MYSTICISM AND INSTRUMENTAL RITUAL FOR CHANGE
Prats Nogueras Blanchard brings together works by Belkis Ayón, Chioma Ebinama, Susy Gómez, Nancy Spero, and Cecilia Vicuña in There is a Timbre of Voice, an exhibition that invites viewers to explore areas of connection between the sacred and the intimate. Rooted in a space that oscillates between the mystical and memory, the feminine gaze of these five artists opens up the possibility of imagining and redesigning another world from a critical perspective and through the vindication of resistance.
The approaches represented in the exhibition seem to call for systemic problems to be addressed through an atavistic perspective, rooted in ritual and shaped by experience. These elements also become instrumental in achieving goals from a more spiritual standpoint.
Belkis Ayón (Havana, Cuba, 1967–ibid., 1999) draws inspiration from the myth of the Afro-Cuban Abakuá society in powerful monochrome representations that reinforce the sensitivity of the ancestral. Based on a legend traditionally passed down exclusively among men, the Cuban artist developed an intimate and personal visual language to reinterpret it, also allowing for the experimentation of a political charge.
-
Vista de exposición There is a Timbre of Voice. Foto: Roberto Ruiz
-
Vista de exposición There is a Timbre of Voice. Foto: Roberto Ruiz
-
Vista de exposición There is a Timbre of Voice. Foto: Roberto Ruiz
-
Vista de exposición There is a Timbre of Voice. Foto: Roberto Ruiz
-
Vista de exposición There is a Timbre of Voice. Foto: Roberto Ruiz
The exhibition includes the audiovisual piece Paracas by Cecilia Vicuña (Santiago, Chile, 1948), a work also built on the parameters of memory, landscape, and ancestry, from an angle of resistance that translates into both denunciation and remembrance. The work of Susy Gómez (Pollensa, Spain, 1964) delves into the intersectionality of art and spirituality. Her creations result in a transformative practice from the ego, channeling it as an act of social vindication and collective reparation.
The watercolors of Chioma Ebinama (New Jersey, USA, 1988) carry enormous symbolism, drawing from corporeality as a vessel of spirituality and the sensitivity provided by mythological imagination. The exhibition closes with Nancy Spero's (Cleveland, USA, 1926–New York, USA, 2009) monumental seven-panel polyptych Propitiatory, which challenges violence through fragmented bodies of enormous visual impact.
There is a Timbre of Voice can be seen until September 6 at Prats Nogueras Blanchard, Méndez Núñez 14, Barcelona (Spain).
May interest you
INTERVIEW WITH JULIA MORANDEIRA
By Álvaro de Benito
Julia Morandeira Arrizabalaga (Bilbao, Spain, 1986) is in her first year at the Reina Sofía Museum as Director of Studies, a position she has held since October 2024 and which, since March of this year, she has combined with the directorship of the Instituto Cáder de Arte Centroamericano (ICAC). This organization faces several challenges in its core missions of raising awareness and promoting, but above all, researching and disseminating the reality of contemporary Central American art. It has ten years ahead of it to do so, and the foundations are already being laid to ensure that its objectives are met. Morandeira welcomes us to her office at the Reina Sofía, a few floors above the building that houses the library and which marks its character and connection with divulgation, to talk about the project, her vision, and the progress and future that are already taking shape.
A GAZE INTO SALVADORAN AUDIOVISUAL ART AT THE REINA SOFÍA
From June 19 to 28, Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum will host Los reyes de la página roja (The Kings of the Red Page), a program dedicated to contemporary audiovisual productions from El Salvador. Part of the series Other Visions of Central America, this selection has been curated by Salvadoran artist Patricio Majano, this year’s resident at the Instituto Cáder de Arte Centroamericano—an initiative promoted by the Reina Sofía Museum Foundation and the museum itself to support research and dissemination of Central American art.
BEN SHAHN, ON NONCONFORMITY
By Julia P. Herzberg, Ph.D.
Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity is the artist’s first retrospective in the United States in almost fifty years. Impeccably curated and designed, the exhibition aims to bring renewed critical attention to one of America’s most consequential modernists.
