Alfredo Valenzuela I Seville, (EFE).- The bullfighting poster, avant-garde touch of the Maestranza. The ancient and aristocratic Real Maestranza de Caballería has managed to combine its ancestry with the creation of one of the most contemporary painting collections, that of its bullfighting posters from the last 30 years -to which Norman Foster has been added- that make this series “a unique art collection in the world”.
This was stated in statements to EFE by Pepe Cobo, an art consultant and former gallery owner who, in the last four years, has been in charge of the selection process for the poster for the Seville bullfighting fair, which is often accompanied by controversy, as has happened this year. with that of the British architect and it happened last year with the Vietnamese Danh Vo, who reproduced with a storied calligraphy the well-known verse by Lorca about the time of the bullfights.
Overcoming the anchorage to tradition of this type of poster means that names of great figures of contemporary art remain linked to the world of bullfighting and bullfighting, such as Sicilia, Barceló, Botero, Navarro Baldeweg, Eduardo Arroyo, Julian Schnabell, Albert Oehlen or Carmen Laffón -the only woman in the series-, and that is a circumstance, Cobo has highlighted, which is “a support, in these moments of weakness due to the animalist reaction” against the party.
The bullfighting poster of the Maestranza, controversial every year
This paradox of the latest avant-garde coming to the rescue of the most controversial tradition was initiated in 1994 by the painter and master gentleman Juan Maestre -who died in 2006-, who, by summoning contemporary artists for the poster from whom one could expect anything less a poster to use also originated a controversy that is revived almost every year and that, after thirty, seems to be another chapter of the tradition.
These works decorate the Protocol Room of the Real Maestranza headquarters, attached to the Seville bullring, and Cobo has assured that the idea of opening it to the public is being evaluated, as a small contemporary art museum, which would also include more realistic works. like those of Ricardo Cadenas and Hernán Cortés.
Creator in the early eighties of the La Máquina Española gallery, which made a whole generation of painters known, Cobo has added the nuance that, except for the cases of Barceló and Ricardo Cadenas, perhaps none of these painters is fond of Bulls.
Normally Pepe Cobo proposes a shortlist from which the author of the poster is finally chosen, although this was not the case with Norman Foster, which was due to “a coincidence”, since in April of last year, when he visited the Maestranza and saw the collection, he expressed his desire to make a poster, at which point he was taken at his word.
First Order Collection
The British architect, who will visit Seville on Easter Sunday to attend the bullfighting proclamation -by Santiago Muñoz Machado, president of the Royal Academy-, is closely linked to the world of art and is a collector, as well as collecting old cars that have supposed milestones in the history of industrial or automotive design, some of which were part of an exhibition at the Guggenheim in Bilbao.
Cobo, who has known the teachers since his school years, has assured that in the aristocratic corporation there has never been a discussion about the opportunity of this collection, and has added that the question of whether the poster is liked or not is something tremendously superficial, when what is pursued is to have “visibility” and create a first-class art collection.
In any case, he has ensured that what governs his performance in this selection process is what has been the maxim of his life, an idea of Francis Picabia: “It is better to do nothing than do anything.”
And proof of the artistic range that the collection has reached, he pointed out, is the number of artists who offer themselves -to the Maestranza or to himself- to paint one of these posters; When asked how he overcomes those pressures, he replied: “I’m sure a lot of people hate me, but that amuses me.”
He has also humorously responded to the question that, at this point, the most avant-garde thing to do would be to summon an artist to make a merely traditional poster for an upcoming fair: “Perhaps we are already thinking about it… a poster for a staunch realism. EFE
