The story of Jose Val del Omar (Granada, 1904 – Madrid, 1982) is the story of one of the great misunderstood geniuses of Spain. Despite not being known to the general public, the filmmaker and technician was the inventor of the zoom. The artist created the variable angle lens in the 1920s “out of sheer expressive need.: He wanted to film the Albaicín from the Alhambra and needed to get closer to their houses and people, and when he was not able to do it physically, he did so technically “, reveals his daughter María José Val Del Omar. He is also responsible for the invention of the concave screen panoramic, a projection system that overflows the screen, and relief cinema, which he would later call tactilvision, and which is a technical resource that uses pulsed light to give relief to filmed objects.
Without forgetting his innovative and poetic films; and its crucial role in the Pedagogical Missions of the Second Republic with which he brought the cinema closer to the towns of rural Spain at that time and documented the lives of its inhabitants. “His vision of cinema as a unique spiritual phenomenon led him to the frustration of misunderstanding and all kinds of silences that made him a survivor of the time in which he had to live “, recognizes in an article the journalist and film director Laura Reinón, who defines him as” inventor, poet of the image and tireless worker “.
New York will surrender to the genius of the Granada-born in 2022. The Museum of the Moving Image is preparing, with the help of the Andy Warhol Foundation and those in charge of the Val del Omar Archive, an ambitious exhibition on the creator. “We have an agreement with the Max Estrella gallery in Madrid. As a result of our agreement with it, Val del Omar has participated in several contemporary art fairs. Two years ago we were at the Armory Show (the New York ARCO),” he says Piluca Baquero, director of the Val del Omar Archive. There he met Barbara Miller, the director of the Museum of the Moving Image, who was “fascinated” by the artist’s work. Soon after, Miller told him of MoMI’s interest in organizing an exhibition with part of his legacy.
The sample is not cheap to produce due to the recreation of Val del Omar’s techniques and the amount of work that has to be moved to New York. This motivated the museum to apply for the grants awarded annually by the prestigious Andy Warhol Foundation. And he succeeded: the cultural institution has given them a grant of $ 100,000. “The budget is not yet closed, but it will be around $ 300,000 (approximately 246,000 euros) “, says the director of the Val del Omar Archive.
Val del Omar, with the five senses
The exhibition, scheduled for spring 2022, will collect “four major features” of the creator. The first part will be dedicated to the Pedagogical Missions stage, which represents the young Val del Omar. The second will feature the Elementary triptych of Spain (where movies are included Granada mirror water, Fuego en Castilla, awarded for its technical effects at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, and Galician caress (clay), that will be projected with overflow of the screen and techniques such as smells in room. “Val del Omar believed in a total cinema where the viewer was completely involved in the film and touched all the senses. The screenings are going to be spectacular and we are going to be very faithful to his techniques,” Baquero highlights. The artist bet on “the presence of an inducing perfume, typical of the cinematographic theme being exhibited; and a specific flavor to each film, in the form of an aperitif”.
In the exhibition also there will be an identical replica of the Call by Val del Omar, the heart of your PLAT laboratory. “It will be in operation. In other samples it has worked as a fake. And so we will show how it worked,” he specifies. The fourth section will inquire about the Val del Omar projected in the future thanks to the works of young international artists who have continued his legacy or who have worked on techniques that he initiated. “Apart from being seen at MoMI, the show will have an international itinerary and hopefully it will reach Andalusia”, Baquero wishes.
The Reina Sofía and some people from Granada, fundamental allies for the dissemination of their legacy
Nowadays, the Reina Sofía Museum is restructuring the Val del Omar collection, which is permanently exhibited in Madrid. For those in charge of the Val del Omar Archive (Baquero and Gonzalo Sáenz de Buruaga, president of the Archive), the Reina Sofía has always been “a fundamental ally” where it will now have a presence Galician caress, which is perhaps the most unknown film of the Triptych. “In Granada, the Provincial Council, through José Luis Chacón, has supported his figure. There have been initiatives of the Young Filmmakers Festival. The Arias brothers are still in contact with us and have recognized it as it deserves. Now it crosses borders”, he underlines Baquero, who thinks that It is “very curious to have these faithful people from Granada, but never have had the support of other institutions in the city”.
“What we would like the most is for Val del Omar to have a space in the city”
The family and those in charge of the Val del Omar Archive dream of the artist having his own space in Granada. “Ángel Arias talks about doing a living laboratory project with young artists in the Parque de las Ciencias. It would be the most desirable,” says the director, who admits that Val del Omar “has been better understood abroad than in Spain.” And he remembers a phrase that Fraga told him a long time ago: “If Val del Omar had been an American”.
Thanks to his uncles María José Val del Omar and Gonzalo Sáenz de Buruaga, Baquero recalls, “Val del Omar has awakened.” “The technological part, the inventor part, the artist part and the filmmaker part cannot be separated. He considers it all as one. They were not inventions motivated to review improvements, which they gave for it, they were inventions that allowed him to express himself artistically”, ditch. Now, the Big Apple places Val del Omar in the right place as an artist and as a technician. And it does so almost 60 years after the creator’s visit to the city to represent Spain at the New York World’s Fair.
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