EXHIBITIONS / Campo Cerrado. Art and power in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. 1939– 1953

26 April, 2016 - 26 September, 2016
MNCARS, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
Curated:
M.ª Dolores Jiménez-Blanco Carrillo de Albornoz

The exhibition "Campo Cerrado" takes its name from the homonymous novel by Max Aub and looks to examine Spanish art in the complex and controversial decade of the forties, a period that has received little attention and that exists in a critical and historiographical vacuum, despite its importance in structuring modern awareness in Spain. In 1938, at the height of the Spanish Civil War, Eugenio d’Ors, General Director of National Fine Arts, selected works by Spanish artists linked to the art that preceded the conflict, including Zuloaga, to represent Spain’s fascist bloc at the Venice Biennale. In 1951 the writer and critic Rafael Santos Torroella and the architect José Antonio Coderch designed the Spanish Pavilion for the IX Milan Triennale, thus establishing a dialogue between popular craftsmanship and contemporary design, which included both Lorca’s poetry and the paintings of a young Guinovart. The comparison between the content of Spain’s representations at both international events, which could be seen as symbolic boundaries in this exhibition, may also evoke a linear evolution ranging from the most academic conservatism, in line with the rigours of early fascism, to a sense of openness towards modernity, in keeping with a political period that strived to put an end to the international isolation of the Franco regime. Nevertheless, the exploration of what lies beneath—not only in the two exhibitions but, above all, also in the period between them both—reveals an infinitely more complex reality.

 

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MNCARS, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
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