An exhibition at the Mercedes Calles Foundation includes 50 works with women as the protagonist signed by authors such as Sorolla, Zuloaga, Picasso, Goya and Madrazo
In the exhibition that the Mercedes Calles-Carlos Ballestero foundation opens tomorrow, women can be seen looking down at the ground, docile, young and well-groomed. There are also spiritual and mystical feminine gazes, those who suffer in pain from war or those who are loaded with the firmness that the years give. The canons of beauty and the many tolls that women have suffered throughout history, such as being seen only as an object of desire, are the plot of the exhibition that can be seen starting tomorrow in the building that houses this foundation , in the house of the Becerra, in San Jorge, and that takes up the artistic packaging samples, one of the hallmarks of its cultural activity in the city.
The selection that can be seen until September 11 offers 50 works that have never been shown together before and that the expert Elena Alonso will curate. They come from private collections, including the Pedrera Martínez de Muria collection and the Diocesan Museum of Barcelona. The exhibition, Alonso explained, has a circular structure with a sadly current theme, that of wars. Part of the view of women against the invasion by Napoleon that Goya includes in the engravings ‘The Disasters of War’ and closes with the engraving ‘Femme assise. Picasso’s Dora Maar’, a show of poetic resistance during the Nazi occupation of Paris, as this etching illustrated a book by the poet Robert Desnos.
Names of great authors make up this exhibition that extends over three rooms. Sorolla, Zuloaga, Goya, Giacometti and Madrazo make up a classical-style exhibition, with embossed frames. It temporarily covers the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries. The woman’s eyes are the protagonists, but men contemplate them, there are no female authors in this exhibition. Elena Alonso pointed out this morning that what she intends as curator is precisely to launch a reflection on how women have been more objects than subjects in an art world monopolized for centuries by men. “There is a shortage of women painters and they have had little recognition,” explained the works. Many artists did not sign their works or men did, because art with a male stamp was much more valued.
Alonso has also alluded to the presence of older women who can be seen in the last room, where a portrait of Sorolla and another of Madrazo stand out. Over the years, the artistic canon has dispensed with older women in pursuit of the beauty of youth.
Maritina Guisado, the director of the Mercedes Calles Foundation, explained that the reason for organizing this exhibition is to show her commitment to “women’s equality and against discrimination so that women are never subjected to violence,” she said. Guided tours for groups have been organized. The free visit can be made from Monday to Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and on Sundays from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
www.hoy.es
Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.