Art Madrid'23 – El Greco and the modern painting exhibition in El Prado Museum

La visión de san Juan, El Greco.

This year marks throughout Spain the fourth centenary of the death of the Greco, Cretan painter who came to Toledo in 1577 and settled there making the city the cradle in which he developed his most successful work and the time of maximum splendor. El Greco was a reference not only in his time but its influence persisted over time, as a mirror in which the main representatives avant garde of 20th century looked themselves. In the exhibition "El Greco and the Modern Painting" in the Prado Museum until 5 October, we can track the mark left by the painter in the work of Manet, Cezanne, Picasso, Delaunay, Modigliani and the Czech avant-garde.

Composición (La Oración en el huerto), Adriaan Korteweg. 

El Greco's work was rediscovered in the early twentieth century with the first exhibition in the Museo del Prado (1902) and the formation of new collections associated with his paintings of modern artists. In Central Europe, the Greco inspired the expressionism of  Beckmann, Kokoschka or Korteweg and the modern Parisians that played with surrealism.

Evocación. El entierro de Casagemas, Pablo Picasso. 

 

But if there is an outstanding painter clearly influenced by El Greco was Pablo Picasso, whose early drawings and paintings from 1898 show their penchant for the artist from Toledo. This became very intense in his blue period (1901-1904) in which he reelaborated the work Evocation in an original way.  

Mis amigos, Ignacio Zuloaga. 

The assessment of Greco in Spain was very noticeable from the 1890s and reached its peak in the figure of Ignacio Zuloaga who collected many of his works (The Vision of St. John, for example, present in the exhibition ) and then he painted Greco's details on his own pictures as a tribute.  

After II World War, painters turned to the expressive, emotional and gesture, and lyricism of the figures of the Greco inspired the painters of the time.

 
 
Vista emblemática de Toledo, André Masson. 

 

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.