Art Madrid'23 – Adding value to Spanish Illustration

Alfredo González, Illustration to Seis barbas de besugo, Media Vaca. 2007

 

 

 

Illustration seems to be one of the less-attention-paid disciplines within the visual arts, considered a genre less outstanding and more popular in comparison to other techniques more recognised, like the oil painting or the engraving. Luckily, in the last few years, illustration has recovered a great reputation and the offer of illustrated books in the market, for children and adults, has increased. We no longer look for fairy tales pocketbook for kids with series-designed drawings, but for little masterpieces made with love and care in which, sometimes, text remains in a second place.

 

 

 

Alfredo González, “De Moscú a Nueva York”, 1989

 

 

 

The Illustration National Award started in 1978, though during the first thirty years the aim of this recognition was to reward a work of illustration, unpublished in Spain, of an infant or youth publication. Since 2008, the line of this award has changed, and now it is devoted to the artistic career that the author, as an illustrator, has developed into the Spanish literature realm.

 

 

 

Alfredo González, “Teoría de Madrid”, 1980

 

 

 

This year the award was granted to Alfredo González “due to his dilated career, that led him to work in different spots of Spain and the world, to his cultivation of different aspects of illustration and to his teaching and influence into following generations”, as the Ministry has stated. This author, graduated in Philosophy and Theology, worked for many years in the advertising sphere, a profession that led him to live in numerous countries before he returned to Spain.

 

 

 

Alfredo González. “Nueva York”, 1995

 

 

 

Alfredo devoted to illustration 65 years of his life. He collaborated in media like EL PAÍS, La Codorniz, El Jueves, El Papus, Muy Sr. Mío, Cambio 16, La Calle or El Mundo. He also illustrated works in cooperation to writers like Francisco Umbral, in the book entitled Teoría de Madrid, or Ignacio Carrión, in De Moscú a Nueva York. The award arrives at his 84 years old, in a perfect moment, as he himself confesses: “my soul became fluffy with this award, it is the best of all the awards that I have received and it has arrived in the ideal moment”.

 

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.