The show is organised by the Bancaja Foundation, the Universitat de València and the Town Council of Sagunto and in collaboration with the Valencia Provincial Council and Saggas. It is comprised of 35 works focused on the figure of women in the collection of the couple formed by the patrons Jesús Martínez Guerricabeitia and Carmen García Merchante.
The Universitat de València has presented the exhibition of the Martínez Guerricabeitia Collection 'Art, pain and commitment. Women in the Martínez Guerricabeitia Collection’ in the Glorieta Exhibition Room of the Bancaja Foundation of Sagunto. On Thursday 7 March, the inauguration took place. It was attended by the Vice-principal for Culture and Society of the UV, Ester Alba; the president of the Bancaja Foundation, Rafael Alcón; the president of the Delegate Commission of the Bancaja Foundation in Sagunto, Alfonso Muñoz; and the curators of the exhibition, Mariángeles Pérez and Rafael Gil, accompanied by the director of the Martínez Guerricabeitia Collection, José Martín, as well as various representatives of the collaborating entities.
Curated by Rafael Gil and Mariángeles Pérez, the show includes a selection of 35 works which highlight the figure of women and her presence in the Martínez Guerricabeitia Collection. These works encompass different disciplines: painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, serigraphy and collage by a wide range of artists, with a significant presence of women who developed their artistic work in a complex socio-economic context that hindered their creative autonomy. This vision of the female reality is complemented by works by male artists who place female representation at the centre of the works on display.
Among them, we find works by Jacinta Gil Roncalés, Natividad Bermejo, Carmen Calvo, Carmen Grau, Salomé Cuesta, Ana García Pan, Ana Teresa Ortega, Paloma Pájaro, Alicia Vela, Estefanía Martín Sáenz, María Carbonell, Mavi Escamilla, Manuela Ballester, Victoria Cano, Isabel Oliver, Mª Antonia Sánchez Escalona and Rosa Torres. This list is completed by Martín Caballero, Bárbaro Miyares, Rogelio López Cuenca, Juan Ripollés, Sergio Sarri, Giangiacomo Spadari, Paolo Baratella, Josep Renau, Erró, Juan DelCampo and Artur Heras.
The selection of pieces reflects, on the one hand, the capacity of female creators to subvert the parameters of power and express their artistic commitment and, on the other, the stereotypes present in contemporary art, expressed through the male gaze.
The overall vision is achieved through the four blocks through which the exhibition is structured. The first of these, "Comprometidas frente al poder" (Committed in the face of power), brings together works by Manuela Ballester, Jacinta Gil Roncalés and Carmen Grau. Their creations show the struggle that these women maintained with power and conflict, achieving their goal of showing through art the pain of society in the political and social context in which they lived.
Works by Paolo Baratella, Juan Genovés, Rogelio López Cuenca, Josep Renau, Erró, Sergio Sarri, Martín Caballero, Juan Ripollés, Artur Heras, Juan DelCampo and Giangiacomo Spadari feature in “La mirada masculina patriarcal“ (The patriarchal male gaze), a selection of works that encompass themes such as fragmented and eroticised bodies, the different types of female love and the impulse of women as agents of social change.
With "Las creadoras revisan las vanguardias“ (Creators revisit the avant-gardes), the third block of the exhibition. The works of Ana García Pan, Natividad Bermejo, Carmen Calvo and Ana Teresa Ortega refer to the oneiric in their reflections of surrealism, while Salomé Cuesta, together with Bárbaro Millares, play with colours and photomontage reflecting the Pop Art movement. Rosa Torres recites pointillism by updating Seurat in her silkscreen prints. Carmen Calvo makes a subtle and heartfelt tribute to Van Gogh's post-impressionism. Likewise, Isabel Oliver recovers Monet in the beginnings of modern art and Léger's naïve cubism, and Victoria Cano's etchings refer to Picasso's poetics.
Finally, the pieces in the section "Reflexiones femeninas ante el dolor“ (Feminine Reflections on Pain) deal with pain with poetics that enunciate and report it from different places. They also deal with other themes such as the vertigo and chaos that plague women, fear, the passing of time, ephemeral existence, loneliness, death and hope. We find works by Antonia Sánchez, Alicia Vela, Mavi Escamilla, Estefanía Martín, María Carbonell, Paloma Pájaro and Carmen Calvo.
The exhibition is organised by the Universitat de València through the Office of the Vice-Principal for Culture and Society, the Martínez Guerricabeitia Collection, the Town Council of Sagunto and the Bancaja Foundation, with the collaboration of the Valencian Provincial Council and Saggas. It can be visited until 5 May in the Glorieta Exhibition Hall of the Bancaja Foundation, from Tuesday to Saturday from 17:00 to 21:00.
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