Introduction to the Exhibition

Jiménez, Lucina

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Introduction to the Exhibition

Lucina Jiménez

Remedios Varo: Science Fictions

Exhibition Note

Author

Caitlin Haskell (Editor), Tere Arcq (Editor)

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-100232

Introduction to the Exhibition

This exhibition celebrates the collaboration between the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL) in Mexico City and the Art Institute of Chicago and a shared commitment to introducing Mexico’s cultural heritage to a broader audience. In addition to promoting better relations between our countries, we hope that Remedios Varo: Science Fictions will provide scholars an opportunity to study Remedios Varo’s work in greater depth.

Varo’s paintings capture her quest to understand reality by depicting zoomorphic figures practicing alchemy. The organizers of the exhibition have focused on the connections between the artist’s technical approaches and her fascination with various paradigms of knowledge. The publication demonstrates how the meticulous techniques that Varo employed are supported by a wide array of sources that range from science to esoteric Western traditions and cultures of the East and antiquity.

The result is more than a straightforward chronological survey of the artist’s body of work: this exhibition reflects a scientific approach while acknowledging how today’s global migration engenders cultural diversity. The story of a Spanish artist who made Mexico her second home resonates with the experiences of so many Mexicans who have settled over the decades in US cities, including Chicago. How fitting that they are now able to see in their new community another facet of their homeland’s culture.

INBAL is privileged to play a part in sharing the art of Remedios Varo, opening new avenues of understanding and appreciating work by an artist who reached professional maturity in Mexico and found her place among the most significant artists of the twentieth century. The exhibition plays an essential role in furthering the conservation and ongoing analysis of this great cultural legacy, which Varo’s family bequeathed to the people of Mexico, and which can now be viewed in an international setting at one of the most prestigious museums in the world, thus highlighting the universal nature of Varo’s work.

When treasured heritage is shared, documented, and, above all, studied on an ongoing basis, it can inspire new generations across the globe who participate in the transformation of an ever-changing society—one that is capable of imagining its future by acknowledging its cultural patrimony, of which art comprises an essential part.

Dr. Lucina Jiménez
Director
Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura

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Book details

BOOKRemedios Varo: Science Fictions

Caitlin Haskell (Editor), Tere Arcq (Editor)

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-100217

This publication offers a definitive look at the artistic practice of Remedios Varo (1908–1963) following her emigration from Spain to Mexico City in 1941. Her work from 1955 to 1963 made a lasting contribution to modern art and the legacy of Surrealism. In Remedios Varo: Science Fictions, fresh historical and material findings establish the integral relationship between Varo’s layered interests—in alchemy, architecture, magic, mysticism, philosophy, and science—and her beguiling technical approach to art making. Essays detail specific works’ complex stories and spectacular surfaces. An illustrated taxonomy of Varo’s artistic techniques, including automatic mark making as well as careful manipulation of materials and media, offers new insights into the artist’s craft. An illustrated inventory of a major portion of Varo’s library—published here for the first time—reveals the artist’s engagement with a wide range of subjects. Stunning new photography of many of her artworks are presented within a dynamic geometric design inspired by the artist’s work. Situating Varo as a woman working in midcentury Mexico City and living among a tight-knit community of local and émigré artists, poets, and thinkers, the catalogue illuminates the complex worldview that shaped her search for individual and collective transcendence.

*The eBook is available exclusively on the A&AePortal.*

Author

Caitlin Haskell (Editor), Tere Arcq (Editor)

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Print publication date August 2023 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300273212

EISBN 9780300282504

Illustrations 164

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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