Exhibition addresses the confluences and individual routes of Gironella and Vlady

Bringing together again two of the artists who in the early 1950s promoted a revolution in the artistic aspect and cultural environment of Mexico is the main motivation of the exhibition Gironella and Vlady: The painters of time, inaugurated yesterday at the Vlady Center of the Autonomous University of Mexico City (UACM), where it will remain until November 22.

It is made up of more than 60 works (paintings, collages, engravings, notebooks, boxes and drawings, as well as bibliographic and periodical material), among which unpublished pieces by the Russian-Mexican painter stand out, specifically an unfinished painting in large format and 12 small engravings printed on a single sheet.

In addition to the collection of this museum documentation and experimentation center, pieces from the collections of the Brodziak de los Reyes family and the painter Carmen Parra and her son, Emiliano Gironella, are also exhibited, as well as three engravings donated by the soprano Amparo Cervantes.

According to Fernando Gálvez de Aguinaga, curator of the exhibition together with Silvia Vázquez Solsona and Tonatiuh Gallardo, this has the purpose, in addition to the reunion between both artists, of showing the paths they explored individually, as well as their confluences.

New ways to address social issues

One of the convergences that stands out is that Vladimir Viktorovich Kibálchich Rusakov, better known as Vlady (1920-2005), and Alberto Gironella (1929-1999), far from the accusations of the muralists and the Taller de la Gráfica Popular (TGP) for separating itself from the guidelines of the dominant aesthetics in the first half of the 20th century, they did not abandon social issues.

Instead, they looked for other ways to address them, explains the coordinator of the Vlady Center. “For example, it is very curious how even though they separate at a certain moment, Vlady and Gironella meet again in contemporary Zapatismo, that of the uprising in Chiapas in 1994.

The Mexican Revolution was also a common interest, the same as Emiliano Zapata. They wanted to separate themselves from the sphere of nationalism and muralism at the time, but not because of the theme, but rather because of the freedom to decide how, when, in what style and form to express themselves, and what topics to address.

He points out that Gironella became increasingly objectual; Some specialists even claim that works such as Tribute to Picasso It precedes that of the American Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), one of the main representatives of pop art in his country.

“So, what we see is that, even though awareness has not been raised, Gironella’s iconoclastic proposals, which take up Dadaism, Surrealism, Duchamp and others, become central to contemporary Mexican art. While Vlady takes the path of painting and becomes central to the other branch of graphic artists: draftsmen, painters…”, Fernando Gálvez continues in an interview.

However, despite being two of the pillars of modern Mexican art of the second half of the last century, they did not have or have not had the fame, projection or dissemination of other artists, such as Manuel Felguérez, Francisco Toledo, who was a little younger; the brothers Coronel or Vicente Rojo.

Another aspect that stands out in the exhibition is not only Vlady and Gironella’s interest in the avant-garde, but also their role as scholars of past painting, of the great classical masters, such as Velázquez, Goya and Rembrandt, to name a few.

In particular, Gironella was very interested in Spanish painting, due to his Iberian roots, while Vlady had an eye on other artists. So, what Silvia and Tonatiuh propose in the exhibition is that the two are the painters of time, because in their works a wide temporal arc can be seen.points out the specialist.

In this arch, he specifies, Velázquez can be found in paintings by Vlady alluding to the meninas and figures of the Spanish nobility, but also modern art with Gironella’s homage to Picasso, as well as with his surrealist work, in addition to the way in which both present elements of contemporary art.

Surrealism and editing

Structured in two cores – the first dedicated to the work of both creators, and the second to the relationship they had with surrealism and the publishing field–, Gironella and Vlady: The painters of time Its initial and central motivation is that both, along with Héctor Xavier and Joseph Bartolí, They generated a revolution in the artistic aspect and the Mexican cultural environment when they opened the Prisse Gallery in 1952.emphasizes Fernando Gálvez.

In that venue, which was Vlady’s house, they held exhibitions of artists who came out of the dominant aesthetics of that time and who did not have spaces to exhibit and express themselves institutionally or in galleries.

Everything was dominated by muralism, nationalist aesthetics; So, they opened that site, which also became a trigger for that generation of plastic arts that we will later know as La Ruptura. There, for example, José Luis Cuevas had his first exhibition. But not only that, it also became a gathering and meeting point for writers of what would become the Casa del Lago generation, as well as for theater producers and filmmakers. A new generation was born there.

Located at Goya 63, Insurgentes Mixcoac neighborhood, the UACM center continues with this exhibition the celebrations for the designation of Vlady’s work as an artistic monument, carried out in 2023.