Art Madrid'23 – THE FACE OF CONTEMPORARY MODERNITY

Lyonel Feininger, Untitled (Crystals Broken), 1927. Oil on canvas, 72 x 70 cm. Particular collection. Courtesy Moeller Fine Art, New York © Moeller Fine Art, New York © VEGAP, Madrid, 2017. Image courtesy of Juan March Foundation.

 

 

Lyonel feininger (1971-1956) was an American artist of German ancestry who was an essential for the artistic panorama of the avant-gardes. He began his training in music, encouraged by his parents who also shared that passion. At the age of 16 his life took a turn and began to experiment with drawing and illustration, his main passion. He entered the world of comics and his cartoons soon dressed the covers of American and German magazines. After consolidating his career in that genre, he became more and more determined by painting and this allowed him to freely develop his creative capacity.

 

 

Children Kin-der: The famous German artist Feininger presents the characters he will create. In The Chicago Sunday Tribune, April 29, 1906. Photomechanical print, 58 x 89 cm. © Moeller Fine Art, New York. © VEGAP, Madrid, 2017.

 


At the beginning of the twentieth century, he adopted more abstract language by entering into the knowledge of straight lines and fragmented planes of color. As early as 1919, Walter Gropius himself encouraged him to teach engraving at the Bauhaus and this was his task until its closure in 1932 by the Nazis. After this historical event he decided to move to the United States where he would continue to create until his death. Here, it is where the Juan March Foundation (Madrid) enters, which takes time expressing figures and movements little explored.

 

 

Zirchow VII (1918). Oil on canvas, 80.7 x 100.6 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington. © VEGAP, Madrid, 2017.

 

 

With Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956), a retrospective of his entire career, he shows more than 400 works alternating techniques and styles that was adopted throughout his artistic life. Coming from public and private collections in Europe and the United States, they also deal with different topics such as caricature, satirical drawings, their fixation by bridges or the representation of such emblematic places as Paris or Manhattan. The exhibition is completed with a catalog that awaits inside the biography of the artist with essays and texts by well-known personalities such as Martin Faass or Sebastian Ehlert.

 

View of the exhibition

 

 

The director of the Foundation, Javier Gomá, along with the director of exhibitions Manuel Fontán assure that he is a figure that for many he fell into oblivion, and with this sample he wants to pay homage to what was a genius of his generation. The exhibition will run until May 28.

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.