Art Madrid'23 – FRANCIS PICABIA FINALLY IN THE MoMA

Francis Picabia. Je revois en souvenir ma chère Udnie (I see again in memory my dear Udnie). 1914

 

 

Francis Picabia, Paris, 1879-1953. He was a versatile artist, who left a living testimony of more than 200 works. In his 74 years of life, the work he performed was at least varied. Its main characteristic was the freedom with which it expressed itself and expressed its impressions in different artistic disciplines. He never married any style and at the same time was the representative of many. His versatility and chameleon capacity, he was consecrated as the most versatile artist of the avant-garde, and finally the MoMA pays homage to this great deployment.

 

 

Dadaglobe Reconstructed

 

 

In the work of Picabia, it has always been defined as complex as a minimum. Due to the wide variety of styles he has been adopting over the years, he can not even divide his career in stages. It is not attributed its own brand, but at the same time has experimented with different aspects such as pointillism, impressionism, cubism, Dadaism, collage or even ballet, literature and cinema. This sample includes 125 paintings of different formats, 45 drawings, a film, interviews with the author, magazines and even the recital of some of his poems.

 

 

'The Spanish Revolution', by Francis Picabia, 1937

 

 

Friend of the great geniuses of the avant-garde, all the words that came out of their mouths were compliments to his work and personal interpretations of him. Anne Umland, the curator of the exhibition, focuses her hopes on this changing facet of the artist leaving the viewer with a wide range of possibilities when interpreting the works. He sees it as a liberation of our subconscious when it comes to reading the works of Picabia, not to limit an already fixed explanation but to dynamite the structures already preset and to support an anti-artistic feeling.

 

 

View of the exhibition

 

 

The great variety of the work has made possible this great exhibition that shows Picabia in all its splendor. The historical events did not stop his eagerness to continue creating and renewing himself. On the contrary, they were a challenge to achieve the balance between traveling geographically and different artistic styles.

 

 

 

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.