Art Madrid'23 – WARHOL: MAKING HIS WAY THROUGH COLOUR COPIES

 

 

 

Warhol was an outsider. An artist of Czech origin that moved to the United States who knew how to take advantage of the kindness and badness of the social and economic system that welcomed him. From his beginnings as a graphic designer in New York, this misplaced creator was able to make a critical reading of the environment to produce the pieces that have made out of his work an iconic reference of contemporary art.

 

 

 

Andy Warhol. “Brillo Box”, 19664-1968. Museo colleção Berardo, Lisboa. © 2017 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / VEGAP

 

 

 

The modernity of his proposals, if the term is considered appropriate, was misunderstood at the beginning. The fame of this artist was built up with perseverance and obstinacy. Following a pattern faithful to his ideas and a colourful spirit but not innocuous, Warhol was able to overcome the setbacks of the market to stand up his own visual identity.

 

 

 

Andy Warhol. Cows on painted paper, 1966. Collection of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. © 2017 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / VEGAP

 

 

 

This exhibition highlights one of the essential aspects of his creative process, so related to graphic art. The possibilities of unlimited reproduction of his works, an aspect that reflects the American mentality of the super production based on the assembly line, clashes with the personalisations that Warhol made and with the own characteristics of this process, in which there are never two pieces absolutely identical. The density of the inks, the imperfections of the support, the wear of the plates... make the pieces, even conceived to be reproduced in mass, never be identical.

 

 

 

Andy Warhol. “Kétchup Heinz Box”, 1964. Collection of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. © 2017 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / VEGAP

 

 

 

The exhibition traces the career of this artist up to his death, who faced the last creative years with a turn to the business world, another aspect that reflected the impact of the American idiosyncrasy in his career choices. After an assassination attempt in 1968, Warhol becomes a character in himself, a creator who made of his own image an iconic element at an international scale.

 

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.