Lord Candlestick’s Horses1938. © 2024 Estate of Leonora Carrington /
VEGAP. © 2022-2024 JPS Artworks LLC
’31 women. An exhibition by Peggy Guggenheim’, brings together the artistic work of more than thirty creators to claim the position they deserve in the history of art.
The Recoletos Room of Fundación MAPFRE This fall it hosts an exhibition of relevant creators of the surrealist movement and abstraction in the artistic scene. This exhibition highlights the Guggenheim patronage work and deals with the context in which the authors with whom she shared a career from her New York gallery developed their work, as well as the collaboration networks they wove between them.
In Why haven’t there been great women artists? (1971), one of her most celebrated articles, American art historian Linda Nochlin noted that “in the history of art, “The point of view of the Western white man has been accepted as the point of view of the art historian.” This text reclaims the role of women artists who have been systematically relegated to the background, both in art history and in other disciplines.
Frida Kahlo, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Valentine Hugo and Dorothea Tanning are some of the protagonists that this exhibition claims as fundamental artists in the history of art. In 1943, the famous art collector Peggy Guggenheim organized one of the first exhibitions in the United States in which Exclusively the work done by women artists was exhibited (in this case, European and North American), in his New York gallery Art of This Century.
roxburyby Jacqueline Lamba (1946).
© Jacqueline Lamba / VEGAP, Madrid, 2024
© 2022-2024 JPS Artworks LLC
31 women. A Peggy Guggenheim exhibition presents a selection and reinterpretation of the funds from The 31 Women Collection, a collection created in 2020 by collector Jenna Segal and made up by the works of the same artists who participated in the aforementioned exhibition of 1943.
foam waitby Sonja Sekula (1944)
© Estate of Sonja Sekula
© 2022-2024 JPS Artworks LLC
Nearly forty works are exhibited in the Fundación MAPFRE space in Madrid. In addition, photographs, publications and other pieces are also offered that contextualize and complement the approach to the North American art scene linked to women during this period.
This exhibition tour is articulated through different sections. The first introduces visitors to the work done by Peggy Guggenheim in her gallery Art of This Centurywith special emphasis on the support for the work of women artists of this time. The exhibition route opens with a room where a piece of furniture designed by the Austrian architect Frederick Kiesler for Art of This Century. It reflects the attention paid by Guggenheim to the promotion of art made by women.
The second part of the exhibition has four sections that bring visitors closer to some of the thematic axes explored by the creators present at Exhibition by 31 Womenwith the intention of reaffirming her independence and avoiding the clichés associated with the label “woman artist” in the art of this stage. Aware of the difficulties they faced due to being women, these artists reread in their own way the contributions of surrealism and abstraction to highlight the patriarchal assumptions established in said movements.
The role that self-representation played in the work of these artists is evident in the work carried out by Peggy Guggenheim. The reaffirmation of its identity and its independence from the historiography of traditional art is one of the keys and purposes of this exhibition. The autobiographical component, performance, costume or self-portrait are some of the languages they used to construct personalities other than those assigned to them and thus evade the gender roles imposed by patriarchal society.
Unheimlich It is an aesthetic concept coined in 1919 by Freud. It is commonly translated as ‘the sinister’ or ‘the ominous’ and it is a common category in surrealist work. This idea is present both in the work of the creators who were part of the movement and in the work of the protagonists of this exhibition.
Souvenir of ‘Breakfast with furs’by Meret Oppenheim (1972)
© Meret Oppenheim / VEGAP, Madrid, 2024
© 2022-2024 JPS Artworks LLC
Experimentation with multiple personalities caused many of these artists to identify with animals, especially those most linked to surrealism. The curator of the exhibition, Patricia Mayayo, explains that “in addition, the animals embodied the search for other mythical or imaginary worlds where they could finally be free.”
On the other hand, many of the artists leaned towards abstract languages, far from surrealism. Specifically, in the 1930s, The North American art scene was dominated by social realism and regionalism. Faced with a discourse that praised expressionist language as a reflection of the American man, many of these artists chose to follow a middle path that embarked on a new path to abstraction.
The Middle Way / The Great Mother rules the sky (Astor mural)by Buffie Johnson (1949-1959)
© Estate of Buffie Johnson
Practical information
Where: Recoletos Room Fundación MAPFRE (Paseo de Recoletos, 23. Madrid)
When: Until January 5, 2025
Production: Fundación MAPFRE with the exceptional loan from The 31 Women Collection
Commissioner: Patricia Mayayo, director of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation
Tickets: 5 euros. Free entry on Mondays (not holidays)
Facebook: @fundacionmapfrecultura
More information at: www.fundacionmapfre.org
Alayans Studio for MAPFRE Foundation – Text: Manu Carrero