Group Show
Curated by Fina Duran and Txema Romero and produced by the Cerdanyola Art Museum.
"From Oblivion to Revolt. Invisible Goddesses" is part of the visual arts exhibition program promoted by the Department of Culture, and during 2024 it will travel to various spaces and visual arts centers in Catalonia. The exhibition aims to rescue from ostracism the figures of women artists who have been overlooked or relegated to the background in official art circuits.
It is conceived as a traveling exhibition with the spirit of rediscovering, in each city where it is displayed, one of these forgotten or little-recognized artists in art history. Contemporary artists Francesca Llopis, Txan Grau, Fiona Morrison, Ivonne Navarro, and Marga Ximenez will take up the legacy of these women to revitalize it with their artistic practices, aiming to correct the omissions of an art narrative dominated by male names.Starting from female mythological figures, goddesses with secondary roles compared to the great heroes and Olympian gods in a history written by men, contemporary artists will use mythology as a guiding thread to rescue the work of various anonymous or silenced women artists from different disciplines, many of whom are wrongly labeled as "minor arts."
"From Oblivion to Revolt" recovers textile painter Josefa Gonzalez through the goddess Metis rediscovered by feminist illustrator Ivonne Navarro; painter Maria Lluïsa Malibran through Hecate reinterpreted by visual artist Fiona Morrison; Magdalena Mañosa as a representative of women from artistic workshops, seen from the perspective of the choreutae, a collective character in Greek theater who sang and danced under the orders of the chorus leader, portrayed by visual artist Marga Ximenez; painting and sculpture model Mercè Gallen, who among many works posed for the statue of the allegory of the Republic that crowned the obelisk of the Pi Margall monument in Barcelona, through the muse of history for the Greeks, Clio, by multidisciplinary visual artist Francesca Llopis; and film editor Elena Jaumandreu through the goddess Demeter by illustrator Txan Grau.
As it travels through different art centers in Catalonia, the exhibition will recover the work of other Catalan artists - close to the municipality where it is exhibited - through the eyes of contemporary artists, using female figures from classical mythology as a central theme. In the case of the Sabadell Art Museum, it will be led by Sabadell artist Anna Llimós, particularly interested in the concept of memory, where the work of Sabadell photographer Anita Figueras will be recovered, based on the Greek muse Melpomene. The pairs of current and recovered artists will be gradually incorporated into the exhibition, which will expand at each venue.
Exploring the history of art means immersing oneself in a predominantly male world with very few recognized women artists from antiquity to the present day. Art is obviously a reflection of the society in which it develops, and this has led to the artistic and creative aspirations of many women being buried in a daily life that has wanted to keep them silent and submissive. There are many questions that arise when thinking about these women, and with frustration, we must acknowledge that many of them had to surrender and bury their creative strength in their innermost depths. We see how from mythology, which serves as the basis of our culture, to the present day, we can draw a continuous line that shows how for centuries we have been constructing a history only from the perspective of men, even though women have been weaving the hidden network that has sustained many narratives that have formed the basis of the world we know. Countless women, despite coming from very different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, were ignored and silenced to the point that their creativity remained hidden and invisible. They were unable to develop and grow as artists, but with effort and quietly, they managed to be seeds and instill and transmit their sensitivity to future generations.
Traveling exhibition::
Museu de Cerdanyola, Can Saurina in Montornès del Vallès, Espai La Granja in Santa Perpètua la Mogoda, now in Espai Muxart in Martorell...and next in Caldes d'Estrach in september 2024.
