The Reina Sofía Museum
schedules an exhibit on the relationship between flamenco
and the avant-gardes
‘La noche española. Flamenco,
vanguardia y cultura popular’ will be on the bill
from December 20th to March 24th, with works by Picasso,
Man Ray, Modigliani and Dalí
Flamenco-world.com, December 2007
For the first time, a museum
reviews the relationship between flamenco and artistic
avant-gardes. The Reina Sofía National Art Center
Museum will be the one to illustrate this little known
encounter with the exhibit ‘La noche española.
Flamenco, vanguardia y cultura popular’. The display,
which will be at the art gallery in Madrid from December
20th, 2007 to March 24th, 2008, includes some 400 graphic
works dated between 1865 and 1936 by authors such as Picasso,
Man Ray, Dalí, Modigliani, Alberti and Julio Romero
de Torres, among others.
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'Mujer con pistola',
by Julio Romero de Torres |
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Vicente
Escudero photographed by Man Ray, La
Argentina portrayed by D’Ora in a bolero dress,
Cuban guitarists, dark women about to shoot, scenes at
singing cafés... The flamenco universe served as
inspiration not just for the painters of manners, but
also for those of the avant-garde. And proof of it is
the exhibit ‘La noche española. Flamenco,
vanguardia y cultura popular’ (‘Flamenco Night.
Flamenco, Avant-garde and Popular Culture’), which
can be visited at the Reina Sofía National Art
Center Museum in Madrid from December 20th, 2007 to March
24th, 2008.
The exhibit, commissioned by Patricia
Molins and Pedro G. Romero, “will review for the
first time flamenco’s position within the framework
of visual culture, and especially its relationship of
mutual influence with modernity and artistic avant-gardes.
All of it through over 450 works by 150 authors between
paintings, sculptures, sketches of sets and mannequins
- donning original wardrobes - for dance and theater,
photographs, publications and documents by European and
American authors, as well as over 40 film showings”.
The pieces making up the exhibit, some
of which are on display for the first time, come from
different private collections in addition to Spanish and
foreign museums. The Sorolla Museum, Mapfre Foundation,
MNAC, Fine Arts Museum of Bilbao, Artium, National Library
and Spanish Film Library are joined by European museums
such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, where 15 works journey
from, D’Orsay Museum, Picasso Museum of Paris and
Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian; and American museums
such as the Hispanic Society, Metropolitan, MoMA and Solomon
R. Guggenheim. The Tel Aviv Museum of Art and Israel Museum
also take part.
Works by artists of the likes of Delaunay,
Picasso, Manet, Picabia, Dalí, Gutiérrez
Solana, Maruja Mallo, Federico García Lorca, Gustavo
Adolfo Bécquer, Gargallo, Zuloaga, Alberti, Julio
Romero de Torres, Lipchitz, Modigliani, Benjamín
Palencia, Jawlensky, Man Ray and Benlliure share space
with those of other authors who, although less renowned,
contribute production essential to the discourse of the
display, offering us their photographs, designs, films,
posters… Some especially delicate pieces in the
exhibit stand out for their fragility, such as ‘Danseuse
espagnole, 1915’ by Henri Laurens and ‘Marionette,
1926’ by Alexandra Exter, in wood.
'Guitarra ante el mar' by
Juan Gris
The travel
The criteria for the chronology of the
exhibit’s beginning and end (1865-1936) were determined
according to two significant dates. The first, 1865, is
the year of Manet’s journey to Spain to see the
paintings by his Spanish maestros up close and the moment
when cantaor Silverio
Franconetti returns to Seville. That same year the
railroad line joining Andalusia to Madrid is finished,
thus facilitating the spread of Andalusian culture, and
the movements spread announcing the First Republic. In
1936 the Spanish Civil war begins and bailaora Antonia
Mercé ‘La Argentina’ dies. At this
moment dark pictures begin to appear, oriented towards
the grotesque and the macabre, among them skeletons by
Ragel and Masson. At the same time, the bailaores have
evolved and some of them, now dancers, accompanied by
a classical group, accede to the great theaters and to
cinema. On the occasion of the exhibit, an extensive catalogue
will be published and on January 22nd and 29th, ‘Lecciones
de Arte’ (‘Art Lessons’) is scheduled,
a two-session course by the commissioners of the exhibit.
