions, Cleaning Ritual, Entropy and Duda. The proposal, historic in the work of the Chinese artist, consists of six large iron boxes with small openings like that WILL find in the door of a celda-, through which the viewer to dioramas that contain peeks inside. Each diorama includes a series of hyper-realistic models representing the artist and his captors, and thoroughly documents the details of the different stages of imprisonment, from the moment that is led to his cell to the interrogation, telling intimate and everyday moments of captivity and more humiliating, as when he was forced to use the toilet or wash naked under the gaze of his captors ...
It will be the first time that this installation is displayed in Spain, thanks to the collaboration with the study of the artist and Lisson Gallery in London.
High expression
Both complements and give unitary sense to the two previous samples. This is an exhibition that sets the "closer look", the closest to us in space and time, and is conceived as an exercise in collective, in which works of Martin Chirino be exhibited, Francisco Farreras, Luis Rafael Feito and Canogar, essential figures of Spanish informalism, interspersed with photographs of Juan Barte.
It will be an excellent opportunity to see the works, sketches, ideas and processes in creating these artists who fought, getting, for breaking the ethical and intellectual captivity of an era after them, and did not return to be the same in the territory of art. An artistic process shown in vibrant dialogue with the photographs captured them in full creative action, as frank as shocking snapshots.
At the end of the historical avant-garde, when abstract art extends worldwide, in Spanish art he had installed an autarchy that gripped artistic creation and, at the same time kept isolated from international currents. The Franco regime was belligerent with those aesthetic and artistic expressions that then spoke in a cryptic language unknown and subversive-the abstraction of a forbidden concept of freedom. expressive freedom and public freedom. The proposal on which these painters and sculptors developed their vision of art and the use of materials passed with relative ease the barriers of censorship, but was highly offensive to some academic institutions, who advocated a national art exalting traditional values against contact with art from abroad.
This project is the result of three years of continuous contact between the photographer Juan Barte and informalists artists. It is both a tribute to these myths still active as a personal narrative of fascination for art and the way the artist as a way of life. High expression in this sense is not a strictly documentary work, the story may seem fragmented and disjointed and probably speaks more of the photographer's own perspective and its universe of the photographed subject.
More information
Venue
Cuenca Cathedral, Plaza Mayor, s/n, 16001 Cuenca.
Dates
From July 26 to November 6, 2016
Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei is a chinese conceptual artist, also works as an architect, photographer, curator and globally recognised human rights activist. Born in 1957 in Beijing, he began his training at Beijing Film Academy and later continued at the Parsons School of Design in New York City.
His work has been exhibited around the world with solo exhibitions at Stiftung DKM, Duisburg (2010); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2009); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2009); Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Cambelltown Arts Center, Sydney (2008); and the Groninger Museum, Groningen (2008), and participation in the 48th Venice Biennale in Italy (1999, 2008, 2010); Guangzhou Triennale in China (2002, 2005), Busan Biennial in Korea (2006), Documenta 12 in Germany (2007), and the 29th Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil (2010). In October 2010, Ai Weiwei's "Sunflower Seeds" was installed in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, London. Ai Weiwei participated in the Serpentine Gallery's China Power Station exhibition in 2006, and the Serpentine Gallery Map Marathon in 2010.
The last solo exhibitions included Ai Weiwei in the Chapel, on view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park through November 2, 2014; Evidence at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 2014; and Ai Weiwei: According to What?, which was organized by the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, in 2009, and traveled to North American venues in 2013–14. Ai collaborated with architects Herzog & de Meuron on the “bird’s nest” stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and on the Serpentine Gallery, 2012 London. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation in 2012.
Rafael Canogar
Rafael Garcia Cano, (Toledo, 1935), studied with the painter Daniel Vázquez Díaz, between 1949 and 1954. He was a founding member of the group El Paso, and abstract influence, which was linked between 1957 and 1960.
From 1976 he returned to abstraction from a new perspective. Through his work, invents and reinvents an aesthetic language that leads to a rupture and a new conception of time and space. The matter becomes a metaphor, music, and a meeting point between the old and the modern. Canogar cares about expressing through painting, his idea of space; his works are endless areas showing even an artist who does not need aesthetic features or historical boundaries to transform.
From 1976 he returned to abstraction from a new perspective. Through his work, invents and reinvents an aesthetic language that leads to a rupture and a new conception of time and space. The matter becomes a metaphor, music, and a meeting point between the old and the modern. Canogar cares about expressing through painting, his idea of space; his works are endless areas showing even an artist who does not need aesthetic features or historical boundaries to transform.
Martín CHIRINO
Martin Chirino is one of the founders of the group El Paso (1957). In his work basically it used iron and always moves within abstraction, sometimes devoid of a narrative component (spirals) and other very rich from a formal point of view and symbolic (Landscapes).
Chairman of the Board of the Circle of Fine Arts (1983-1990) and Director of the Atlantic Centre of Modern Art in Las Palmas since 1989, this artist creates pieces of great formal beauty with high symbolic content. His way of understanding art and life begins to give way to the inert mass of the metal material. His works include a great expressive force that fills the forms, their total defiance of the laws of gravity and sublimation of its iconic plastic signs.
Chairman of the Board of the Circle of Fine Arts (1983-1990) and Director of the Atlantic Centre of Modern Art in Las Palmas since 1989, this artist creates pieces of great formal beauty with high symbolic content. His way of understanding art and life begins to give way to the inert mass of the metal material. His works include a great expressive force that fills the forms, their total defiance of the laws of gravity and sublimation of its iconic plastic signs.
Francisco FARRERAS
Francisco Farreras. Started early in the artistic activity under the direction of Antonio Gómez Cano and Mariano de Cossio, Farreras studied Fine Arts in Madrid, where he earned the title of professor of drawing. It is from 1954 when professionally began his artistic career, participating in many group and solo exhibitions in Spain and abroad. Paris, Helsinki, Madrid, New York, Tokyo, London and Zurich, among others, are the cities that have better appreciated their proposals.
Artist concerned about the renewal of the paint, used as expressive pattern collage in which, through a color reduction based ochres and blacks in contrast with the white and yellow, gives a tension that never goes beyond the principles of order and composition. It becomes latent expressiveness through this intimate voltage, raised from a strictly plastic sphere.
Luis FEITO
Luis Feito is also one of the founding members of El Paso. Professor of the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando in 1954, left teaching to live a scholarship in Paris, where he came into contact with the vanguard force.
His first works fall within figurative painting, later through a phase in which experiments with cubism and finally enter fully into abstraction. Through their production, Feito claimed tension. His works have assumed a constructive sense through the balance of non-geometric shapes, designed as living configurations, free and expansive stroke, suggesting a gestural painting and immediate action. His paintings are some meditation spaces, creating a meeting place of matter, color and vital commitment.
His first works fall within figurative painting, later through a phase in which experiments with cubism and finally enter fully into abstraction. Through their production, Feito claimed tension. His works have assumed a constructive sense through the balance of non-geometric shapes, designed as living configurations, free and expansive stroke, suggesting a gestural painting and immediate action. His paintings are some meditation spaces, creating a meeting place of matter, color and vital commitment.
Florencio GALINDO
Painting Florencio Galindo (Adanero, Avila), an artist who has found a space and a perfectly own time for its creation, always moves in this duality between the ethical and the aesthetic, between the dirt and the diaphanous, between the turbid and extraordinarily defined. A poetic realism that trembles in its unique concept of beauty and that has led him to become the most prominent painter of the so-called second generation of Spanish realism.
Born in Adanero, Ávila, in 1947 he won the Painting Prize of Fine Arts in 1976. Doctor of Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid and professor in the same faculty has had solo and group exhibitions in Madrid, Paris, New York , Helsinki, Valencia, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valladolid, Belgrade, Caracas, Munich, or Sao Paulo, etc.
National Drawing Award Pancho Cossio (1973) and National Prize for Painting Black and White (1974), among other awards and recognitions, the work of Florencio Galindo is in places such as museums of Contemporary Art in Madrid, Fine Arts Vitoria of Modern Art in Belgrade or Collection Manhattan Bank of New York.
Born in Adanero, Ávila, in 1947 he won the Painting Prize of Fine Arts in 1976. Doctor of Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid and professor in the same faculty has had solo and group exhibitions in Madrid, Paris, New York , Helsinki, Valencia, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valladolid, Belgrade, Caracas, Munich, or Sao Paulo, etc.
National Drawing Award Pancho Cossio (1973) and National Prize for Painting Black and White (1974), among other awards and recognitions, the work of Florencio Galindo is in places such as museums of Contemporary Art in Madrid, Fine Arts Vitoria of Modern Art in Belgrade or Collection Manhattan Bank of New York.
Juan BARTE
Juan Barte. Born in La Rioja and a varied life path that has taken him to places as diverse as Los Angeles, Tokyo, Laos or Madrid, in the past developed his career in graphic design. Although photography has always been its focus, it was in recent years when he decided to surrender completely to this obsession.
In 2012 he began photographing artists active generation of Informalismo on a project that would extend for three years. It is now with the exhibition Poetic Freedom when we see part of it. Barte's work has been published in various media and exhibited in galleries and public institutions. He is also coordinator of the Photobook Club Madrid actively promoting the dissemination of photographic culture and editor of the publication Formidable Magazine.
In 2012 he began photographing artists active generation of Informalismo on a project that would extend for three years. It is now with the exhibition Poetic Freedom when we see part of it. Barte's work has been published in various media and exhibited in galleries and public institutions. He is also coordinator of the Photobook Club Madrid actively promoting the dissemination of photographic culture and editor of the publication Formidable Magazine.
