The Principal Peset Hall of Residence opens tomorrow an exhibition that commemorates the speech given by the then President of the Second Republic, Manuel Azaña, at the Universitat de València in 1937. The opening ceremony will be at 20:00 in the Muralla Hall.
Manuel Azaña (Alcalá de Henares, 1880-Montauban, 1940), president of the Second Republic, gave an important speech at the Universitat de València on 18 July 1937 (can be read clicking here). Now, the Hall of Residence inaugurates the exhibition 'Adéu al futur. Un homenatge a la República’ (Goodbye future. A tribute to the Republic period), of Manuel Flores, with a selection of drawings from the book published by the Valencian publishing house Media Vaca under the title ‘Adiós al Porvenir’. It includes a long letter that Manuel Azaña sent to Ángel Osorio on 18th June 1939.
According to Vicente Ferrer, the publisher and curator of the display together with Begoña Lobo, it is a ‘diary-letter’ that shows the loyalty towards his lawyer and friend as well as a symptom of the isolation that Manuel Azaña suffered at that moment.
‘However, the drawings of Manuel Flores illustrate an article of 29th September 1934 that was published in the last issue of the ‘Gutiérrez’ magazine and that was entitled ‘La redacción de Gutiérrez está planeando un golpe de estado (porque no quiere ser menos que nadie)’ (The Gutiérrez editorial department is planning a coup d’état since it doesn’t want to be inferior). In this article written by Ángel G. Dalmau, the rebellious editorial department of ‘Gutiérrez’ started different fights and it annoyed the republican Government’.
Manuel Flores chose this text since it served his three purposes. The first one was to defend the Republic period. The second one was to comment on the mistreatment inflicted to this Government by the reactionary press. Especially, by the catholic weekly publication ‘Gracia y Justicia’ (1931-1936), which criticised the president every week by painting him as an ugly and bad man in the cover. The third one was to show the disloyalty of the humourists of the other ‘Generation of ‘27’ to the Republic Government. Miguel Mihura, Antonio de Lara Gavilán ‘Tono’, Edgar Neville, Enrique Jardiel Poncela and José López Rubio are included within this generation.
Ricardo García López, K-Hito, who was included in the previous generation but was the director of ‘Gutiérrez’, the publication that gave a greater popularity to the members of the group, joins this group. At the wish of Manuel Flores, the writer Miguel de Unamuno (Bilbao, 1864-Salamanca, 1936) also joins this group of writers and draughtsman. He was an independent intellectual who is often located in the humourist group due to his quixotic disputes.
Manuel Flores (Huelva, 1952) has been illustrating books for some years. Apart from ’Adiós al futuro’, he has also published ‘El paseo de Buster Keaton,’ by Federico García Lorca – Media Vaca publishing house–, as well as ‘Un cuento putrefacto’, byPepín Bello, and ‘La nube en pantalones’, by Mayakoskiï, with the SD Ediciones publishing house from Barcelona.
The exhibition will be inaugurated on Tuesday by Antonio Ariño, vice-principal for Culture and Equality of the Universitat de València; the artist, Manuel Flores; the curators Vicente Ferrer and Begoña Lobo (Media Vaca, Valencia);Salvador Albiñana, tenured university professor of Modern History at the Universitat de València and Carles Xavier López, director of the Principal Peset Hall of Residence.
The Universidad de Alcalá de Henares and Foro del Henares have collaborated in the production of this project.
The exhibition will be hold until 14 September, from Tuesday to Sunday, from 11:00 to 19:30.
Last update: 17 de july de 2017 13:02.
News release
