SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 28 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (TEA) presented the exhibition ‘Óscar Domínguez. The conquest of the world by images’, which discovers works by the Tenerife artist, one of the key figures of the surrealist adventure and the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, and brings together more than seventy creations by the painter, thirteen of which are unpublished.
The details of this new exhibition -the sixth that TEA dedicates to Óscar Domínguez since the art center opened its doors fifteen years ago- were announced by the president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín; the insular Councilor for Culture, Enrique Arriaga; the artistic director of TEA, Gilberto González; the exhibition curator, Isidro Hernández; and the representative of Óscar Domínguez’s family, Carlos Acosta.
Pedro Martín pointed out that today is an important day for the Cabildo and for all those people who are moved by art, by presenting a sample made up of a hundred works of which more than seventy are signed by Óscar Domínguez. “This exhibition is a really interesting proposal,” added the president of the Cabildo, who stressed that with it “the figure of this artist is valued.”
“Hopefully there will be many people who come to TEA to see this exhibition and that it will help to spread the legacy of our most universal surrealist,” said Martín in reference to ‘Óscar Domínguez. The conquest of the world by images’, an exhibition that can be visited free of charge until October 29, from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Martín also detailed the fact that this exhibition -with more than a dozen unpublished works- includes pieces from international private collections and loans from some Spanish institutions, as well as works from the TEA Collection. In the proposal you can see some of Domínguez’s most emblematic paintings, such as ‘Cueva de Guanches’ or ‘El Drago de Canarias’.
Enrique Arriaga also agreed on the importance for TEA and the Cabildo of opening this exhibition “dedicated to one of the most illustrious people of Tenerife”. “This exhibition is going to mark a before and after in the knowledge of Óscar Domínguez”, assured the vice-president and island councilor for Culture, who regretted that, despite what Domínguez contributed to Surrealism and the world of art, it is still not enough known on his island, a fact that he hopes can be corrected with this new proposal. In addition to this, Arriaga thanked the collectors and the institutions that have loaned works for this exhibition.
Gilberto González highlighted that this year, when the TEA turns fifteen, it was necessary to carry out institutional archeology work and try to understand where this center came from. “In this sense, the figure of Óscar Domínguez continues to be a fundamental element in the history of TEA, of its collections. This exhibition brings Domínguez’s work to contemporary times, understanding the context in which it was created, in which it was worked “, pointed out González, who also thanked the TEA team for the work done.
On behalf of the Domínguez family, Carlos Acosta acknowledged that the work that has been done is “wonderful” and confessed that he was “very impressed” with the exhibition.
Isidro Hernández, curator of ‘Óscar Domínguez. The conquest of the world through image’, he explained that it is not an anthological sample of his career, but rather a sufficient and thorough set of works that gives a good account of the scope of Óscar Domínguez’s creative legacy. He explained that it is intended to rediscover Óscar Domínguez, who opened the horizons of the image and who surprised with a visionary and dreamlike pictorial discharge. De Domínguez-“an author who continues to provide new horizons” and who was “a visionary”-valued “the plastic quality of his painting and his ever-new iconography”. “This exhibition, which celebrates Domínguez, brings together a series of very considerable paintings by him along with those of some of his travel companions such as Remedios Varo or Victor Brauner,” he pointed out.
The curator added that the exhibition is the prelude to the celebration of the centenary of the publication of the first surrealist manifesto in Paris in 1924. “It is very difficult to obtain the loans of works that we have obtained and we only had this window of time to make it possible and that visitors could enjoy this proposal”.
CONTENT OF THE EXHIBITION.
Along with the works of Domínguez, the visitor to the exhibition will find creations by Maruja Mallo, Leonora Carrington, Victor Brauner, Roberto Matta, Remedios Varo, André Masson, Dora Maar, Manolo Millares, María Belén Morales, René Magritte, Yves Tanguy , Maribel Nazco, André Breton, Jeannette Tanguy, Georges Hugnet, Germaine Hugnet, Maud Bonneaud, Jacques Hérold, Paul Éluard, Pedro de Guezala, Gordon Onslow-Ford, Wifredo Lam, Marcel Jean, Anton Prinner, Louise Janin, Peter Sachs, Roland d’Ursel, Ernesto Fernando Baena Jover, Hans Bellmer, and Luis Ortiz Rosales.
‘Oscar Dominguez. The conquest of the world by the image’ is structured in various areas in which crucial themes in the artist’s work are addressed, such as ‘Cueva de Guanches’, ‘El Drago de Canarias’, lithochronic painting, cosmic creations and is completed with a section dedicated to the chronology of Domínguez.
This artistic offer will be enriched with the publication of a catalog and with a series of conferences that will take place during the six months that it remains open to the public. In this cycle of presentations -which will include, among others, interventions by Arnauld Pierre, Lucía García de Carpi, Juan Manuel Bonet, Jean Marie Trossard, Victoria Combalía, Isabel Castells, Eugenio Carmona, Pilar Soler, Fernando Castro and José Carlos Guerra – Different aspects of the work of Domínguez and other authors attached to the surrealist movement will be addressed.
This new exhibition by TEA takes its title from the most famous collective publication of the surrealist group that, during the occupation of Paris, had to remain in hiding. At that time, a group of poets and painters, including Domínguez himself, took care of keeping alive the flame of Surrealism through collective publications in the editions of La main à plume. It was precisely in a delivery called The Conquest of the World by Image (1942), in which the artist from Tenerife developed the pseudoscientific theory of ‘lithochronic surfaces’ and the ‘petrification of time’, written jointly with the then young physicist Ernesto Sabato.
