The town of Pollença has a “leading role in spearheading musical, artistic and cultural activity” in Mallorca. Its annual Festival began in 1962 and, since 1999, there has also been an annual summer installation in the Convent Church, Església del Convent de Sant Domingo, the Convent now being the location for the Municipal Museum. Click here to read about the 2018 installation - ‘It’s time to open the Black Boxes!’ by Danae Stratou.
Pollença has been linked to the world of painting from the first years of the XXth century, when artists like Anglada Camarasa, Tito Cittadini, arrived from Paris and its international renown attracted other artists like Joaquin Mir and José de Creeft. The influence of these artists led in the 1960s to the creation of the Summer Exhibition of Painting, which later became the International Competition of Plastic Arts and which now constitutes the content of Pollença's Museum.
The Museum of Pollença was officially founded in 1975. In its halls were exhibited the works which won that Exhibition and a group of gothic altarpieces. With time the painting collection has increased and the contents have been enriched with works of archeological character, a Buddhist mandala and a collection of works by Atilio Boveri. Argentine artist, Boveri painted Stations of the Cross for the Església de la Mare de Déu del Àngels in Pollença and founded a mutual aid society for fishermen. He continued to combine art, spirituality and social action on his return to Argentina, making him a precursor to artists such as Theaster Gates.
Local artist Dionís Bennàssar, a good friend of Cittadini, followed in the footsteps of Santiago Rusiñol and Mir to become a Post-Impressionist whose work rivals that of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin for vibrancy of colour and vigour of brushstrokes. His seascapes are among the most magical of his works (one of which was awarded first place in the second Summer Exhibition of Painting), while his range of work extends from village scenes, landscapes, portraits and nudes to symbolism and erotica. The Dionís Bennàssar Museum, located in his Pollensan home, has an extensive collection of his work showing his range, with much that dates from the 1960s prior to his death in 1967.
Tremolor, this year’s installation for the Church of Santo Domingo is by José Luis Vicario, a multi-disciplinary artist who wishes to return to us to a fundamental experience that people down through the ages have had in sacred spaces; that of gazing upwards into an expanse – whether of sky or images – that connects us to infinity and enables contemplation of the eternal questions. Vicario senses that, “perhaps due to excessive stimuli or the lack of calm,” we “appear to have forgotten the overwhelming tremor that accompanies our realisation of the invisible immensity of the space we live in.” His installation seeks to recover “the threads and artefacts whose tremors are capable of dissolving time.”
Vicario has created a sky-cavern within the nave of the church using 2,500 metres of black ribbons affixed to the dome by 19 anchor points through existing holes. Operated by small motors and suspended over the observer, the entire structure trembles as subtle shudders – tremors - run through it, creating a work that contrasts with the stability of the room itself. A soundscape by Derek van der Bulcke provides a mono-tonal atmospheric polyphony that uses the tremor of the glissando and of vibrating exhalations to ensure that everything in the exhibition space quivers.
Hidden within this overwhelming and dramatic installation are three further less immediately visible elements. Foldable objects formed of aluminium lengths bolted together and shaped into astrological signs, including a soft star, are placed at intervals across the floor among the shadows of the ribbons above. A long gold wire – a vertical line measuring 20 metres - descends from one of the holes in the dome with a mechanism that gives it a continuous upward and downward oscillation. A video on a side altar is made up of more than 3,500 images taken from Facebook and containing information about the cosmos grouped as maps, constellations, stellar creations, archaeology, stars, architecture, photographs, instruments, stars with faces, books, planets, graphic effects and art. Additionally, a set of haiku-like poems in the catalogue adds to the overall experience and reflection – “Like a fractured cry / such is the uncertainty of wisdom / tremor.”
Vicario's aim – recognising that today, “due to the overstimulation we are subject to, contemplating the onset of darkness requires immense will and determination” - is “to revive an archaic yet valid connection between the landscapes we inhabit and our everyday inertias.” The exhibition can be visited from July 16 to September 25.
Nearby, at Galería Dionís Bennàssar from 16 July to 11 August, was Rubén Martín de Lucas: The garden of Fukuoka. The exhibition by Rubén Martín de Lucas was a tribute to the Japanese philosopher and farmer Masanobu Fukuoka who, through observation, developed a strategy based on “Wu Wei”, the principle of non-action or minimal interference. Under the premises of not ploughing, not using chemicals or fertilizers, not removing weeds and not pruning, Fukuoka came to develop what is now known as natural agriculture, equaling the best yields of industrial agriculture without impoverishing the soil and without use chemical or mechanical means. This is a tremendously respectful methodology that he shared with the world through books, numerous talks and stays, such as the one he carried out in Mallorca in the spring of 1999.
The exhibition highlighted two opposite ways of understanding agriculture and life. On the one hand, there are “deserts” where, as an analogy to industrial agriculture, a monoculture policy is represented by a single gesture that is repeated in a thick layer of oil. There were metaphors of a monotonous, poor and forced system, whose essence is far from the balance and diversity of any natural ecosystem. On the other hand, the "orchards" or "wild gardens", were represented through a gestural and free painting that is a metaphor for the diversity of all ecosystems and the strategy of "minimum interference" that Masanobu Fukuoka brought to agriculture and life.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Santana - Smooth ft. Rob Thomas.
No comments:
Post a Comment