UNTIL SUNDAY 14/4
VAT. Guillem de Castro, 118
The exhibition steps on quicksand popular of the VATI. The term “popular” is elusive, that's why, to sail the ship, a curator like Pedro G was needed. Romero, specialist in the imaginaries of popular cultures who has reflected on the use and ideological administration of images. Their position is that capitalism tries to sell “what is popular” wrapped in entertainment to dominate and lull the masses. (“the people's princess” and these things), but in reality it is built by those who have been denied rights and therefore are not political subjects., but whose actions give off great symbolic power. Refers to women, to the lgtbiq+ collective, to the children, to the crazy, to migrants or gypsies, eternal foreigners in Spain who, however, They represent the imaginary of “what is Spanish”: Carmen, bulls and flamenco, that marginal art that today enters prestigious auditoriums around the world, like the readymades by Marcel Duchamp sneaked into museums at the beginning of the 20th century. Dadaism is one of the bastions of the IVAM collection, rich in work of the years 20-30 y 60-70 where the popular is very present. From the first stage they guard works of Russian constructivism, french and german, art of the Spanish republic and the civil war, from when the proletariat was building its symbolic imaginary. From the second, Valencian pop art linked to the anti-Franco struggle (Chronicle Team, Popular Print…), also work of Richard Hamilton, according to G. Romero, one of the artists who best understood popular culture after World War II. This sample built at 95% With IVAM funds, it highlights the impressive collection of the capital's flagship museum, moving away from the binary logic that separates the popular from the cultured., the normative of the marginal. And he does it by lighting a firecracker of works of art that overflow everywhere., betting on the excess so typical of language popular.
What is Valencian is captured in tablets by Ignacio Pinazo about the festivals and folklore of the land, in posters by Josep Renau that accompany others by Lissitzky and Heartfield, in urban photographs by Joaquín Collado or Jose Aleixandre, on ACTV nightclub posters signed by Quique Company, in the painted wooden toys of José María Gorris satirizing characters and customs of Spanish society or in the project mirror of the world where María Jesús González and Patricia Gómez—who have just opened an exhibition at the Center del Carme—explore the memory of the Padre Jofre de Bétera psychiatric hospital. Going beyond the local is George Grosz with his drawings of peddlers, ragpickers and criminals, Grete Stern criticizing the reduction of the female figure to the role of the woman-object, Cindy Sherman playing with reality and fiction to demonstrate the power of images, Guerrilla Girls questioning what is taught in museums, Cristina García Rodero documenting parties such as the Burning Man Festival in Nevada and Alberto García-Alix photographing the habits and customs of the gypsy people. But there is much more, in popular You will find work by some of the most important artists in the world of the 20th century: Man Ray, Tristan Tzara, Calder, Miró, Picasso, Picabia, Dubuffet, Dorothe Lange, Walker Evans, Gordon Matta-Clark o Warhol, among many others. The exhibition includes a sound tour - which can be followed in the room using QR codes - of 45 musical pieces related to works of art, between them, fifteen original compositions by the Elche singer Niño de Elche. There is flamenco and music from the Latin diaspora, spoken word and electronic dance music, For example, in the song dedicated to Valie Export, performer whose tattoo of a garter belt buckle appears on the album cover Motomami on Rosalía's thigh. The popular mutates, it lurches and feeds itself. S.M.
