Santillana del Mar (EFE).- The Torre de Don Borja, in Santillana del Mar, brings together in an exhibition furniture and works by the pioneers of modernity in Spain, such as the architect Miguel Fisac and the artists Chirino or César Manrique, to transit for his “journey” from academicism to new expressive languages.
“From wood to polyester, the modern journey” illustrates the aesthetic and artistic transformation that Spain experienced in the middle of the last century at the hands of a generation of architects and artists who, in their eagerness to progress and learn, evolved together towards modernity. thus exceeding the cultural and political limits of the time.
To this end, around two hundred fundamental pieces of furniture designed by architects who modernized domestic life converse with key works by Spanish artists who, in parallel, renewed their discourse in those decades by adopting new languages.
In statements to EFE, the director of La Torre de Don Borja, Marcos Díez, explains that the exhibition is made up of furniture from the Múgica Castro Collection, with pieces designed by architects such as Miguel Fisac, Luis and Javier Feduchi, up to the pioneering experiences of pop furniture by Jordi Galí Camprubí.
The works of contemporary Spanish art come from the Rucandio Collection and the exhibition includes pieces by Eduardo Arroyo, Equipo Crónica, Martín Chirino, Darío Villalba, Rafael Canogar, Jorge Oteiza and César Manrique, among others.
Design furniture and new art
According to Díez, the title “From wood to polyester, the modern journey” refers to both the physical and reflective journey that these creators carried out to leave behind academicism and move through new formal languages.
For this reason, visitors who come to see the exhibition will find apparently common objects such as chairs, shelves, tables or lamps, which dialogue with works of art from that period, although the true protagonists are the creators who gave birth to their own unique language, and they did not limit themselves to copying what others did.
It was a Spain full of artisans and without a structure that would allow production at an industrial level, and they (the architects) began to design the first pieces of furniture to be mass-produced.
That meant, Díaz explains, “the leap into modernity” since, instead of working separately, architects, artists and artisans went hand in hand on that unique modern journey that today, so many years later, continues to be the same path because which they continue to advance well into the 21st century.
Taking into account the close relationship that exists between ethics and aesthetics, the director of the Torre de Don Borja assures that the influence that these creators had on the renewal and modernity of an entire country is “incalculable”.
collections
The set of furniture presented comes from the Múgica Castro collection, the purpose of which is to recover pieces that were no longer anonymous by consulting sources such as the “Interior Architecture” collection by Carlos Flores and the Catalog of furniture from the 50s-60s prepared in 2006 for the College of Architects of Madrid by Pedro Feduchi.
Other pieces that make up the sample have been lent by the Higueras and Manuel García de Paredes Foundation.
The Rucandio Collection was created in the 1960s by Jesús Polanco and Isabel Moreno and is currently promoted by their children and grandchildren. With a set of more than 300 works, it aims to reconstruct the most important moments in Spanish art from the second half of the 20th century to the present.
The desire of the Collection is to establish an impartial account of this period of our most recent art history, with representative works of all those fundamental artists who have worked in this space of time.
The temporary exhibition will coexist for a year with the permanent exhibition that is exhibited in the Torre de Don Borja, owned by the Polanco and Pérez Arauna families with the aim of continuing the legacy of Jesús Polanco and Pancho Pérez González, and which is made up of Funds from the Rucandio Collection.
Javier G. Paradelo