Art Madrid'23 – Los Sueños (The Dreams), Grete Stern in Círculo Bellas Artes of Madrid.

 

 

Outstanding student at the Bauhaus, where she developed a work related with post-expressionist artistic avant-garde, surrealism and Dadaism, the German artist Grete Stern, was formed in graphic arts, typography and photography and worked for several years in advertising design.

 

 

 

In 1935 she married the photographer and Argentine filmmaker Horacio Coppola (CBA also organized an exhibition about him in 2010) and the following year the couple finally moved to Buenos Aires where Stern lived until his death in 1999, and where she developed a long and interesting career as a photographer.

 

 

In full swing of his work, Grete Stern began working with the women's magazine Idilio, who commissioned her to illustrate the dreams of readers in the section "Psychoanalysis will help you", an opportunity with which the artist developed the photomontage, making of this technique one of its hallmarks and with which could represent themes such as nightmares, frustrations, unspeakable desires ... of a generation of women who do not yet recognize their place in society, and who were still far from feminist claims. 

 

 

 

 

The photographer published over 100 photomontages in the three years he worked for Idilio, from 1948 to 1951. She represented persecuted women, enclosed, restless, brave, dreamy, submissive women, always under a critical, resourceful and revolutionary way. Women who first faced the reality of an identity thanks to the psychoanalysis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From this hundred works, Stern kept the original negatives of 46 pieces, now on display in the Círculo de Bellas Artes, in gelatin silver photographic prints which was made by her husband, Horacio Coppola. As they were designed for the publication, they are small works but with an intense creativity and an unequivocal message: freedom and autonomy for women.

 

 

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.