Art Madrid'23 – Art Dialogues

L: Piet Mondrian, “Tableau II”, 1921, oil on canvas | R: Yves Saint Laurent's design, 1965.

 

 

Art sometimes becomes a field without fences, full of paths, a mechanism of communicating vessels where inspiration flows in a multi directional manner. The homage, the emulation, the tribute, the reinterpretation move in that uncertain space between artistic disciplines to originate new pieces in which respect and admiration to what old masters had previously made are embodied.

 

 

 

1: Public School “La Canal”, Luanco (Spain) | 2: Mondrian Maison Hotel (France) | 3: City Hall façade in La Hague | 4: Block of buildings in Rouen (France).

 

 

Mondrian’s fame very soon went beyond the boundaries of visual arts. His simple and linear designs, which the artist only achieved after many years of work in which he developed an evolved style tending to simplicity, made the difference within Modern Art. Today, his impact is still remarkable, and his aesthetic simplicity and elegant choice of colours, have turned his work into a timeless legacy that inspires new designs. Architecture and fashion design are two of the main disciplines based on Mondrian’s paintings.

 

 

L: Jil Sander's design, 2012. R: Pablo Picasso, “Chouette Femme”, 1950, vallauris pottery.

 

 

Precisely, fashion has in several times resorted to visual arts to offer a new reading of artworks captured on fabric. Though in many cases, paintings have been taken as a reference for these designs (like Mondrian’s, that we have pointed out), here we bring the example of the pottery artwork by Picasso entitled “Chouette Femme”. The German designer Jil Sander based on this piece to the proposal that she presented on the catwalk in 2012.

 

 

L: Johannes Vermeer, “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, 1667, oil on canvas | R: A frame of the film “Girl with Pearl Earring”, 2003.

 

 

“Girl with a Pearl Earring”, by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, is a famous painting finished between 1665 and 1667 now kept in the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague. Scholars consider this piece a “tronie”, a classic painting at the epoch, mainly made with a decorative purpose with no intention of identifying the person in the portrait. This was not a problem to the American novelist Tracy Chevalier, who based her book “Girl with a Pearl Earring” on this artwork. The writer builds a story on the relationship of the painter with a servant girl, Griet, that would be his model for this portrait. Years later, this novel was adapted to the cinema with an homonymous film whose main characters were Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. As a detail, we must point out that Vermeer felt an authentic devotion for these pearl earrings, and we can find them as little sparkling dots in other female portraits, like “Girl with a Red Hat” or “A Lady Writing a Letter”.

 

 

L: Otto Dix, “Portrait of Sylvia von Harden”, 1926, oil on canvas | R: scene from film “Cabaret”, 1972.

 

 

Cinema does not escape from the influence of the visual arts either. In this case, we talk about the film “Cabaret” (1972), whose first scene is inspired by the oil painting by Otto Dix “Portrait of Sylvia von Harden”, of 1926. The attention devoted to this film and the numerous artistic references that it has, besides of being itself an iconic film, explain that it was awarded the Oscar of Best Photography, under the direction of Geoffrey Unsworth. The choice of this pictorial reference is not casual at all. Otto Dix was one of the main representatives of the German “New Objectivity” trend, and this piece conveys some of the aesthetic principles of the epoch, especially in what the consideration of women against the imposition of beauty stereotypes concerns, at a period, the late 20’s, when the intellectual and female liberalisation mastered. Precisely, Otto himself asked Sylvia in several times to allow him to paint her. For the artist, this journalist and poet that frequented the Romanisches Café in Berlin, place where intellectuals and artists met at the time, summarised the purest essence of his epoch. It was not a wrong choice to inspire the opening scene of the film, also set at the beginning of the next decade.

 

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.