Javier Díaz-GuardiolaSEGUIR Updated: Save Send news by mail electrónicoTu name *
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In 1944, the writer Anna Banti becomes the biography of the painter baroque Artemisia Gentileschi novel. A text destroyed by the nazi bombings, they rewrote it in 1947. In 2008, the painter, Juan Francisco Casas (1976), during her fellowship in the Academy of Spain in Rome, “discover” to Gentileschi, but it is not until he falls into their hands the book of Banti which gives the key to integrate “heroism” of this creative artist in his speech. The result, twelve years later, is a Non piangere. A wide series in which, with the paintings of Gentileschi background, the andalusian speaks of himself through naked women in the world of art . What Hipersexualización of their bodies? What about female empowerment? What artistic challenge? Of all this we speak with the author.
why has it taken so long to develop the whole?
Gentileschi I drew a lot of attention, because it is the most powerful, but what it was I left it in fallow. It interested Me as an artist that is able to link art and life. Always worked with a clear references, the topics of women-heroic, the strong woman, with constants that make it unique. But, how could I deal with that? How to take it to my works?
this is where it makes act of presence Anna Banti.
That’s it. The turning point is when I find his novel. It is the one that gives me the spark of how to transform a biography into autobiography, how to articulate that game to speculate. I realize that that is what I already do, talking all the while of me, in my works, through people around me. Banti was as a catalyst.
And how it is articulated from the three-dimensional and artistic exercise to speculate that Banti get from the writing?
it Was a key point of reference that Artemisia uses of heroic women at different levels. For example, there is Judith, who enters into confrontation with the people, and beheaded; but then there is also another type of heroines, Cleopatra, who was not victorious, but they decided their own fate. What is more heroic today in the art world to be a woman and devote yourself to the profession? That’s why I started to portray the women of my environment: historians, gallery owners, critics or artists.
tell me about them.
it Was clear that they had to be art from the moment in which I am already working with two women, one an artist, another a writer. In the background, it is no wonder, because I have always portrayed women who surround me. But the feeling that gave me is that it generated a new intimate dialogue between all: I am with them, my friends, and they with Banti and Gentileschi. It has been like a kind of communion, in which I was perhaps the least-had to say.
“None of the nudity is sexual. I see all very natural, brutal, undeniable”
Resorts naked. Is this what the “empowering”?
None of the nudity is sexual, at all. I see all very natural, very from a pose showing dignity and empowerment, brutal, undisputed. But there are works in which the nude is not necessary. I try to downplay what if the models or not nude. It is interesting, but not vital. In many cases, it is true that nudity releases, but not only in my work, but in the whole course of the History of Art.
In your text expresses that all the works speak “female”. How to understand this concept to someone like you?
it Is as wide as the representations that are included in the boxes. And what’s interesting is to give voice to a variety of positionings and discourses about it. Its projection is infinite. I try my portraits are unique, and the feminine is what unifies. I struggle to speak in my work of the feminine as a concept. I think that is not even there. The female is what every person wants at a particular time.
The quote includes more than 50 works and occupies two floors. “A sample of museum”, for its author
Painting and drawing are two techniques that we knew to spare, but here he has decided to step out of your comfort zone: there are also video and sculpture.
I wanted this to be an exhibition more “free” to me, that you knew what to expect. I have played surprise. And there are pieces, like one of the sculptures, whose presence was basic because they are based in a literal way in the manipulation of the first edition of the book of Banti: in the end, everything came out of that text. They are not leaps into the void, but steps forward. And this being an exhibition of a very long time, had that experience.
In regard to painting and drawing, there are also innovations: the exhibition includes his work more small, and also the most monumental so far.
There is a drawing that is part of a sculpture that measures three centimeters. On the other hand, there is a portrait, The dolce pace e le dolce ire, and the care risposte, which measures 3.5 m x 2.5 m, the largest that I have done and will do. It was important to play with the scales. The sizes they say things. And you jump to do a color drawing, no background, which underlines the power of the figure, the only one that smiles, was important.
Yes, it has recognized that its success at drawing came at some point to eat the painter. How do you know now when to go to one thing or another?
actually I don’t know. Before, in addition, the drawing was monochrome and small format. The painting, large and oil. But, suddenly, the tables are small and the drawings, which are very large; in these I begin to pass the color, so that it will break the hierarchy. And I wanted to paint, although I’ve gotten in a garden, very crazy, which is to have a reference to some painting baroque. But I have resolved with dignity. I do not intend to copy the original.
what You came to worry that the attention to its results -that hyper-realism evident, these materials are so characteristic – tarnished a speech?
it is clear To me, and also those who follow me, where I come from and where I’m going. I do not think that mine is hyper-realism: when you get close to the drawings you can see all the network, all frames, because I’m interested in understanding the structure of how something is drawn. What I’m telling you it is a biography of both the sitter as mine, and the details in a biography are important. Mine is a drawing quite classic, without being obsessed with the similar photo…
But that is born from the photo. Do you seriously not obsessed that similar?
No, No. I have that reference, so that what I do at the end looks like a photo. But this is not something that I obsesionara. In fact, if I started to use the pen as a material was looking for a method to make fun of those things.
By the way, what was it that really went out of his stay in Rome in the 2008?
There I met Gentileschi. And at the end you stay with the story, one anecdote that I usually avoid, which is that of your violation, because it is to emphasize the value of a woman in relation to what a man does with it. If he had worked with her then, I would have stayed there. My project there was revival of the portrait in the baroque. In the end I stayed with Bernini. And that was when I started with the pen.
