And it is just that moment when the meteor, the comet, the fireball, passes near the summit and melts the snow. Remove the soil. The meteor, the comet, the fireball is called Lita Cabellut (1961), a total artist with a life story worthy of a Dickens novel and whose career she adds more exciting episodes to each one.
An exhibition in May with his new work at the Opera Gallery in Madrid, another at the Círculo de Bellas Artes de San Fernando de Cádiz on Goya in October and a work with the Chaplin family (Charlot was a gypsy and was born in a camp near Birmingham ), which will be seen in Cannes.
Cabellut says: “Success is when you survive and see that you have not lost your skin.” Cabellut assures: “The word artist makes me allergic.” Cabellut emphasizes: “I tell death: ‘I love you, I know you’re there, I won’t let you out of sight, but calm down, hey!'”
Active, smiling, energetic, deep. She is afraid of fame and respectful of everyone who has helped her until now. Dear reader, dear reader, below is an interview in which the leads jump thanks to the outburst of a small, lively woman full of passion.
They recently gave her the special award for the 142 years of this newspaper… How happy she was…
I received it being very aware of everyone who has supported me along the way, the book about the Blood Wedding of Lorca (Artika), Antoni Vila Casas (rest in peace)… I won the awards with many people and yes I They have said that when she received the latter she looked like a girl who had been given candy.
What remains of Lita Cabellut, the one they adopted, the mischievous one who swindled the tips her parents left at the restaurant, the rebel…?
For me, who I am is more important than what I represent, which is more universal. We are thousands of artists, women and men in pursuit of the essence. I don’t feel special, I’m a part of something much bigger. But when someone recognizes me, it makes me very happy, I feel recognized.
Manzini, the Italian author, denies that he is a star, although he is. He says: “I am one who works.”
I feel like that, a worker. I recently saw a report about Yohji Yamamoto, the great Japanese couturier, who is 80 years old. They asked him if he considered himself an artist and he said that at most he was a craftsman. And I said: that’s it. The real artist does not consider whether he is one, whether he is good or bad, he just breathes and walks. When the artist is given a special place, art is in the danger zone. The artist who believes it is in a period of extinction.
Your team follows you, whispering: “Don’t believe it, don’t believe it.”
On the contrary, they tell me that I have to believe it. I gather them in front of a painting and they tell me: “It’s fantastic.” And I, on the other hand, doubt. I never see myself as someone who does extraordinary things, because I always see them as half finished, but they have to be finished.
Like what he’s doing now.
Yes, it is an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando that is titled Los Parates de Goya. I dream about the idea, I think about it while I go buy some sneakers, while I make a gypsy pout for my children. When I finish the work and present it, it is only a moment of pause, because in reality it continues along another path. Art is what you did yesterday and what you do today. The future, in art, does not exist.
What is your intimate life with Goya like?
Wow, he’s one of my biggest platonic loves. My obsession in my life is freedom of expression. People have to say what hurts them, what makes them happy, what bleeds them, what heals them. And we live in historical moments in which freedom of expression is greatly threatened. Goya is more than ever present in the way he feels. He was like the journalist closest to the reality of his time; Today they should give him the Pulitzer. He risked his life in a very clever way: he did not speak, but he painted the atrocities. His ego tamed him to provide a service to society that we do not want, that we cannot allow or stop fighting and suffering so that certain things do not happen.
We were at her house in The Hague just before the pandemic: she was happy and sparkling, full of energy. Now it is triple. She can be seen from afar. Because?
I am lucky that time is on my side, that getting older is giving me immense gifts, it is giving me pauses for reflection, controlled energy, the focus of what is important in my life. I am much more concerned about the wrinkles on my brain and my soul than those on my face, which I don’t have, by the way, but I love feeling how old I am. I know I will die and I say to death: “I love you, I know you are there, but don’t worry, I won’t let you out of my sight.” Meanwhile, I have become a close friend of life.
Apart from your relationship with Goya, you have a project with Chaplin’s children and grandchildren… Can you explain it?
The Chaplin family told me that they were going to make a documentary, but different from anything that had been done until now and reveal what Chaplin’s origins were, that they are gypsies. He was born in a gypsy camp, Henty Smith; the matriarch of the community was the one who helped Hannah give birth to the child. Henty and her husband, Esau, were the gypsy queen and king in the Black Patch camp (near Birmingham). My focus is not on Chaplin, but on Hannah, his mother, a woman who history has defined as a prostitute, deranged, crazy…
Focusing on the female vision is her specialty.
I have tried to rescue her as what she was: an extraordinary woman, a talented actress, full of enthusiasm who wanted to conquer the world on stage, who because of who she was and where she came from, she was prostituted, who always gave a smile despite the regrets. She taught Chaplin everything, mime, dancing, the stage. Her teacher was her mother. I wanted to describe her as a woman who succeeded, who died happy.
Did you, as a gypsy, see yourself reflected in part of the story?
Totally, because life has given me the opportunity to know how difficult it is to be a woman and survive in a world, the one I come from, in which because you are a girl you have no space. She is part of that world that I lived, that is why I have treated her with all the tenderness and respect. The documentary is based on testimonies from Michael, Charlie’s son, the brothers, the sisters… I have made some special animations with the family. Dolores Chaplin is the one who plays Henty and also the granddaughter and actress, Aurélia Thiérrée. Her appearance is identical to that of her great-grandmother. She made the dresses, I painted them and I made them act in front of a painting. I have made backgrounds, props and I have told the story with 12 animations… The director of the documentary is, by the way, Carmen Chaplin, granddaughter of Charlie and daughter of Michael.
It sounds like a very laborious process…
Yes, it was a very long road, but I am very happy… The idea is for the film to be presented in Cannes. We filmed as Chaplin would have done, at the speed of his films, like at the beginning of cinema… Maybe I have crossed a border, I don’t know. What I do know is that I have given life to the figures that have inspired me in art, Renoir, Impressionism with Romani music in the background…
As he said in the last interview, he continues to break as an artist.
Yes, I keep breaking down and look for other territories… When the Chaplin family came, they almost died because they thought we were going to film in period clothing and I said not to think about it. We sewed all the costumes, there came a time when I was painting and I don’t know where I was… I had a blast.
Do you have time to sleep?
I sleep like an angel. Maybe I have done a lot, but to me it seems just the opposite, that I do little. I always measure my activity and now, since I could move less because of my knees, my brain worked more, I have produced more, I have thought more. Every movement in Chaplin’s work is very thought out. I do the same with the models, I dress them, I paint them, I handle them, I break them, I reconstruct them. There I feel like a film director, I forget what I am.
That humility, which his environment tells him to leave aside, is because it is difficult for him to believe that he is an artist.
The word artist makes me allergic because we have not treated it well in the last century. We have taken it from its origin. Nowadays, the word itself means many things that I don’t identify with. I think more about words like philosophical, humanist, hard-working, artisan, someone who is committed to doing things.
It’s common among artists to say that.
I imagine they say Da Vinci is a great artist; He would have said ‘with all the problems I have in the workshop…’. Do you believe that Camarón thought of himself as an artist? There is a story that he is driving and passes a Civil Guard car and hides under the glove compartment. And the driver asks him: “What are you doing?” “No, no, if they recognize me they will make me sing or give them an autograph.” How he suffered, right? We are all very important, whatever we do.
That is a great truth.
And you know? I do not consider myself humble nor am I, I am not. I’m realist. Look, art is a necessary service, giving what you can to bother, to improve society. It is a responsibility, not a burden, but an attitude of life. You have to be true even if nakedness and truth hurt.
What is success for you?
Success is when you survive and see that you haven’t lost your skin.
