Exploration is the common denominator of the selection of exhibitions we suggest this month. The most obvious case is that of Jorge Juan and the geodesic expedition in which this Spanish sailor and scientist participated, in order to measure a degree of the terrestrial meridian at the height of the equator. No less revealing was, for Antoni Tàpies, the trip to Japan in which he was able to contemplate the inspiring calligraphy and minimalist drawings of the Zen monks.
However, it is not always necessary to cross the ocean to explore itineraries and challenge borders. Pop artists did it by bringing mass culture to museums, and the museums themselves do it today, which this month contemplate their collections with the eyes of an adventurer. Foto Colectania exhibits the discards that surround that decisive moment that ends up becoming an iconic photograph and the Prado invites us to walk through its galleries looking at its most ignored works: the frames.
In the early 18th century, England and France embarked on a bitter scientific dispute over the shape of the globe. The Newtonians asserted, correctly, that the Earth was flattened at the poles, like an orange; The Cartesians, on the other hand, assumed it to be oblong, like a lemon. To settle the controversy, they organized two expeditions with the purpose of measuring the length of a degree of meridian in the Arctic Circle and the equator. The French company, to Quito, had among its crew one of the most prominent Spanish scientists, Jorge Juan.
Illustrated, astronomer, mathematician, cartographer, spy, ambassador, shipowner, teacher, soldier and, above all, sailor, Jorge Juan (Novelda, 1713-Madrid, 1773) navigated very diverse disciplines and excelled in all of them. The Navy of the time owed him the “Jorge Juan method” of shipbuilding, developed with the help of British specialists in a successful industrial espionage operation. His international prestige is attested to by his membership not only in the Royal Academy of San Fernando, but also in the Academy of Sciences of Paris, Berlin and the Royal Society of London.
Discreet companions to paintings, frames protect boards and canvases, enhance paintings and, sometimes, dialogue with them. But, above all, they draw a limit, the precise border between the two-dimensional world of the work and the real space in which it is exhibited. In this itinerary, the Prado invites us to explore the history of its frames, from the medieval ones, fixed and inseparable from its altarpieces, or the Renaissance ones, to the historicism of the early 20th century, passing through the vegetal exuberance of the Baroque, the elegance of the neoclassical or the coquetry of the rococo.
Zenga was a countercultural artistic genre linked to Zen Buddhism, which developed in Japan during the Edo period. Its artists, usually monks, transmitted their teachings through spontaneous and minimalist ink strokes, almost always monochrome. In his compositions, the void was as relevant as the figure. It is no coincidence that all these features resonate strongly in the work of Antoni Tàpies, especially in his calligraphy and ideograms from the eighties. For the Catalan artist, who would have turned one hundred years old last December, painting was a way of meditating. His relationship with Japanese creators is also widely documented.
Three generations of photographers from the Iberian Peninsula come together in this selection of one hundred and sixty snapshots from the Foto Colectania collection. Among them there are classics such as Leopoldo Pomés, Xavier Miserachs, Ramon Masats or Francisco Gómez; veterans such as Pilar Aymerich, Cristina García Rodero, Manel Armengol or Manolo Laguillo, and established young people such as Cristina de Middel or Laia Abril. Avoiding chronological approaches, the curator of the exhibition, Carles Guerra, has devised a discourse in which the iconic moment contrasts with the alternative narratives of the discards.
Pop art was born as an irreverent reaction to the elitism of abstract expressionism. Artists such as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein and James Rosenquist introduced the plastic language of magazines, advertising or comics to museums, displaying an ambiguous, impersonal irony. Although the economic prosperity that fueled the movement has waned, the consumer society that fueled it remains more alive than ever. It is not surprising that new generations of artists have joined these pioneers, expanding collections like that of the Guggenheim. The exhibition brings together classics from the sixties with creations from the 21st century.
