ARTIUM, Basque Centre-Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Instituto Cervantes present “While Brasilia was being born. Spanish art in the ARTIUM Collection ”, an exhibition of artworks chosen from this Centre-Museum`s own collection to mark the inauguration by the Instituto Cervantes of its new centre in the capital of Brazil. The exhibition illustrates the status of art in Spain in the 1950s, the period during which Brasilia was designed and constructed. Javier González de Durana, curator of the exhibition, has selected 17 artworks from the ARTIUM Collection, including the work of some of the leading figures who attempted to instigate a renewal of Spanish art at a time when the country was immersed in autocracy: Óscar Domínguez, Luis Feito, Equipo 57, Manuel Millares, Gerardo Rueda, Antonio Saura and Jorge Oteiza, among others. “While Brasilia was being born” will remain in the Brazilian capital from July 17 to September 17 and following this will travel to Rio de Janeiro in October and November, and to Sao Paulo in December 2007 and January 2008.

“While Brasilia was being born”, the exhibition prepared by ARTIUM for the centres run by the Instituto Cervantes in Brazil, proposes a kind of review of the tendencies in Spanish art during the period when work began on the construction of the Brazilian capital. The exhibition is illustrated with seventeen artworks from the collection of ARTIUM, Basque Centre-Museum of Contemporary Art, and provides an insight into Spanish art of the 20th-century.

The 1950s were a key moment in the history of Brazil and an essential period for the subsequent development of art in Spain. A small glimmer of tolerance in the rigid dictatorial regime and a struggle for liberty converged at this time to allow a small opening of creative modernity of which the artists chosen for this exhibition are eloquent representatives, all of them essential names in the history of contemporary Spanish art. In this sense, “While Brasilia was being born” offers very different examples of the courses taken by Spanish artists, based on traditions and pasts that did not always coincide necessarily. Thus, abstract geometrization can be seen in the two works by Gerardo Rueda, both entitled “Composición”, one dated in 1953-54 and the other in 1955, as well as the piece by Óscar Domínguez “Arbalette” (1950) and in “Macla” (1959), the slate engraved by Néstor Basterretxea, showing the clear influence of Jorge Oteiza.

This Gipuzkoa-born sculptor is the most widely represented of all the artists in this exhibition, with four pieces that range from the figurative “Cabeza de Apóstol”, created for the Basilica of Aránzazu, to his more experimental pieces “Caja vacía” (1958), “Construcción con tres cuboides vacíos” (1958) and “Cruz” (1959). It is worth remembering that Jorge Oteiza won the sculpture prize at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1957, while Brasilia was being born. On the other hand, Spanish abstraction is represented, although with different starting points, by Federico Echevarría, with “Pintura” (1959), Luis Feito, with “Composición” (1955), and Antonio Saura, with “Abstracción” (1955). While the compositions of Echevarría are based on colour, Feito made apparently random scratches, superimposed on a chromatic base and the works of Saura are dominated by a series of repeated gestures. Pablo Serrano and his sculpture “Ordenación del caos” (1957) offer a different solution.

“Sin título (CO-2)” (1958), by Equipo 57, a group of artists to which Agustín Ibarrola belonged before returning to out-and-out figuration, represented, for example, by “Maternidad”, are the result of research into planes of colour, the figure and background. On the other hand, the use of non-conventional materials and the emphasis on the texture of paint is represented by Manuel Millares, with “Composición” (1956). The selection of works and artists culminates with two representatives of Spanish figuration: Rafael Zabaleta and the secret geometry of “Aceituneras” (1959) and Joaquín Vaquero Turcios and the power of the pictorial surface of “Roma” (1952).

Exhibition organized by: