“Art historians know that the Western art has been attached to patriarchal ideology, that is, it has seen, it has looked at the female body and at women as an object, an object of desire and fear, but not as subject, not as sentient and thinking persons; almost all specialists agree on that”.
This is explained by Juan Antonio Roche, professor of Sociology of Culture and the Arts at the University of Alicante, editor of a volume that aims to bring readers closer to the work of 24 plastic artists from Alicante who have carried out their work between 1950 and today. That is why he has titled it The Construction of the Stolen Subject. “As women have advanced in equality, they have entered the labor market, and they have entered the art market,” he continues. “What they have done is recover as subjects of creation.”
In the introduction to the work, Roche explains that, at a general level, “although the patriarchal vision and the dominance of men over women continue to be in force, little by little the old postulates are being deconstructed and renewed, while socioeconomic development and Social transformations generate new ways of thinking that are oriented towards the modernization, secularization and liberation of women”.
It is an evolutionary process that in Spain began late, “above all, from the development of the 60s of the twentieth century and, in a more intense way, with the Democratic Transition. Since then, it has followed a path parallel to that of the whole of Europe and the West.
The main transformations that have occurred, which constitute the main root of the book, are the break with formalism, artistic modernization and incorporation into informalism, the incursion into new materials and supports, the consideration of the joyful and suffering body, and multiculturalism and globalization. .
These five processes of change characterize the artists of these Valencian lands in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, but, in the light of the investigations of art historians and critics that are collected in the book and of the 24 women selected, the editor has specified and grouped them into four sections. “Interiorization: autonomy and fusion, hybridization and harmony”, “The problematic human being. Bodies and emotions as intermediaries”, “Nature: fusion and protection” and “Threads, wefts and warps that sew and build life and the world”.
This collective work, which was presented this week at the headquarters of the University of Alicante in the city, has in its writing the participation of several renowned firms in the cultural and artistic world of Alicante, such as José Luis Ferris, Pilar Escanero or Natalia Molinos, and reproduces significant examples of the 24 chosen artists.
Roche explains that the selection “is personal, but I have consulted with practically all the contributors to the book, so it is a collective selection.” The editor explains that, although “I’m sure there are other artists who could have been there, those who are represent the art made by women in Alicante in that period very well; there are all the artistic trends, represented by generations, from Juana Francés, who She is possibly the great artist of the province together with Eusebio Sempere, and there are Ana Teresa Ortega and Cristina de Middel, national photography prize winners”.
Together with them, “a series of artists of national and international scope, such as Luisa Pastor, Polín Laporta, now deceased, who had a very consolidated career, Carme Jorques, who is also a great disseminator; Iluminada García Torres, one of the artists most powerful in a more geometric and mathematical area; Elena Jiménez, who has also received a lot of awards, Olga Diego, Susana Guerrero, from Elche, or Rosell Meseguer, among the youngest.
Also others with a long career such as Elena Aguilera, María Chana and Aurelia Masanet”, as well as Isabel Rico, Rosana Antolí, Inma Femenía, María Dolores Mulá, Dolores Balsalobre, Cristina Ferrández, Silvia Sempere, Pilar Sala, Perceval Graells and Mónica Jover.
