Art Madrid'23 – Beauty in the Koplowitz Collection

 

 

“The Alicia Koplowitz-Grupo Omega Collection”, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum. 

 

 

 

The exhibition include a wide art works selection of the collection, around 90 paintings and drawings of national and international Masters of the art history (dating from the 16th century to the 21st century) and sculptures (from the classical antiquity to our days). The exhibition tour is divided into nine sections: “La persistencia del ideal clásico”, “El siglo de las Luces”, “Vida privada, vida pública”, “París, cambio de siglo”, “Nuevos caminos en el arte de entreguerras”, “Materia, gesto, mancha”. “Figuraciones”, “Informalismos y abstracciones” y “Epílogo”.

 

 

Paul Gauguin, “Women at the banks of river”, 1982. Oil on canvas, 31 x 40 cm. © The Alicia Koplowitz-Grupo Omega Collection.

 

Some of the art works of the important collection that we can see in the different rooms of the Museum are “La virgen con el niño y san Juanito” of Zurbarán (17th century) or “Asalto a la diligencia” and “Hércules y Ónfala” of Goya (18th century). Of the 19th century highlight the painting of Raimundo Madrazo and those of the French post-impressionism of Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh. The 20th century represents more than half of exhibition selection, there are notable paintings of representing national and international Spanish artists.

 

      Raimundo de Madrazo, La siesta, h.1875

 

 

The abstract movement is represented in the exhibition with names like Nicolas de Staël, Piet Mondrian, Lucio Fontana or the minimalists Frank Stella and Donald Judd, for example.  American Expressionism has four important representatives in the exhibition: Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly and Anselm Kiefer. Of the latter is the most current art work of the collection, painted in 2014. 

 

 

Anselm Kiefer, Le Dormeur du val, 2014 

 

 

“The Alicia Koplowitz-Grupo Omega Collection” is an exhibition guided by the artistic taste of the collector, a walk for the beauty in the art in which it dominates the female universe. Bilbao Fine Arts Museum give us the opportunity to see a good selection of the collection, and as its artificer comments: “This is the result of emotions, passions and unforgettable memories that have been part and continue forming part of my life”. 

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.