Cristina Garcia Married | Salamanca (EFE).- Forty plastic works by twenty-six artists from the Republican exile in Mexico arrive in Spain in the exhibition “Look and presence”, which can be seen until July 2 at the Documentary Center of Historical Memory of Salamanca.
An imposing portrait of Antonio Machado by the renowned Spanish painter Cristóbal Ruiz welcomes an exhibition structured in two moments: “The war and the exodus” and “The home of exile”.
“This is the first time that this painting has returned to its country, because this is a work that was made in Spain and the author took it with him in exile. Other works is the first time they have arrived in the homeland where their artists were born”, Karina Torres, the curator of the exhibition, explained to Efe.
“Glance and presence: works of the Spanish exile in Mexico” is a pioneering proposal: works from the valuable collection of the Spanish Ateneo de México travel for the first time to the country from which their creators fled.
It is an itinerant exhibition that began its journey at the beginning of this year in Huelva, is now continuing in Salamanca and will culminate in the Ateneo de Madrid before returning to Mexico.
“The objective is to make known in Spain what the Spanish exile in Mexico was with works by artists who lived through it or descended from those who lived through it,” Héctor Alonso, vice-secretary of the Spanish Ateneo de México, told Efe.
Some works, made during the Second Republic, were saved and transferred to Mexico, such as the portrait of Antonio Machado. Others, already made in Mexico, explicitly address the issue of the Civil War and exile, with authors such as José Bardasano or Juan Chamizo.
Names such as Teresa Olabuenaga or Fidel Cuesta Ruiz are added to the exhibition, who, although they did not suffer in the first person neither the conflict nor exile, are heirs of those who did suffer and reflect their personal vision of the catastrophe.
The Historical Memory of exile in Mexico
The Spanish Ateneo de México, which will be 75 years old next year and maintains an intense cultural activity, houses more than 300 paintings and has a library with more than 20,000 copies.
The works of “Look and presence” visit Spain for the first time but in Mexico they have already been the protagonists of some exhibitions, as part of the mission of conservation and dissemination of the historical memory of the republican exile that the Ateneo has.
“We work to preserve the values of the Second Republic and we have the main documentation center on this subject in Mexico, numerous researchers turn to us,” explained Alonso, grandson of the Spanish Republican exile.
The president of the Ateneo, Ernesto Casanova Caloto, has also left a message for this exhibition: “We trust that with this selection, made up of some works that come out of Mexico for the first time, they will empathize with the feelings and vision of the artists who reflected their moment, as well as the feeling of a whole society that resisted to maintain the democratic principles of equality, freedom and legality”. EFE