The Palacio de Gaviria, in Madrid, will be hosting until July 15 the Duchamp, Magritte, Dali. XX Century Revolutionaries exhibition, which contains numerous works loaned from the Jerusalem Museum and that belong to the Arturo Schwart collection. It has been organized by Arthemisia and Adina Kamien-Kadzan is participating as curator.
The exhibition’s structure consists of five topics: Wondrous Juxtapositions, Desire: Muse and Abuse, Automatism and Its Evolution, Biomorphism, and Illusion and Oniric Scenery. Through them we are shown the surrealist and dadaist worlds. In the exhibition, in addition to Duchamp’s, Magritte’s and Dali’s works, we can admire creations by Max Ernst, Man Ray, Calder, Yves Tanguy, Francis Picabia, among others.
Traveling through “Dreams and Reality” to Create a New Order in the World
Surrealism and Dadaism appeared in the interwar period (1918-1939) out of the necessity to break down and create a new order in the world, a completely different one from what existed up until then. A world that changed the laws of reason and logic through art and worked as a criticism to the western world and rationalism. The surrealist objective was to free the man’s subconscious through art, to free thought from reason’s control and from moral concerns.
Dadaism emerges out of the necessity to show the world that the moral, aesthetic, and artistic values were nonsense, that they’ve lost their raison d’être as a consequence of the catastrophe produced by the war. Randomness, disorder, provocation, and scandal are its tools to demystify the values up to then established by society, to demonstrate the need to consolidate a new order dismantling aesthetic movements that were ruled by rationalism and academism.
Magritte’s World
With his paintings, that invite the spectator to think and wonder, Magritte seems to be saying to us: “I dare you to look and think.” Everything is open to interpretation. His proposal of absurd unrealities, always misplaced, introduces the spectator to visual games that entrap because of how implausible they can be, causing bewilderment in whoever contemplates them, attracted by his mockery-deceit. Finally, they show themselves possible only in the incongruity of the fiction achieved by pictorial manipulation tricks. Magritte invites us, through his visual games, to change our way of perceiving reality, to join him in his delirious journey and to take part in his work with our interpretation. His constant motifs are green apples, covered faces, bowler hats, self-portraits, cloudy blue skies, chess boards, and pieces, elements with which he creates his own language to invite the spectator to reconsider what is logic and what is known.
In Palacio de Gaviria’s exhibition, among other things, you can see El castillo de los Pirineos (1959), through which the Belgian painter takes us to his unmistakable and personal oniric world. The painting shows us an isolated castle, built over a rock that weightlessly floats, like clouds in a blue sky, over the sea waves. For me, it’s pure poetry.
A Universe between “Dream and Reality”
After visiting the exhibition, we’ll talk about the tools given to us by art in order for us to be aware, to denounce and to provoke a perceptive change in our society. We’ll create our own “ism,” deciding how to baptize it and the rules that will govern it. I, for example, am concerned by the need we have as humanity to approach the world of art. What would our society be without art? What would we be if the only thing that mattered were what brought us an utilitarian benefit while discarding the rest? The philosophy against the dominant, which talks about what has been so far disregarded for its ambiguity -like art-, can help us in this trance (Sloterdijk).
Photography: Oscar Rivilla
Conceptual Design: Carolina Verd
Fashion:
Main picture:
Courtesy of L´Showroom Comunicación: headdress by Mar Balmón
Cape dress by Arantxa Morcillo
Courtesy of Finally Press; shoes by Pura López
Second picture:
Courtesy of L´Showroom Comunicación;
Top and trousers by Arantxa Morcillo
Courtesy of Finally Press; shoes by Pura López
Third picture;
Courtesy of L´Showroom Comunicación;
Overcoat by Mad Rubb
Courtesy of Finally Press;
Trousers by Liujo
Shoes by Ana Marttin shoes
Fourth picture;
Courtesy of Finally Press;
Vest by Liujo
Shoes by Hannibal Laguna
Carolina Verd 