The exhibition, which will be open to the public until September 29, gives prominence not only to the portraits that brings together, but also to the frames and mirrors that are part of it.
The delegate of Culture, Susana Rivas, and the director of the Museum of Chiclana, Jesus Romero, have inaugurated the new temporary exhibition that will house the Casa Briones until September 29 and entitled 'Don Nadie. Portraits for posterity'. An exhibition composed of a series of works of art and crafts of plastic character that brings together portraits in oil, watercolor or photography, pompous and sometimes pretentious frames, and mirrors that invite the public to play and interact during their visit.
Susana Rivas explained that “we present an exhibition that we had been conceiving for some time and that comes from the initiative of the Museum's own colleagues. Through it we want to play and interact with the public in an exhibition in which importance is given to the portraits it brings together, but also to the frames, both those containing works and the frames and mirrors themselves. In addition, importance and value must also be given to the cartouches that accompany the elements of the exhibition, which play a fundamental role in the game we propose”.
Jesús Romero, for his part, pointed out that “this is not just an exhibition of paintings, although there are some of them and some of them of relevance, but the whole exhibition itself is a work of art. An exhibition that talks about the human condition, about the desire to leave a mark and posterity. And it does so in a sarcastic, funny way... it has a background of reflection, even philosophical about death. An exhibition to see and reflect on with a touch of humor”.
A common link in the portraits, or most of them, that are exhibited is that although we know their authors, such as Martí Gras, García Oliver, Manuel Guaré, Agustin Ezkurra, José Meseguer, Teodoro Delgado, Sánchez Solá, Francisco Escribano Muñoz Rubio, Pere Ferrer i Calatayud or Eduardo Vassallo from Chiclayo, we ignore the portrayed, those who posed yesterday, perhaps believing to avoid, if not death, at least oblivion.
A kind of survival when life is over, a fragile and perhaps naive way of fighting against dust, smoke, shadow, earth or nothingness, in short, which, as the poet from Córdoba says, we will be sooner rather than later.
Busy portraits, empty frames and half-pensionist mirrors, depending on whether or not someone looks at them, are interwoven, nothing conceptual -everything in itself what it is and nothing more-, in an exhibition/work, to a certain extent conceptual, that redimensionalizes the exhibited pieces. Enduring portraits of people irremediably forgotten forever, empty frames -lights that are vain- underlining absence and nothingness, and mirrors that do not preserve the slightest trace of those who at times inhabited them.
Next to them some texts, in non-descriptive exhibit labels -what is in sight does not need a lamp, as the old people used to say-, suggest possible readings. Simple texts written -with a dose of humor even- for the occasion or texts of always, not even rescued because they have shaped over time our way of being and more or less understanding ourselves: Jorge Manrique, Luis de Góngora, Antonio Machado or José Hierro, for example.
Leave a comment