Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
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EL
POPA
ART
EN LA COLECCION DEL IVAM
EL
EL
POPA
ART
EN LA COLECCION DEL IVAM
INSTITUT VALENCIÀ D’ART MODERN 15 marzo - 27 mayo 2007
Patrocina:
EXPOSICION IVAM INSTITUT VALENCIA D’ART MODERN
Catálogo
92
Índice de artistas
209
English texts
215
Francisco Camps Ortiz
Presentación
PRESIDENT DE LA GENERALITAT
A pesar de que el pop art nace a la par en el Reino Unido y en los Estados
Unidos, en España tiene una replica importante con el Equipo Crónica,
equipo que se adentra por este movimiento con una idiosincrasia muy par-
ticular. Lo hace desde una crítica de la sociedad, ya que utiliza y manipula
imágenes mediáticas para desde un inicio provocar un interés crítico. Es
decir, Equipo Crónica, manipula lo ya manipulado para producir efectos
significativos nuevos que fuerzan al espectador a una nueva reflexión.
En toda su obra hay una reivindicación y apuesta hacia el trabajo colectivo
más que a una línea de acción individual. Equipo Crónica, con este modo
de proceder, elimina la individualidad ligada a la tradición artística.
El problema es que los estereotipos evocados por los mass media, creados
con la urgencia y velocidad de la sociedad de consumo, se estructuran con
una intención deformativa. Es decir, los medios de comunicación, quienes
podrían bien cumplir el papel de mediadores entre el conocimiento y la
sociedad y representar una realidad más “presentativa”, deciden no entrar
en ese juego.
En este sentido, el estereotipo juega una función siempre persuasiva en su
retórica y composición. Convierte algo complejo en algo simple. Es un com-
plejo reduccionista que suele causar distorsión. El estereotipo siempre
beneficia a alguien en la función ideológica que desempeña al servicio de
la cultura o el sistema dominante. Así pues, los estereotipos limitan nuestros
modos de ver el mundo. El Equipo Crónica, a mi modo de entender, mues-
tra un firme deseo de desmontar esas construcciones organizadas como
verdades únicas y las cubre de otras verdades que en paralelo afectan a la
sociedad y tienen más interés que el espectáculo como mero espectáculo.
Generalmente al equipo formado por Valdés y Solbes, se le adscribe a la
corriente de arte pop, pero lo cierto es que, en sus manos, los recursos habi-
tuales de esta tendencia (tintas planas, utilización de imágenes tomadas de
los medios de comunicación o de otros depósitos visuales de la cultura de
masas) son meras herramientas que, combinadas con elementos de muy
distinta naturaleza, dan lugar a una con palpable vocación crítica con el
sistema ya que surge también como contrariedad al individualismo.
Volviendo a los orígenes del pop y a esa naturaleza que lo caracteriza por
encontrar en los cotidiano su máximo exponente reivindicativo, puedo decir
que ciertamente lo doméstico siempre ha estado ligado al arte de todos los
tiempos. Ya el teatro de Aristófanes ponía de relieve, en clave de comedia y
13
cultura son: una cultura comercial, una sociedad de consumo y una institu-
ción publicitaria.
De este modo, una mirada al pop art a través de la Colección permanente
del IVAM, con artistas tales como Valerio Adami, Anzo, Eduardo Arroyo,
Richard Bosman, John Chamberlain, Equipo Crónica, Equipo Realidad, Luis
Gordillo, Öyvind Fahlström, Alberto Greco, Richard Hamilton, Jasper Johns,
Claes Oldenburg, Yves Klein, Alex Katz, Sigmar Polke, Richard Prince,
Robert Rauschenberg, Josep Renau, Gerhard Richter, Hervé Télémaque,
Cindy Sherman, Joan-Antoni Toledo y Darío Villalba, es un acercamiento
directo a la realidad, en su manera de abordar con sensibilidad su entorno
más inmediato. Autorretratos, retratos, marcas, iconos… transmiten la
espontaneidad con la que este movimiento se elevó y erigió durante varias
décadas del siglo XX.
Podemos decir, por tanto, que el pop art es el movimiento que mejor repre-
senta la apropiación de la imagen audiovisual de la cultural popular. La
hace suya, le da su forma, le pone su etiqueta y la lanza al público. La ima-
gen aparece como territorio del deseo. El deseo es un movimiento metafísi-
co, una acción volitiva hacia el objeto como ente de atracción. Merleau-
Ponty sostenía que la tensión de erotismo y belleza son las raíces vitales de
la percepción y de la representación, y describe al deseo como “arco inten-
cional” que da a la experiencia su grado de vitalidad y fecundidad. Octavio
Paz aborda el deseo como “la persecución de un objeto sin cesar fugitivo,
sea un cuerpo, una idea o una idea hecha cuerpo”.
El deseo está profundamente relacionado con la naturaleza humana y
Andy Warhol parece que jugó bien esa baza desde su The Factory.
Heidegger presenta la naturaleza del hombre como “ser proyectante a tra-
vés de su constante desear”. En la ponencia “Los espacios del deseo”, Silvia
Durán sintetiza así el deseo: “Es la fuerza de la acción. Su espacio natural
es la imaginación y muestra a un ser humano proyectante, libre, transgre-
sor y creador que busca recuperar en la vida su recuerdo primigenio, la ple-
nitud, el placer y la felicidad; todo ello consecuencia de su condición.”
La industria cultural genera todas las herramientas posibles para que la
sociedad de consumo funcione a toda velocidad y desee todo lo que gene-
re. El pop art se encargó bien de acoger entre sus iconos artísticos de mar-
cas representativas de una cultura nacional con una intención de extender
ese dominio como elemento básico y necesario para la vida diaria de los
ciudadanos.
15
Vivo”, publicado en Italia en 1962, proclamaba que “el arte vivo es la aven-
tura de lo real […], el arte vivo es contemplación y comunicación directa
[…]. Debemos ponernos en contacto directo con los elementos vivos de
nuestra realidad: movimiento, tiempo, gente, conversaciones, olores, soni-
dos, lugares, situaciones.”10 El discurso de Restany era muy parecido. Los
collages de 1963-64 de Greco incorporaban imágenes pop recortadas de
revistas. Todo de Todo (1964) incluía su propio nombre y las palabras del
título de la obra en un collage de imágenes que Greco se encargó de pegar,
pintar y dibujar. Otro collage, XXV Años de Paz (1964), reflejó con ironía el
año de celebraciones para conmemorar la ascensión al poder del
“Caudillo”: era un fotomontaje de Franco y su familia rodeados de formas
grotescas y de cómic que traslucían las turbulencias que había en las
calles. De hecho, esta celebración en 1964 de la victoria se vio empañada
por las huelgas de la minería en Asturias.11
En 1972 el español Antoni Miralda se paseó por las calles de París llevando
en brazos un gigantesco soldado blanco de juguete, que no era sino una
suerte de monumento portátil, protagonista de la performance La
Cumparsita, cuya creación ocupó a Miralda entre 1969 y 1971. La cámara de
Benet Rossell grabó la acción, que seguía en la línea de trabajos anteriores
del artista, quien ya había utilizado soldaditos blancos con anterioridad
para realizar elaborados environments. Miralda vivió en París entre 1962 y
1972, y Restany apoyó con entusiasmo su obra. La Cumparsita es una iróni-
ca reflexión sobre el servicio militar del artista, que tuvo que hacer a media-
dos de los años 60 y que interrumpió su periodo parisino. No obstante, esta
obra se entiende mejor en el contexto del movimiento antibelicista que sur-
gió a finales de los años sesenta.12
El coche aplastado en Oh, Absolutely (Oh, absolutamente, 1992) de John
Chamberlain puede vincularse con el trabajo de los nuevos realistas, espe-
cialmente con el de César y sus “compresiones” de automóviles, aunque la
10 Rivas, F.: Alberto Greco. IVAM, Valencia 1991, p. 106. obra de Chamberlain delataba elementos propios del expresionismo abs-
11 Preston, P.: Franco. Grijalbo - Mondadori, Barcelona tracto estadounidense y, por tanto, una gran espontaneidad.
1998.
La obra de James Rosenquist tiene un marcado carácter europeo; durante la
12 Restany, P.: Miralda. Une vie d’artiste. Àmbit Serveis
Editorials, Barcelona 1982. época de los sesenta, el artista fue una referencia ineludible, sobre todo en
13 Para valorar la importancia de la presencia de Francia, donde sus trabajos se exhibieron junto a los de los creadores fran-
Rosenquist en Francia léase Jeffett, W.: “James
Rosenquist: Painting in the Age of the Cold War”, en ceses vinculados a la narración figurativa de Gérald Gassiot-Talabot.13 Tales
James Rosenquist. Salvador Dalí Museum, Saint
Petersburg, Florida 2000, pp. 8-21. méritos le han granjeado un espacio importante en la colección del IVAM.
24
Rosenquist es un artista importante dentro del pop art por sus divergencias
con otros artistas del mismo movimiento más centrados en la imagen como
Warhol, Lichtenstein y otros norteamericanos. Rosenquist era, ante todo,
pintor, aunque su punto de partida fuesen los modelos basados en collages
de imágenes de revistas que él transformaba alterando su escala. Esa
monumentalidad, que solía acompañar de imágenes sociales, sugería un
deseo de intervención en la esfera social. Su recomposición de fragmentos
de imágenes dejaba intuir una crítica hacia la función tradicional de la ima-
gen y también una propuesta: la recomposición de la imagen en una narra-
tiva diferente. La colección del IVAM recorre tres importantes fases creativas
de Rosenquist. Blue Spark (Chispa azul, 1962) y la cinética Red Applause
(Aplauso rojo, 1966) representan los años de formación del pop. La primera
representa la lógica inconexa del collage e incorpora al objeto real en un
ensamblaje que sirve para unir las imágenes en una nueva y enigmática
unidad e introducir una lógica que trasciende la meramente pictórica. La
segunda se burla de la seriedad del arte y del tradicional visitante de muse-
os, a quien transforma en el objeto del aplauso de las imágenes.
Rosenquist ha descrito este collage de la siguiente forma: “La esencia del
collage está en reunir imágenes muy dispares que resultarán no tanto en
un dibujo como en una idea. Es como escuchar la radio y sacar tus propias
ideas de todas las imágenes que transmite y que, a menudo, actúan como
antídotos –ácido– las unas para las otras. O saltan chispas o no. Lo mejor es
que sí salten las chispas […].”14 Las imágenes aparentemente sencillas y
frontales de Nails (Clavos, 1973) insisten en la lógica de la representación,
mientras que la posterior Mask of Moctezuma II (Máscara de Moctezuma II,
1990) encierra una sucesión de capas de imágenes de mayor complejidad,
que el artista realizó para intentar simular el follaje tropical, evocador de los
largos años de trabajo del artista en Florida.
Figuración narrativa
Gérald Gassiot-Talabot definió la narración figurativa como diferentes for-
mas o categorías de narración, un aspecto central del arte moderno que
había sido ignorado: “Hoy la narración responde a una disposición gene-
14 James Rosenquist en Blaut, J.: “James Rosenquist: col-
ral de enfrentarse al mundo, a una voluntad de vivirlo, conocerlo, medirse lage and the Painting of Modern Life”, en Hopps, W. -
Bancroft, S.: James Rosenquist: A Retrospective.
con él, según una experiencia existencial que coloca todo el idealismo Guggenheim Museum, Nueva York 2003, p. 17.
25
noumenal fuera del alcance del artista. Ahí está su franqueza y su límite.
La narración constituye un episodio importante de la historia del arte
moderno, un momento crucial, que cuestiona ochenta años de dogmatis-
mo antitemporal, y emprende, ayudado de técnicas nuevas y siempre en
un clima de creación inédito, un regreso a los instintos profundos y tradi-
cionales.”15 Gassiot-Talabot blandió la naturaleza variable de la narración
ante la icónica y estática que caracterizaba a buena parte del pop ameri-
cano, especialmente a Warhol y Lichtenstein, a pesar de que éste último
utilizara el recurso de la viñeta de cómic: “El espíritu narrativo es incom-
patible con todo un aspecto de la estética del pop art. Lichtenstein y Warhol
pueden hacernos creer que participan de ese espíritu, el uno aislando cier-
tas escenas de cómic y el otro repitiendo efigies de estrellas o episodios tru-
culentos. Pero en ellos no hay continuidad, ellos detienen el tiempo, para-
lizan el instante.”16
Más atento al devenir de la sociedad de consumo y a la historia en general,
como demuestra en la famosa F 111 (1964-65), Rosenquist se encaminó hacia
las posturas más políticas de los pintores afincados en París como Gilles
Aillaud, Hervé Télémaque y el español Eduardo Arroyo, con quien a veces
compartía exposición. A pesar de que Rosenquist se mantenía alejado de la
postura de Gassiot-Talabot y también del neosurrealismo que promovía
Édouard Jaguar, su nombre y su obra eran asociados al de estos autores y,
significativamente, en 1965 participó en la exposición La figuration narrati-
ve dans l’art contemporain.
Los surrealistas mantenían su escepticismo con respecto al pop art y se pre-
guntaban cómo podía nutrirse de la sociedad de consumo y, al mismo tiem-
po, encarnar una crítica de ella. Sin embargo, ésta era precisamente la pos-
tura que proponían Aillaud, Arroyo y Télémaque, en lo que podemos lla-
mar “realismo crítico”. En un trabajo colectivo, Arroyo, Aillaud y Recalcati
atacaron a Duchamp en una especie de manifiesto visual constituido por
una serie de ocho óleos llamada Vivre et laisser mourir, ou La fin tragique
de Marcel Duchamp (Vivir y dejar morir, o El fin trágico de Marcel
Duchamp, 1965). El último de ellos escenificaba el entierro de Duchamp:
una bandera estadounidense envolvía su ataúd, que portaban Rauschen-
berg, Oldenburg, Warhol, Arman, Raysse y Restany. Para Gassiot-Talabot,
15 Gassiot-Talabot, G.: La figuration narrative dans l’art
contemporain. Galerie Creuze, París 1965. “Aillaud, Arroyo y Recalcati han tenido el mérito y la valentía de saber ir
16 Ibídem. muy lejos en la burla del estilo y las prohibiciones […]. Esta composición,
26
Francia, donde la dimensión didáctica y narrativa de obras como Notes for 18 Pierre, J: Tracts surréalistes et déclarations collectives,
2 vol. Eric Losfeld, París 1980, p. 238.
Seesaws le granjeó un espacio en la exposición La figuration narrative
19 Fahlström, Ö.: “Historical Painting”. Flash Art, nº 43,
dans l’art contemporain. Milán, diciembre/enero 1973/74, p. 14.
27
Aunque los libros de historia del pop, en particular los escritos por Lucy
Lippard y Marco Livingstone,20 abordaron las formas más críticas de la ten-
dencia, otros autores, como Theodor Adorno y Christian Mamiya, argumen-
taron que el pop art era incapaz de posicionarse política y socialmente por-
que su propia naturaleza legitimaba la cultura de consumo que el pop
recreaba y cuyos mecanismos utilizó como propios.21 Ya en 1964, el crítico
italiano Umberto Eco señaló que la apropiación era peligrosa y un instru-
mento de doble filo. “Hoy es habitual que la cultura de vanguardia, como
reacción a la densidad y el alcance de la cultura de masas, utilice estilemas
propios del kitsch. Esto es lo que el pop art hace cuando selecciona los más
vulgares y pretenciosos iconos de la publicidad […] los sobrevalora y los
cuelga de las paredes de un museo. Así se venga la vanguardia del kitsch
[…]. Pero el kitsch no malgasta su tiempo haciendo lo mismo con la van-
guardia, no recurre ni a sus procedimientos ni a sus estilemas para sus
anuncios, en los que lo único que importa es la producción de un efecto y la
demostración de un gusto superior.”22 Simón Marchán Fiz intenta abordar
este problema separando el pop de lo que él llama “realismo crítico”.
Asegura: “La postura pop frente a la sociedad nunca es crítica en sentido
estricto”, y agrega que, por su parte, el realismo crítico, en una tentativa
semántica y pragmática, pretende “transformar o contribuir a cambiar a los
hombres y sus relaciones.”23
En la línea del realismo crítico o el postpop que propone Marchán Fiz se
encuentran las obras Le jour et la nuit (El día y la noche, 1963) de Aillaud,
La Scène (L’homme de la cicatrice) (La escena [El hombre de la cica-
triz],1970) de Télémaque y el Robinson Crusoe de Arroyo (1965). La obra pic-
tórica de Télémaque no parece traslucir ningún tipo de posicionamiento
20 Lippard, L.: El pop art. Destino, Barcelona 1993; político: sus obras parecen diagramas, están llenas de flechas, líneas rotas
Livingstone, M.: Pop Art: A Continuing History. Thames
and Hudson, Londres 1990. e imágenes cartográficas, y todo esto nos hace pensar en dobles sentidos
21 Adorno, T.: Teoría estética. Taurus - Akal, Madrid - Tres narrativos escondidos en el lienzo, quizás en los oscuros interiores de las
Cantos 1992/2004; Mamiya, Ch.: Pop Art and Consumer
Culture: American Supermarket. University of Texas tiendas de campaña, a salvo, en la parte derecha del cuadro, lo que les pro-
Press, Austin 1992, p. 160.
porciona una dimensión poética. Como Gassiot-Talabot apuntó en 1973:
22 Eco, U.: “La estructura del mal gusto”, en Eco, U.: Obra
abierta / Umberto Eco. Ariel, Barcelona 1990. Para más “Con Télémaque las cosas no son nunca lo que parecen […] A Télémaque
información sobre el tema léase al mismo autor en su
texto La definición del arte. Lo que hoy llamamos arte le gusta utilizar los objetos que tienen un significado diferente al que se les
¿ha sido y será siempre arte? Martínez Roca, Barcelona
1990, pp. 210 y 275. supone a primera vista […]. Télémaque va más lejos: dejemos a los objetos
23 Marchán Fiz, S.: Del arte objetual al arte de concepto: a la ‘espera de sentido’, en una imprecisión consciente, ella nos habla de
Epílogo sobre la sensibilidad “postmoderna”. Akal, Tres
Cantos 1994, pp. 48 y 73. este juego del círculo sobre el agujero, ‘de esa imprecisión de las cosas que
28
ba con la represión que ejercían las fuerzas del orden. En Uno, dos, siete,
siete (1968) se ve, a través de un mira telescópica, una muchedumbre que
huye; en otro plano, las personas aparecen muertas, tendidas en el suelo,
víctimas del rifle de un francotirador. No es de extrañar que se utilizara una
reproducción de la obra de Genovés El abrazo (Museo Nacional Centro de
Arte Reina Sofía) para ilustrar el cartel de la campaña por la amnistía de los
presos políticos de 1976, una imagen tan difundida y un símbolo popular de
la transición que aparece en la película Asignatura pendiente (1977) de José
Luis Garci.
Tras un breve periodo de colaboración con Equipo Crónica, Joan-Antoni
Toledo se entregó al realismo: pintaba imágenes de raíz fotográfica y rea-
lista para articular un análisis crítico del funcionamiento ideológico de la
representación. Al igual que Equipo Crónica, Toledo entendía la sociedad
como un proceso y la relación de la “alta” con la “baja cultura” se le anto-
jaba dialéctica. En su obra Sin Título (1969-70), el propio Toledo forma parte
de la obra, que imita formas picassianas como crítica a la entonces institu-
cionalizada vanguardia. En Paradigma (1983) tomó como base una típica
fotografía familiar para construir una reflexión sobre la función de la repre-
sentación en la cohesión de las estructuras sociales y económicas, como la
familia; mientras que en Pompidou (1991) reflexionó sobre la institucionali-
zación de la industria cultural y su conversión, por parte del Estado, en un
mecanismo de promoción del consumismo. Toledo entendía el arte como
un “instrumento de poder” y al explorar el realismo crítico buscaba un
espacio interno dentro del arte que escapase a la dominante estructura del
poder: “En los contenidos culturales de la ‘alta cultura’ hay un dinamismo.
Y se producen cambios en la ‘baja cultura’. Lo más corriente son los proce-
sos de degradación de la ‘alta cultura’, como consecuencia de la relaciones
de las clases sociales, básicamente. Pero también existen mecanismos de
cambio interno. (La vanguardia cambia, por mecanismos internos). En
estos cambios, hay cosas que se le escapan de las manos al poder. En
determinados momentos desbordan su función inmediata. Nunca un pro-
ducto cultural corresponde funcionalmente a su contexto socio-geográfico
exactamente, sino que tiene posibilidades de utilización.”37 En este texto de
1976, escrito en los primeros tiempos de la transición, Toledo miraba hacia
37 “Síntesis de la conversación mantenida entre Tomàs
la realidad social desde una perspectiva dinámica que transgredía la Llorens, Equipo Crónica (Rafael Solbes y Manuel Valdés)
y Joan-A. Toledo”, en Joan-A. Toledo. Galería Temps,
intención artística. Valencia 1976.
33
de su época, esta línea del pop trató los problemas más específicos a la pin-
tura y el alejamiento de la objetividad en la pintura abstracta.
La obra del artista Darío Villalba, radicado en Madrid, también partía del
binomio pintura/fotografía que cubría de colores oscuros y una moderada
crítica política. Las imágenes de Villalba transmitían una cierta molestia
existencial y siempre mantuvieron las distancias con el pop estadouniden-
se, a pesar de que al artista le interesaba la obra de Warhol y de que había
trabajado en Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido en los años sesenta, cuando
la mayoría de los artistas españoles optaban por París. Su uso de la imagen
era subjetivo e idiosincrásico como puede observarse en la serie Superficie
interior fusión (1968-93). A Villalba la subjetividad le puso en contacto con el
pop art y el arte conceptual: “Mi uso de la fotografía, limpia, apenas tocada
como cuadro capaz de albergar en su desnudez todo tipo de pulsiones, mis-
tificaciones, contradicciones o armonías del imaginario, hace que de mane-
ra visionaria y desde luego no del todo consciente, creara en 1970, una plás-
tica personal que [...] abriera las puertas al diálogo con el pop art, y poste-
riormente el conceptual.”44
El pintor sevillano Luis Gordillo dialogó por primera vez con el pop cuan-
do se decidió a incorporar imágenes procedentes de la fotografía en la pin-
tura figurativa, como en las obras Cabeza sonriente, el díptico El hombre-
vespa (1966) y Bombo unitario (1967). Su aproximación a la figuración fue
siempre personal y se basaba en su experiencia con el psicoanálisis, pos-
terior a una crisis que sufrió en 1969. Con el tiempo, su pintura se fue con-
virtiendo en un laberinto de imágenes propias de un collage biológico y
abstracto.45 El resultado fue una obra post-pop suspendida entre la abs-
tracción y la figuración, como Gruyère D (1983), un trabajo que transmitía
una gran emoción, y un buen ejemplo de las pinturas de madurez del sevi-
llano que marcarían a una generación de pintores españoles más jóvenes.
Gordillo explora la dimensión subjetiva de la pintura; en palabras del pin-
tor: “Creo que cuanto más subjetiva es una obra más específicamente vital
se hace [...].”46
44 Villalba, D.: “Darío Villalba versus Darío Villalba”, en Puede considerarse que, en parte, el pop español está suspendido entre la
Todo muro es una puerta: Darío Villalba. Fundació Pilar
i Joan Miró, Palma de Mallorca 1998, p. 144. perspectiva crítica del francés y la visión más templada del estadouniden-
45 Gordillo, L.: Superyo congelado. Actar, Barcelona se. A partir de 1952, Estados Unidos desempeñó un papel cada vez más
2000.
importante en la vida cultural española. Así que, mientras crecía su
46 Calvo Serrraller, F.: Doce artistas de vanguardia en el
Museo del Prado. Mondadori, Madrid 1990, p. 90. influencia, el pop tuvo que plantearse qué actitud adoptar ante un impla-
36
rían olvidarse de la guerra, sus hijos miraban hacia fuera en busca de 48 Huyssen, A.: “Pop Artretrospective”, en Documenta X
— The Book. Cantz-Verlag, Kassel - Ostfildern-Ruit 1997,
modelos alternativos y, sobre todo en los sesenta, se decidieron a enfrentar- pp. 399-400.
37
Chelsea, 1966), que tenía una alta dosis de improvisación. En otro registro
menos solemne, las inexpresivas imágenes fotográficas y videográficas de
los artistas suizos Fischli y Weiss nos brindaron una lectura irónica de la
extrema seriedad de su cultura nativa.
El legado pop y el impacto de la representación fotográfica también calaron
en la pintura. Pintores como el americano Peter Halley hicieron no tanto
pintura abstracta como simulaciones de pintura abstracta, que se situaban
en un espacio ambiguo entre la abstracción y la decoración, poniendo de
manifiesto la dimensión decorativa inherente a toda abstracción. El califor-
niano Allan McCollum también trabajó en la línea de la pintura abstracta
como simulación en la serie Surrogate Paintings (Pinturas subrogadas), una
serie de cuadros que prácticamente sólo varían en tamaño y color, y que
demuestran con elegancia que la pintura es una convención construida
sobre cimientos sociales. Tras trabajar con objetos encontrados, en los
ochenta, el artista británico Tony Cragg hizo reproducciones –algunas de
gran realismo– de objetos utilizando unos moldes que le sirvieron como
herramienta de transformación.
El pintor neoyorquino Richard Bosman estudió junto a Philip Guston y Alex
Katz. Sus obras figurativas recrean escenas de cómics y escenarios de cine
negro y nos sugieren la presencia de una narración, en la que nuestra
integración es solo parcial. Todas estas imágenes no eran más que un lien-
zo para Bosman, lo que le distancia de otros artistas más volcados en la
fotografía. La obra de Bosman nos remite más al trabajo de Alex Katz que
a la figuración narrativa. El valenciano Manuel Sáez se aproxima al obje-
to desde la sofisticación: Sáez aplica el pigmento de tal forma que ni
siquiera una minuciosa observación de la obra delatará la intervención de
su mano. Con frecuencia, el valenciano toma fotografías de objetos
corrientes y las plasma en papel, hace un dibujo tras otro, hasta simplifi-
car la imagen original, que suele cubrir de un solo color. La obra Réplica
racional (1999-2000) consta de cuatro acuarelas monocromáticas de distin-
tos colores. Al utilizar esta técnica, Sáez nos recuerda a su admirado Alex
Katz y al pintor figurativo Leon Golub, más comprometido que Katz con el
activismo social. La fotografía constituye el primer eslabón de la cadena
de la creación, el que permite al artista marcar las distancias con la ima-
gen, para que la pintura la transforme a su antojo. Sáez ha dicho a propó-
sito del arte en el siglo XX: “Estoy totalmente convencido de que la fotogra-
41
fía forma ese sólido y hermoso pedestal sobre el que se sustenta la mayor
parte del arte de este siglo.”54 Saéz es uno de los artistas más jóvenes de
la colección de pop art del IVAM y quizás por eso su afirmación sea la que
mejor resuma el arraigo conceptual de la antología: la duradera importan-
cia, presente en múltiples aspectos, que han tenido los métodos esencial-
mente fotográficos de reproducción mecánica en la producción de una
práctica de vanguardia y en sus posteriores ramificaciones en el arte con-
temporáneo. El pop art, en su sentido más amplio, legó a las vanguardias
una narrativa que aún hoy sigue siendo vital para las aspiraciones de los
movimientos artísticos emergentes.
más kitsch del momento, tomándolas como punto de partida para sus cua-
dros y seleccionándolas como postales que enviaban a D. H. Kahnweiler, su
agente y galerista.
Años más tarde el británico Independent Group, activo desde 1952, se vuel-
ca hacia el estudio y la reconsideración de la cultura popular así como
hacia el impacto de los medios de comunicación en el cuerpo social.
En una exposición titulada Parallel of Life and Art celebrada en el Institute
of Contemporary Arts (ICA) de Londres en 1953 y organizada por algunos
miembros del grupo, se exhibieron fotografías de la vida cotidiana y otras
extraídas de los medios de comunicación, junto a imágenes artísticas sin
que se establecieran jerarquías u órdenes, para que ambos registros se
confundieran entre sí. En palabras de Lynne Cohen: “[Lawrence] Alloway
[uno de los impulsores del Independent Group] acuñó el termino pop en un
principio para referirse al interés generalizado que despertaba la cultura
popular como lo expresaban los miembros del Independent Group en sus
discusiones, en sus lecturas y en sus otras actividades.”2
En general se ha subrayado la importancia de este grupo en la consolida-
ción tanto de una nueva mirada hacia la vida cotidiana, los medios de
comunicación y la publicidad como de la conciencia de que el futuro de
nuestra sociedad contemporánea pasaba por el análisis de estos estratos.3
El posterior triunfo del pop art norteamericano a principios de los años
sesenta eclipsa las aportaciones del Independent Group, por su mayor
capacidad sistemática y visual en la medida en que se apoya en un siste-
ma publicitario y consumista más desarrollado. Algunos artistas relevantes
del pop británico como Richard Hamilton se establecen en los Estados
Unidos, así como el propio Lawrence Alloway, mientras que, por lo general,
el resto de artistas británicos involucrados inicialmente en el pop se circuns-
criben a una pintura o una escultura que no desarrolla plenamente los pre-
supuestos apuntados por ellos mismos en los años cincuenta.
Sin embargo, el pop norteamericano surge de un modo espontáneo, sin
grupo ni manifiestos, sin programa, como un conjunto de individualidades
que se conectan de manera casual a través de las primeras exposiciones 2 Cohen, Lynne: “The Independent Group: British and
American Pop Art”, en Readings in High & Low, p. 204.
que dan cuenta del fenómeno. En sus aproximaciones a la cultura popular 3 En 1990, el ICA de Londres organizó una exposición
del consumo, sus figuras, sus personajes y sus productos, no hay análisis, retrospectiva sobre el Independent Group, que fue pre-
sentada posteriormente en el IVAM y viajó a Los Ángeles,
únicamente hay una apropiación sistemática y una conversión en iconos a Berkeley y Hannover (New Hampshire), editándose una
publicación muy completa sobre las actividades del
través de una operación visual alquímica que consiste en trasladarlos grupo.
45
y supone la permanente interrelación entre la cultura popular y la alta cul- 11 Ver texto de Bozal, Valeriano: “El arte pop en España”,
en cat. de exposición Arte pop. Museo Nacional Centro de
tura. Esto es algo que aparentemente no cuadra con las premisas iniciales Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid 1992, p. 241.
53
del pop, pero en los años ochenta incluso el propio Warhol llevará a sus
obras las imágenes de obras de Munch, De Chirico o la Última Cena de
Leonardo que constituirá uno de sus últimos grandes ciclos. Manolo Valdés,
tras la muerte de Solbes y la consiguiente disolución de Equipo Crónica, se
dedicará en solitario a una exploración de las posibilidades plásticas que
ofrece la relectura de la historia del arte y de la cultura universales desde el
abanico técnico que ofrece la tradición moderna.
La historia en el pop en España se sitúa también en el presente. Una actua-
lidad universal de deshumanización y de desasosiego. Es una historia en
clave de anticipación, en la que influyen, aunque sea de manera derivada,
narrativas tanto subjetivas (Kafka) como provenientes de la ciencia-ficción
literaria o cinematográfica. Un ejemplo de esta modalidad es la serie de
obras titulada Aislamiento de Anzo (José Iranzo Almonacid) en la que un
individuo se enfrenta en soledad a la máquina, al archivo, en definitiva a la
deshumanización. Anzo, que posee una excelente formación técnica a par-
tir de sus estudios en la Escuela de Artes y Oficios de Valencia y en la
Escuela Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona, y que trabajó activamente
en publicidad, experimentó con materiales y procedimientos de las artes
gráficas, convirtiéndose en uno de los pivotes del desarrollo del pop en
Valencia.12
Por otro lado y con otros planteamientos, Darío Villalba utilizará la fotogra-
fía como la herramienta base de su obra, expresando una visión trágica de
la existencia y de la condición humana.
En ambos casos son evidentes las filiaciones pop, y sin embargo no encon-
tramos los tópicos publicitarios o consumistas, pero tampoco narrativas pro-
piamente políticas, aunque su sentido último sea esencialmente político. Un
caso en el que la reivindicación política es el eje esencial de la obra, es la
pintura de Juan Genovés, en la que recurrentemente aparecen vistas aére-
as de manifestaciones en las que la masa huye o se desplaza, disgregándo-
se en individuos y con la visualidad de la fotografía.
Luis Gordillo es el artista que más se distancia de lo político. Su obra se cir-
cunscribe a una investigación plástica alejada incluso de los términos lite-
rales de la apropiación de esquemas publicitarios o mediáticos. Sus inte-
reses son otros, más conectados con el valor de los elementos visuales y
12 Ver el texto de Julián Gállego publicado en cat. de con el sentido simbólico que crean las atmósferas cromáticas. Así mismo
exposición de Anzo en las Salas de Exposiciones de la
Dirección general de Bellas Artes, Madrid 1974. se vuelca hacia el dibujo, hacia los elementos de cómic, narrativos o no,
54
El relato o los relatos de esta historia, no pueden ser lineales, y para com-
prenderlos en profundidad es necesario que no se centren únicamente en
el arte, también en la política y en lo social, en los iconos mediáticos del
cine, la canción, el toreo, el turismo y la publicidad o el cómic, que crecie-
ron al calor de la dictadura franquista tras la Guerra Civil, pero también
antes. Estos y otros íconos configuraron un universo de pacotilla, donde el
regusto kitsch despertó un humor ácido que se convirtió en una herramien-
ta de crítica social capaz de sortear las cortapisas de la censura del régi-
men. Las estrategias del pop ofrecieron un marco (no sólo visual, también
intelectual) que a partir de las contradicciones inscritas en esta enciclope-
dia iconográfica, suponían un punto de partida para la reflexión política y
social del presente. Este punto de partida facilitó que el pop perviviera en
formulaciones post o neo , en las que era esencial la aportación de un lega-
do de tradición conceptual, como una herramienta solvente para abordar
el subconsciente colectivo de todos los mitos hispánicos (que incluían natu-
ralmente también aquellos mitos nacionalistas periféricos). Quizás por eso
el pop se mantiene en España como un recurso post y neo hasta hoy
mismo. La lista podría ser interminable desde Manuel Sáez a Juan Ugalde
alimentando una herramienta de análisis más que un estilo.
Desde una óptica ortodoxa de la historia del arte, el pop en España funcio-
na como una excepción por la ausencia en los años sesenta de una socie-
dad consumista, homologable con las que funcionaban en Europa
Occidental o los Estados Unidos. No obstante, lo que funcionaba, y muy
bien, era un marco mediático popular sobre el que las instancias políticas
planeaban, pero del que tenían muy poca capacidad de control. El régimen
franquista intentaba servirse de ese archivo iconográfico para cumplir sus
objetivos nacionalistas y profundamente conservadores, pero por dentro el
sistema mediático del espectáculo nacional funcionaba de un modo excesi-
vamente anárquico e inquieto.
Las sevillanas, es el título de un gouache de 1966 de Equipo Crónica. Una
imagen de carácter fotográfico de unas bailaoras se repite en una secuen-
cia con formato de viñetas de cómic, y a medida que avanza el sentido de
la lectura se distorsionan generando una ampliación de tono caricaturesco.
En esta obra la ironía no se dirige hacia el baile o el flamenco, sino más bien
hacia el uso propagandístico que hizo el régimen franquista del flamenco,
56
y cuyo reflejo fue que en las juergas de las élites de la época nunca faltara
un cuadro flamenco como fin de fiesta o una visita a un tablao. Es el mundo
que entremezclado con el toreo fascinó a Ava Gadner o Errol Flint, pero
también y por otros motivos a Hemingway.
En España se fue gestando a lo largo del siglo XIX una peculiar cultura popu-
lar fundada en la heroicidad de la figura del torero y en el glamour “racial”
de las cantantes flamencas, folclóricas y de variedades, que en cierto senti-
do conforma una cultura del espectáculo precursora de la actual sociedad
mediática donde dominan el deporte, la moda, el star system del cine y de
las estrellas de rock.
Viaje por España de Charles Davillier es uno de los libros de viajes de la
etapa post-romántica más difundidos desde el siglo XIX. El barón Charles
Davillier viajó por España en 1862 acompañado de su amigo Gustave Doré,
que se encargó de ilustrar la edición: toros y baile ya constituían entonces
una atracción que era vista desde lo exótico por los extranjeros, pero que se
vivían como un ocio imprescindible por los españoles.
Esta tradición popular genera una iconografía de santos y santas, cantao-
ras que se parecen a vírgenes, pero que aparecen en el escenario como
alegorías del deseo. La publicidad de las primeras décadas del siglo XX
hacen acopio de este acervo para presentar a las naranjas sostenidas por
falleras o al aceite llevado de los pasos de una flamenca. Los toros, el baile
y el vino caminan parejos. Julio Romero de Torres es un pintor mediocre que
enlaza con un cierto simbolismo trasnochado entre los años veinte y los cua-
renta. Pero cuando La piconera, uno de sus cuadros más populares, pasa a
ser ilustración del billete de cien pesetas, en los años sesenta, salta a los
calendarios publicitarios, mostrando a sus morenas como imágenes de la
“puta santa”.
Eduardo Arroyo abordará todo ese imaginario con una mirada muy incisi-
va entre la ironía y lo grotesco, parodiando los símbolos de la “española-
da”16 pero con la intención de socavar la imagen idílica y ramplona que
proyectaba el régimen franquista. La parodia de Arroyo se centra inicial-
mente en la figura del torero como en Carancho (1962) o Cuatrodedos (1963) 16 Francisco Calvo Serraller en su texto “Españalada”,
como figura antiheroica del franquismo. En Sama de Langreo (Asturias), incluido en el cat. de la exposición dedicada a Arroyo en
el MNCA Reina Sofía de Madrid en 1998, aborda la pri-
septembre 1963. La femme du mineur Pérez Martínez, Constantina (dite mera etapa del pintor en París desde la revisión paródi-
ca de los símbolos de la cultura popular de lo español. A
Tina) tondue par la police (1970) aborda la fisonomía de cantantes de coplas, este respecto ver también el texto “Eduardo Arroyo,
aguafiestas” de Germaine Viatte, incluido en la misma
que tienden a superponerse a los rostros de las imágenes de vírgenes que publicación.
57
salen a las calles en las procesiones de Semana Santa, para aplicarla a esta
mujer represaliada realizando un deslizamiento de sentidos que muestran
el rostro de la represión política al modo de un martirio actualizado, entre el
trasfondo religioso y la parafernalia pseudotrágica de la canción y la copla.
En otra obra, Caballero español, también de 1970, la silueta redondeada y
esbelta de las bailaoras de flamenco es asumida por un rostro de sex-
symbol ibérico de pelo engominado y bigotito recortado que acabó por
identificarse con un prototipo de señorito fascista español, y en este caso el
deslizamiento es no sólo político sino también social en la medida en que se
cuestiona el machismo que propiciaba el ámbito social franquista. En Chien
espagnol (1964), un pastor alemán, el perro preferido por la policía en sus
actividades represivas, se abanica con picardía grotesca al estilo de una
maja goyesca, sobre el fondo de un paisaje de colores apastelados. Desde
el toreo al abanico pasando por las figuras de vírgenes y coplistas, y dete-
niéndose en la obra más costumbrista de Goya, que incluye a las majas,
también pasadas por el rodillo de los calendarios comerciales y promocio-
nales, constituían los símbolos más auténticamente rancios de la cultura
popular de la España del franquismo, hasta los años setenta.
El cine ha ido siguiendo procedimientos paralelos de relectura paródica,
más allá de “la Movida” madrileña (que debería considerarse un genuino
fenómeno post-pop).Las películas de los cuarenta fijan unos prototipos que
son releídos en los ochenta bajo la óptica del disparate, especialmente en
la filmografía de Pedro Almodóvar o Álex de la Iglesia, pero también en la
saga de Torrente dirigida e interpretada por Santiago Segura que será la
última expresión de la mentalidad franca y cateta de una tradición popu-
lar casposa, junto a las recreaciones de Guillermo Fesser que muestran
más allá de ese halo cutre un humor muy vivo que conforma el mundo
televisivo de la España actual, insertado en una nueva cultura popular
mediática.
En España el pop entra por los ojos de lo político, dejando a un lado los
espacios de comerciales de un consumo entre lo incipiente y lo inexistente,
no se conoce la opulencia sino la subsistencia, pero sobre ella se instala una
iconografía que sustenta aún hoy la legitimidad de un análisis pop que no
es estrictamente comercial y que cala en lo social.
Lluís Fernández
POP ART
¿Apropiación indebida?
“De este modo, después de la abundancia experimental de las vanguardias, sería la era del
vacío estético la que tomaría el relevo.”
Yves Cusset, Réflexions sur l’esthétique contemporaine
Richard Hamilton
Just What is it that Makes Today’s Homes so Different, so
Appealing?, 1956
Kunsthalle Tübingen, Zundel Collection
61
Modernidad y posmodernidad
Pero, volviendo a aquellos años inaugurales, para Dwight Macdonald la
masscult era una parodia de la cultura superior, “indiferente a cualquier cri-
terio de valoración”. Esta postura intelectual, de corte elitista, es la que pro-
duce, por reacción, el efecto posmoderno: considerar la producción en
masa como algo indigno, aunque al asumirla irónicamente en los cuadros
de Paolozzi, Blake y Richard Hamilton, se produce sobre la cultura un efec-
to demoledor.
La condición posmoderna es, en apariencia, ingenua, y paradójica. Pese a
la crítica banal de la sociedad de consumo que seguirá explotando hasta el
hartazgo la crítica de izquierdas y que Michelangelo Antonioni hace esta-
llar simbólicamente en la secuencia final de la piscina en Zabriskie Point
(1970), la “casa moderna” de Hamilton, los símbolos de estatus de la indus-
tria cultural emergen a cámara lenta, mostrándose, confundidos, como
emblemas de la horrísona cultura de masas. Lo paradójico es que, al intro-
ducir estos elementos espurios en el arte de vanguardia, quedan asimilados
performativamente a la alta cultura. Poco importa ya que el pop art sea “un
arte acerca de signos y sistemas de signos”, según la definición de
Lawrence Alloway. Con el paso del tiempo, es evidente que la homologa-
ción afectó a ambas partes, quedando relegado a un plano reprimido una
verdad: que las bellas artes fueron las que descendieron al nivel de las Arts
& Crafts, asimilándose progresivamente a la cultura basura.
Quizás ése fuera el único camino para sobrevivir que le quedara a las van-
guardias: resguardar ese lugar sagrado que tradicionalmente ocupaba el
“arte sublime” ante el acoso del vacío conceptual y la prevalencia de lo que
hoy se considera como estética contemporánea o, según Arthur C. Danto,
“momento poshistórico”. En ¿Ha muerto el arte moderno?, Suzi Gablik ya
65
Alexander Kosolapov
Lenin–Coca–Cola, 1991
Colección del artista. Cortesía de la Galerie Farideh Cadot, París
69
El crítico Tomàs Llorens, que mantuvo una estrecha relación con Equipo
Crónica durante toda la trayectoria de éste, y Manuel Valdés, el único expo-
nente vivo del grupo, retroceden hasta 1964 para desandar el camino reco-
rrido por Equipo Crónica, para hablar de sus contemporáneos y, en gene-
ral, del mundo que les tocó vivir.
73
Tomàs Llorens
C. C.: Un solo crítico rodeado de artistas. ¿Cuál era su función dentro del
grupo?
Equipo Crónica
K.O., 1966
IVAM Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Generalitat
Donación de Andreu Alfaro
75
C. C.: Sin embargo, Warhol trató temas inequívocamente políticos: los dis-
turbios raciales de 1963 –el año en que Martin Luther King se manifestó en
Washington contra la discriminación y para reivindicar la igualdad de
derechos entre las razas–, las representaciones de políticos como Kennedy,
Lenin y Mao, o la serie Camouflage de los ochenta en la que recreaba a una
Estatua de la Libertad cubierta de ese camuflaje.
T. Ll.: Sí, es cierto que tales obras juegan con esa posibilidad; pero no creo
que haya una postura programática al respecto, son, más que nada, expe-
rimentos.
C. C.: Obras como Metamorfosis del piloto (1965) de Equipo Crónica, por
poner un ejemplo, son inequívocamente didácticas. Algunas recuerdan al
ABC de la guerra de Brecht, un compendio de fotografías de guerra que el
autor alemán recortó de los periódicos durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial
y a las que agregó un poema satírico y mordaz. Una fotografía de septiem-
bre de 1940, el mes en que la Luftwaffe bombardeó Londres, muestra a unos
aprensivos pilotos alemanes en la cabina del avión y está acompañada de
las siguientes líneas:
“Somos los que sobre tu ciudad volamos,
¡Oh, mujer, que por tus hijos lloras!
Te tenemos, junto con ellos, en nuestra diana.
Y si nos preguntas porqué, pues: Por miedo.”2
T. Ll.: Todos los miembros de Equipo Crónica tenían una formación literaria.
Quien mejor conocía los diarios fotográficos de Brecht era Rafael Solbes. La
influencia de Brecht está presente en los trabajos de Estampa Popular; pero
lo que no hay en Brecht, que sí se puede encontrar en Equipo Crónica o en
Estampa Popular, es la introducción de los mecanismos del lenguaje visual
de la publicidad, como la serialización.
T. Ll.: La crítica hacia el régimen fue uno de los pilares fundamentales tanto
de Estampa Popular como de Equipo Crónica.
Equipo Crónica
Avionetas, 1966
Colección particular
79
Equipo Crónica
La Huelga, 1965
IVAM Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Generalitat
Donación de Manuel Valdés
T. Ll.: Pero es que el pop inglés es el padre del pop americano. Lawrence
Alloway es el crítico que quizás mejor haya definido el pop y antes que
nadie, desde luego, mucho antes de que alguien escribiera sobre pop en los
Estados Unidos. Luego Alloway se fue a vivir a Estados Unidos donde estu-
vo completamente marginado. Recuerdo que le comenté a Leo Castelli que
el pop inglés era anterior al pop americano y que Alloway era uno de los
críticos fundadores del movimiento, y Leo Castelli me dijo que Alloway era
un marxista y que no tenía nada que ver con el pop. Creo que la actitud de
Castelli refleja una postura muy generalizada que sigue prevaleciendo en
el mundo anglosajón.
81
Manuel Valdés
Equipo Crónica
La metamorfosis del piloto, 1965
IVAM Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Generalitat
82
C. C.: ¿Ese viaje a París fue su primer contacto con la pintura abstracta?
ción! Me di cuenta de que no sólo se pinta con un pincel: uno pinta con la
pintura y a mí eso me brindó una gran libertad.
C. C.: ¿Por qué decidió formar parte de un grupo en lugar de seguir por su
cuenta?
M. V.: España era un país muy convulso en esa época y esos temas opues-
tos encarnaban la agitación del momento; el turismo porque traía gente del
exterior que introducía nuevas costumbres y en el lado opuesto estaba la
inmigración. La democracia todavía no había llegado, así que nos propusi-
mos abordar esa situación de libertad restringida que nosotros mismos está-
bamos sufriendo. En ese momento todavía éramos un grupo de cinco o seis
artistas que solo pensaba en cómo trabajar esos temas de forma colectiva.
Todos estábamos muy unidos a Estampa Popular, un grupo de grabadores
que funcionaba ya en otros lugares de España, fundamentalmente en
Madrid, y los compañeros de Madrid nos preguntaron a los valencianos,
que éramos más o menos los cinco o seis artistas de ese grupo, si queríamos
sumarnos al movimiento. Así que nos pusimos en contacto con algunos
artistas de Barcelona e iniciamos un proyecto paralelo, así que, de algún
modo, la experiencia de Estampa Popular nos acabó llevando hasta Equipo
Crónica. Todo ese proceso fue muy lento, pero poco a poco, desde dentro del
grupo, Solbes, Toledo y yo empezamos a encontrar puntos comunes y a visi-
tarnos con frecuencia. Yo iba al estudio de Solbes a ver los cuadros en los
84
M. V.: En ese momento el partido político que más oposición hacía al régi- 4 Manuel Valdés se refiere al manifiesto de 1964 “Crónica
de la Realidad”, de Vicente Aguilera Cerni (1920-2005).
men de Franco era el Partido Comunista, y la mayoría de sus actividades
5 Suma y sigue, una revista de arte y arquitectura que
eran clandestinas. En los primeros tiempos de Equipo Crónica tuvimos bue- editó Aguilera Cerni durante los cincuenta y sesenta.
85
nas relaciones con José Ortega, miembro del partido y amigo de Picasso,
que era el encargado de garantizar la buena salud de la oposición. Dentro
del partido, Ortega se ocupaba de todo lo que tuviera que ver con la pintu-
ra, y cuando nuestro grupo hacía exposiciones siempre nos poníamos en
contacto con él. Y luego, casi todos lo intelectuales de Valencia, incluidos
nosotros y mucha gente a nuestro alrededor, éramos militantes de carné.
Dentro del partido, hacíamos el papel de artistas y el de activistas políticos:
intentábamos que en España hubiera normalidad política.
M. V.: Exhibíamos más fuera que dentro de España, y para sacar las obras
del país solíamos declarar que eran cualquier otra cosa para no tener pro-
86
blemas. Una vez teníamos una exposición en Italia y recuerdo que Solbes y
yo les dijimos a los de aduanas que éramos estudiantes de arte en viaje de
estudios. Teníamos que camuflar de alguna manera los temas de las obras
y queríamos estar fuera de la legalidad porque así no pagábamos impues-
tos, era también un gesto de rebeldía.
Cuando los comisarios [Tomàs Llorens y Valeriano Bozal] nos invitaron a
participar en la Biennale di Venezia de 1976, que, en realidad, era una invi-
tación del Gobierno español, ¡yo ni siquiera tenía pasaporte! Es decir, llegó
un momento en que las cosas empezaron a relajarse, pero incluso entonces
seguimos sufriendo el incordio de la represión. En otra ocasión, nos hicieron
un juicio público por haber hecho un cartel sobre Hô Chi Minh. Nunca supi-
mos la razón verdadera del juicio: si era porque habíamos hecho un cartel
de Hô Chi Minh o si era una manera de castigarnos porque temían que fué-
semos comunistas. Era un poco de todo.
M. V.: Por supuesto; estábamos más cerca del pop británico porque su movi-
miento, al igual que el nuestro, era marginal. El pop británico no estaba tan
presente a nivel internacional porque el norteamericano había acaparado
toda la atención. Pero, a pesar de esa afinidad, nuestros ojos estaban clava-
dos en Lichtenstein y en Warhol.
87
M. V.: En general, estábamos muy influenciados por el pop, aunque nos gus-
taban mucho las imágenes de Warhol y de Lichtenstein. Pero utilizábamos
sus imágenes al igual que también utilizábamos las de otros artistas.
los artistas del pop americano en Estados Unidos todavía eran unos desco-
nocidos. Eso no era cierto porque la Biennale di Venezia había presentado
al pop norteamericano ante una audiencia internacional unos años antes;
pero el caso es que Lichtenstein estaba encantado de que su reputación
hubiese llegado tan lejos y tan rápido. También me preguntaba mucho
sobre España, tenía curiosidad sobre lo que estaba pasando en ese lugar
en los confines de la tierra, y cuando le dije que él me interesaba más que
Warhol me dijo, otra vez medio en broma: “¡Menos mal! Porque aquí toda-
vía no se han enterado de que mi trabajo es mejor.”
C. C.: ¿Dónde vio por primera vez la obra de Lichtenstein? ¿En publicaciones?
C. C.: Para todos los artistas, como usted, que militaban en la izquierda, la
férrea alianza entre España y los Estados Unidos debe de haber sido muy
incómoda. Tras la Guerra Civil, los Estados Unidos fue una de las primeras
naciones en reconocer el régimen de Franco, una decisión claramente
estratégica, puesto que la presencia de Estados Unidos en España creció
exponencialmente en las décadas de la posguerra con la construcción de
varias bases militares que todavía siguen en pie. ¿Cómo vivió todo esto?
M. V.: Vivimos una especie de esquizofrenia porque, por una parte, estába-
mos condenados, influenciados, como quiera llamarlo, por la cultura ame-
ricana. Y por otra, hacíamos cosas como ponernos a tirar piedras al
Instituto de Valencia, que era una biblioteca americana y que tenía una
función muy positiva que no era otra que prestar libros. Es decir, hacíamos
una diferencia que seguramente no era la correcta. Pero creo que hay que
tener en cuenta que este tipo de cosas siguen vigentes: a pesar del antia-
89
M. V.: Lo que hicieron Arroyo, Recalcati y Gilles Aillaud eran más bien
acciones, que tenían más que ver con Duchamp que con otras cosas más
puntuales. Lo que tiene de particular Equipo Crónica es que duró mucho
tiempo. Lo nuestro era bastante inusual y, además, procedíamos de un sitio
tan aislado que acabo convirtiéndose en nuestra tabla de salvación.
Equipo Crónica
El realismo socialista y el pop art en el campo de batalla, 1969
Colección Manuel Valdés, Madrid
M. V.: No; ni siquiera he visto la exposición porque todas estas cosas sobre
Equipo Crónica siempre me han dado escalofríos. Cuando se tiene un cono-
cimiento tan preciso de algo, cuando vuelves a mirarlo, siempre parece
deformado porque las lecturas de las obras son tan diversas como los pro-
cedimientos para ejecutarlas. Y, claro, no soy tan tonto como para pensar
que los demás no pueden tener un conocimiento tan preciso o más que el
mío sobre la obra de Crónica. Exposiciones como ésta forman parte de la
trayectoria de la vida de un artista, pero la verdad es que no las sigo por-
que no me interesan, el pasado es pasado y punto.
94
Valerio Adami
Il ragazzo nella fotografia della pagina accanto (El muchacho en la fotografía de la página de al lado), 1974 Lápiz sobre papel, 48 x 36 cm
95
Valerio Adami
Musa, 1975 Lápiz sobre papel, 36 x 48 cm
Valerio Adami
Plein Air N.Y. (Aire libre N. Y.), 1968 Acrílico sobre lienzo, 243,5 x 493,5 cm
98
Gilles Aillaud
Le jour et la nuit (El día y la noche), 1963 Óleo sobre lienzo, 64 x 163 cm
99
100
Alberto Greco
XXV años de Paz, 1964 Técnica mixta y collage sobre papel, 50 x 65 cm
101
Alberto Greco
Todo de todo, 1964 Collage de papel sobre madera, 70 x 100 cm
102
Anzo
Aislamiento 7, 1967 Técnica mixta (Fotolito de aluminio presensibilizado y entintado), 128,5 x 63 cm
103
104
105
Eduardo Arroyo
El regreso de Companys a Barcelona, 1970 Óleo sobre lienzo, 195 x 410 cm
106
Eduardo Arroyo
Sama de Langreo, Asturias, septiembre 1963, 1970 Óleo sobre lienzo, 162 x 130 cm
107
Eduardo Arroyo
José María Blanco White amenazado por sus seguidores en el mismo Londres, 1978 Óleo sobre lienzo, 200 x 230 cm
108
109
Eduardo Arroyo
Robinson Crusoe, 1965 Óleo sobre lienzo, 220 x 180 cm
John Baldessari
A Fable Concerning Power (with Football Player and Person on Scooter) (Maquette) (Una fábula sobre el poder [con jugador de fútbol americano y persona con scooter] [Maqueta]), 1991
Fotocopia, gouache y lápiz de color sobre papel, 69,9 x 83,9 cm Donación Galería Cobo y Alexander
111
John Baldessari
A Fable Concerning Power (with Football Player and Person on Scooter) (Una fábula sobre el poder [con jugador de fútbol americano y persona con scooter]), 1991
Gelatina de plata y fotografías color con óleo y acrílico sobre papel, 327,6 x 393,7 cm
112
John Baldessari
Cross Glances (Miradas cruzadas), s.f. Gelatina de plata (7 fotografías de película intervenidas con lápiz rojo y montadas sobre cartón pluma), 64,8 x 137 cm
Donación Brooke Alexander Editions, Nueva York
113
114
Richard Bosman
Leap (Salto), 1983 Óleo sobre lienzo, 183,5 x 122 cm
John Chamberlain
Oh, Absolutely (Oh, Absolutamente), 1992
Acero cromado y pintado, 158,7 x 96,2 x 143,5 cm
116
Stamp blotters, rearing and traveling (Secantes, echado hacia atrás y deslizándose), 1990 Técnica mixta (Tinta, lápiz, aguada y collage), sobre papel, 26,9 x 20,3 cm
Bottle of Notes (model) (Botella de notas [Maqueta]), ca. 1989-90 Aluminio, látex y poliestireno expandido, 271,8 x 124,4 x 99 cm
118
119
Claes Oldenburg
Study for Poster: Punching Bag (to announce a print to benefit the Foundation of Contemporary Performing Arts) (Estudio para poster: Punching bag), 1967
Técnica mixta (Acuarela, cera crayon, lápiz grafito y de color, celo y collage) sobre papel, 44,3 x 64,5 cm
Soft Car (Coche blando), 1968 Acuarela y lápiz graso y grafito sobre papel, 36,8 x 66,2 cm
Saw Handle (Mango de sierra), 1966 Técnica mixta (Acuarela, lápiz grafito y de color y collage sobre cartón ondulado), 103 x 149 cm
120
Sigmar Polke
Ohne Titel (Hochstand) (Sin título [Torre de vigilancia]), 1984 Óleo sobre plástico de burbujas, 300 x 225 cm
121
122
Polke / Richter
Ohne Titel (Sin título), 1968
Litografía foto offset sobre papel, 46,7 x 67,3 cm
Sigmar Polke
Hände (Manos), 1973
Litografía foto offset sobre papel impreso, 45,4 x 62,4 cm
Yves Klein
F95, de la serie Peintures feux, 1961 Cartón quemado, 70 x 80 cm
125
Yves Klein
Cosmogony (COS 43), de la serie Anthropometries, 1960 Técnica mixta (Pigmento azul y resina sintética) sobre papel montado sobre panel, 74,5 x 107,5 cm
126
Richard Prince
Untitled (For Catherine Deneuve) (Sin título [Para Catherine Deneuve]), 1987 Proceso cromogénico sobre papel, 220 x 120 cm
127
128
Richard Prince
Untitled (Cowboys) (Sin título [Vaqueros]), 1986 Proceso cromogénico sobre papel, 70 x 102 cm
Terrorist or Friend? (¿Terrorista o amigo?), 1989 Acrílico y serigrafía sobre lienzo, 173 x 122,5 cm
129
130
Equipo Crónica
Guernica, 1971 Serigrafía sobre papel, 75,3 x 55,4 cm Donación Manuel Valdés
Chile (Prueba), 1977 Serigrafía sobre papel, 65 x 50,1 cm Donación Manuel Valdés
131
Equipo Crónica
América, América, 1965 Linóleo sobre papel, 100 x 70,4 cm Donación Andreu Alfaro
Sin título (El industrial), 1967 Técnica mixta (Collage, gouache y tinta) sobre papel, 46 x 33 cm Donación Andreu Alfaro
132
Equipo Crónica
La bandeja, 1966 Gouache sobre papel, 53 x 72 cm
Donación Andreu Alfaro
Equipo Crónica
Guerrilleros (Grupo guerrillero), 1966 Gouache sobre papel, 40 x 55 cm
Donación Andreu Alfaro
Equipo Realidad
Hogar, dulce hogar (Mi parcela tropical), 1972 Acrílico y óleo sobre lienzo, 150 x 598,5 cm
136
Equipo Realidad
Edificio de la Telefónica barcelonesa sede de la CNT y retrato del jefe de la policia Rodríguez Salas, protagonistas de los sucesos de mayo de 1937, 1974 Óleo sobre lienzo, 170 x 170 cm
137
138
Equipo Realidad
Vista del Hospital Clínico de la Ciudad Universitaria de Madrid en 1937, 1973 Óleo sobre lienzo, 150 x 150 cm
139
Equipo Realidad
José Díaz, secretario general del PCE durante la tramitación de la crisis de 1937, 1974 Óleo sobre lienzo, 140 x 140 cm
140
Equipo Realidad
Aviones bombardeando los alrededores de Oviedo nº 2, 1973 Óleo sobre lienzo, 150 x 150 cm
141
Equipo Realidad
Vista del castillo de Villafranca de Brunete en 1937, 1974 Óleo sobre lienzo, 140 x 140 cm
142
Öyvind Fahlström
Notes for Seesaws (Notas para balancines), 1968 Técnica mixta (Acuarela. lápiz y tinta) sobre papel, 35,8 x 42,3 cm
143
Öyvind Fahlström
Red Seesaw (Balancín rojo), ca. 1968-69 Técnica mixta (Madera, metal, cartón y pintura), 115 x 233,7 x 18,5 cm
146
Juan Genovés
Uno, dos, siete, siete, 1968 Acrílico sobre lienzo, 130 x 120 cm
147
148
149
Manuel Sáez
Réplica Racional, 1999-2000 Acuarela sobre papel. Políptico de 4 piezas de configuración variable, 56,5 x 76,5 cm Donación del artista
150
Luis Gordillo
Gruyère D, 1983 Acrílico sobre lienzo, 210 x 170 cm
151
152
Luis Gordillo
Cabeza sonriente, 1964 Óleo sobre lienzo, 92,3 x 73,7 cm Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid
153
Luis Gordillo
El hombre-vespa, 1966 Técnica mixta sobre lienzo, 116 x 162 cm Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid
154
Luis Gordillo
Estudio para los peatones, ca. 1966 Técnica mixta (Grafito, óleo y collage) sobre papel, 44,2 x 32,2 cm Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid
155
Luis Gordillo
Peatones, 1967 Técnica mixta (Tinta y lápiz de color) sobre papel, 25,7 x 35,5 cm Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid
156
Luis Gordillo
Bombo unitario, 1967 Óleo sobre lienzo, 99,7 x 88,5 cm Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid
157
Luis Gordillo
Sin título, 1973 Técnica mixta sobre cartulina, 29 x 42 cm Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid
Sin título, 1973 Técnica mixta (Bolígrafo de color, lápiz de color y acuarela) sobre papel, 26 x 17,3 cm Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid
Sin título, 1972 Bolígrafo sobre papel, 15,3 x 20,3 cm Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid
158
Richard Hamilton
Release (Liberación), 1969 Collage y serigrafía a partir de un estarcido fotográfico y 16 recortados a mano, 70,3 x 95 cm
159
Richard Hamilton
Swingeing London III (Abrumador Londres III), 1972 Collage y serigrafía, 24 plantillas cortadas a mano sobre papel moldeado Hodkinson, 70,1 x 94,2 cm
160
Richard Hamilton
Fashion Plate (Ilustración de moda), ca. 1969-70 Técnica mixta (Litografía de foto offset, collage, serigrafía de 2 plantillas y retocado con cosméticos) sobre papel Fabriano, 99,3 x 69 cm
161
Richard Hamilton
Self-Portrait 13.7.80 a (Autorretrato 13.7.80 a), 1990 Proceso reversible al blanqueo de plata y esmalte Humbrol sobre lienzo, 75,4 x 75,3 cm
162
Richard Hamilton
Swingeing London 67 - poster (Abrumador Londres 67 - poster), 1968 Litografía foto offset sobre papel, edición P.A., 69,5 x 49,5 cm
163
Richard Hamilton
The Citizen (El ciudadano), 1985 Proceso cromogénico sobre papel, 64 x 63 cm
164
Richard Hamilton
Epiphany (Epifanía), ca. 1987-89 Celulosa sobre aluminio prensado y pintado, 112 cm Ø
165
Artur Heras
Blau (Azul), 1973 Acrílico sobre lienzo, 100 x 100 cm
166
Jasper Johns
0, de la serie Black and White Numerals: Figures from 0-9, 1968 Litografía en negro y gris sobre papel German Copperlate Deluxe, 94 x 76 cm
4, de la serie Black and White Numerals: Figures from 0-9, 1968 Litografía en negro y gris sobre papel German Copperlate Deluxe, 94 x 76 cm
167
168
Jasper Johns
5, de la serie Black and White Numerals: Figures from 0-9, 1968 Litografía en negro y gris sobre papel German Copperlate Deluxe, publicado por Gemini G.E.L., 94 x 76 cm
6, de la serie Black and White Numerals: Figures from 0-9, 1968 Litografía en negro y gris sobre papel German Copperlate Deluxe, publicado por Gemini G.E.L., 94 x 76 cm
169
Jasper Johns
8, de la serie Black and White Numerals: Figures from 0-9, 1968 Litografía en negro y gris sobre papel German Copperlate Deluxe, publicado por Gemini G.E.L., 94 x 76 cm
9, de la serie Black and White Numerals: Figures from 0-9, 1968 Litografía en negro y gris sobre papel German Copperlate Deluxe, publicado por Gemini G.E.L., 94 x 76 cm
170
Jasper Johns
1, de la serie Black and White Numerals: Figures from 0-9, 1968 Litografía en negro y gris sobre papel German Copperlate Deluxe, 94 x 76 cm
2, de la serie Black and White Numerals: Figures from 0-9, 1968 Litografía en negro y gris sobre papel German Copperlate Deluxe, 94 x 76 cm
171
Jasper Johns
3, de la serie Black and White Numerals: Figures from 0-9, 1968 Litografía en negro y gris sobre papel German Copperlate Deluxe, 94 x 76 cm
7, de la serie Black and White Numerals: Figures from 0-9, 1968 Litografía en negro y gris sobre papel German Copperlate Deluxe, 94 x 76 cm
172
Alex Katz
Wet Evening (Noche húmeda), 1986 Óleo sobre lienzo, 335 x 335 cm
173
Richard Lindner
Rear window (La ventana de atrás), 1971 Óleo sobre lienzo, 175 x 220 cm
174
Robert Rauschenberg
Glacial Decoy Series (Etching I-V) (Serie Trampa glacial [Grabado I-V]), 1979 Aguafuerte sobre papel suizo, 62 x 42 cm
177
178
Robert Rauschenberg
Sin título, 1968 Litografía foto offset sobre papel, 87,7 x 66,1 cm
179
180
181
Robert Rauschenberg
XXXIV Drawings for Dante’s Inferno (XXXIV dibujos para el Infierno de Dante), 1969 Offset sobre papel, 36,7 x 29 cm
182
183
184
185
186
Robert Rauschenberg
Prize, 1969 Litografía sobre papel, 39,5 x 40,5 cm
187
Martial Raysse
Visage en bleu (Rostro en azul), 1963 Acrílico sobre lienzo sobre reproducción fotográfica en papel, 146 x 97 cm
188
Josep Renau
Las hembras no deben luchar, 1972 Fotomontaje original de fotografías en gelatina de plata sobre papel coloreadas a mano, recortadas y pegadas sobre cartón, 53,1 x 38,6 cm
Depósito Fundació Renau, Valencia
Josep Renau
Beautiful, 1967 Fotomontaje sobre papel, 58,7 x 41,4 cm Depósito Fundació Renau, Valencia
Sociedad de consumo, 1972 Fotomontaje original de fotografías en gelatina de plata sobre papel coloreadas a mano, recortadas y pegadas sobre cartón, 68 x 47,9 cm
Depósito Fundació Renau, Valencia
Autodespotismo, 1973 Fotomontaje sobre papel, 68 x 41,7 cm Depósito Fundació Renau, Valencia
190
Gerhard Richter
Farbtafeln (Paleta de colores), 1971 Serigrafía sobre papel, 59,9 x 86 cm
191
Gerhard Richter
Auto, 1969 Offset sobre cartón, 36,5 x 45,8 cm
192
Gerhard Richter
Kanarische Landschaften (Campos canarios), 1971 Heliograbados aguatinta sobre papel, 39,3 x 49,6 cm
193
Gerhard Richter
Seestück (Marina), 1969 Litografía foto offset sobre papel, 50,7 x 49 cm
194
Gerhard Richter
Seestück (Marina), 1970 Litografía foto offset sobre papel, 59,5 x 44,8 cm Donación Brooke Alexander, Nueva York
195
Gerhard Richter
Kanarische Inseln (Islas Canarias), 1970 Óleo sobre lienzo, 120,5 x 150,5 cm
196
James Rosenquist
Red Applause (Aplauso rojo), 1966 Óleo sobre lienzo. Dos paneles móviles unidos y motor eléctrico, 148,2 x 86,7 cm Donación del artista, Aripeka, EEUU
197
James Rosenquist
Blue spark (Chispa azul), 1962 Técnica mixta (Óleo, caña de bambú, cuerda, anzuelo y tejido) sobre lienzo, 121,5 x 152,5 x 42,5 cm
198
Antonio Saura
Fiesta de cóctel, 1960 Collage, gouache y tinta sobre papel, 69 x 98 cm
199
200
Cindy Sherman
Untitled, Film Still nº 6 (Girl in black bra; white panties) (Fotograma de película, sin título, nº 6 [Muchacha en sujetador negro; bragas blancas]), 1979 Gelatina de plata sobre papel, 25,4 x 20,5 cm
Untitled (Sin título), 1978 Gelatina de plata sobre papel, copia 1/10 de época, 24 x 16,5 cm Depósito Colección Ordóñez-Falcón, San Sebastián
201
Cindy Sherman
Untitled (Sin título), 1979 4 fotomaquetas en proceso cromogénico sobre papel, 8,8 x 12,3 cm
202
Cindy Sherman
Untiltled, Film Still nº 21 (Fotograma de película, sin título, nº 21), 1978 Gelatina de plata sobre papel, 20,3 x 25,4 cm
Untitled, Film Still nº 53 (Fotograma de película, sin título, nº 53), 1980 Gelatina de plata sobre papel, 20,4 x 25,2 cm
203
Cindy Sherman
Untitled, Film Still Life (Fotograma, sin título), 1978 Gelatina de plata sobre papel, copia 3/10 de época, 18,9 x 24 cm Depósito Colección Ordóñez-Falcón, San Sebastián
204
Hervé Télémaque
La Scène (L´homme à la cicatrice) (La escena [El hombre de la cicatriz]), 1970 Acrílico sobre lienzo, 120 x 240 cm
205
Darío Villalba
Místico, 1974 Gelatina de plata y técnica mixta sobre lienzo, 200 x 160 cm
207
Índice de artistas
John Baldessari
Valerio Adami
A Fable Concerning Power (with Football Player and Person on Scooter) (Maquette) (Una fábula
Plein Air N.Y. (Aire libre N. Y.), 1968
sobre el poder [con jugador de fútbol americano y persona con scooter] [Maqueta]), 1991
Acrílico sobre lienzo, 243,5 x 493,5 cm
Fotocopia, gouache y lápiz de color sobre papel, 69,9 x 83,9 cm
Rep. pág. 96-97
Donación Galería Cobo y Alexander
Rep. pág. 110
Gilles Aillaud
Le jour et la nuit (El día y la noche), 1963
John Baldessari
Óleo sobre lienzo, 64 x 163 cm
A Fable Concerning Power (with Football Player and Person on Scooter) (Una fábula sobre el
Rep. pág. 99
poder [con jugador de fútbol americano y persona con scooter]), 1991
Gelatina de plata y fotografías color con óleo y acrílico sobre papel, 327,6 x 393,7 cm
Anzo
Aislamiento 7, 1967 Rep. pág. 111
Equipo Realidad
Equipo Crónica
Vista del Hospital Clínico de la Ciudad Universitaria de Madrid en 1937, 1973
Chile (Prueba), 1977
Óleo sobre lienzo, 150 x 150 cm
Serigrafía sobre papel, 65 x 50,1 cm
Rep. pág. 138
Donación Manuel Valdés
Rep. pág. 130
Equipo Realidad
José Díaz, secretario general del PCE durante la tramitación de la crisis de 1937, 1974
Equipo Crónica
Óleo sobre lienzo, 140 x 140 cm
América, América, 1965 Rep. pág. 139
Linóleo sobre papel, 100 x 70,4 cm
Donación Andreu Alfaro Equipo Realidad
Rep. pág. 131 Aviones bombardeando los alrededores de Oviedo nº 2, 1973
Óleo sobre lienzo, 150 x 150 cm
Equipo Crónica Rep. pág. 140
Sin título (El industrial), 1967
Técnica mixta (Collage, gouache y tinta) sobre papel, 46 x 33 cm Equipo Realidad
Donación Andreu Alfaro Vista del castillo de Villafranca de Brunete en 1937, 1974
Rep. pág. 131 Óleo sobre lienzo, 140 x 140 cm
Rep. pág. 141
Equipo Crónica
La bandeja, 1966 Öyvind Fahlström
Gouache sobre papel, 53 x 72 cm Notes for Seesaws (Notas para balancines), 1968
Donación Andreu Alfaro Técnica mixta (Acuarela. lápiz y tinta) sobre papel, 35,8 x 42,3 cm
Rep. pág. 132 Rep. pág. 143
Öyvind Fahlström
Equipo Crónica
Red Seesaw (Balancín rojo), ca. 1968-69
La cinta, 1966
Técnica mixta (Madera, metal, cartón y pintura), 115 x 233,7 x 18,5 cm
Gouache sobre papel, 65 x 94,8 cm
Rep. pág. 144-145
Donación Andreu Alfaro
Rep. pág. 132
Juan Genovés
Uno, dos, siete, siete, 1968
Equipo Crónica
Acrílico sobre lienzo, 130 x 120 cm
Guerrilleros (Grupo guerrillero), 1966
Rep. pág. 147
Gouache sobre papel, 40 x 55 cm
Donación Andreu Alfaro Luis Gordillo
Rep. pág. 133 Gruyère D, 1983
Acrílico sobre lienzo, 210 x 170 cm
Equipo Crónica Rep. pág. 151
Las sevillanas (Folclore), 1966
Gouache sobre papel, 50,5 x 48,5 cm Luis Gordillo
Donación Andreu Alfaro Cabeza sonriente, 1964
Rep. pág. 133 Óleo sobre lienzo, 92,3 x 73,7 cm
211
Richard Hamilton
Luis Gordillo
Swingeing London 67 - poster (Abrumador Londres 67 - poster), 1968
Bombo unitario, 1967
Litografía foto offset sobre papel, edición P.A., 69,5 x 49,5 cm
Óleo sobre lienzo, 99,7 x 88,5 cm
Rep. pág. 162
Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid
Rep. pág. 156
Richard Hamilton
The Citizen (El ciudadano), 1985
Luis Gordillo
Proceso cromogénico sobre papel, 64 x 63 cm
Sin título, 1973
Rep. pág. 163
Técnica mixta sobre cartulina, 29 x 42 cm
Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid
Richard Hamilton
Rep. pág. 157
Epiphany (Epifanía), ca. 1987-89
Celulosa sobre aluminio prensado y pintado, 112 cm Ø
Luis Gordillo
Rep. pág. 164
Sin título, 1973
Técnica mixta (Bolígrafo de color, lápiz de color y acuarela) sobre papel, 26 x 17,3 cm Artur Heras
Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid Blau (Azul), 1973
Rep. pág. 157 Acrílico sobre lienzo, 100 x 100 cm
Rep. pág. 165
Luis Gordillo
Sin título, 1972 Jasper Johns
Bolígrafo sobre papel, 15,3 x 20,3 cm 0, de la serie Black and White Numerals: Figures from 0-9, 1968
Donación Juan Antonio Aguirre, Madrid Litografía en negro y gris sobre papel German Copperlate Deluxe, 94 x 76 cm
Rep. pág. 157 Rep. pág. 167
Richard Prince
Josep Renau
Terrorist or Friend? (¿Terrorista o amigo?), 1989
Autodespotismo, 1973
Acrílico y serigrafía sobre lienzo, 173 x 122,5 cm
Fotomontaje sobre papel, 68 x 41,7 cm
Rep. pág. 129
Depósito Fundació Renau, Valencia
Rep. pág. 189
Robert Rauschenberg
Glacial Decoy Series (Etching I-V) (Serie Trampa glacial [Grabado I-V]), 1979
Gerhard Richter
Aguafuerte sobre papel suizo, 62 x 42 cm
Farbtafeln (Paleta de colores), 1971
Rep. pág. 176-177
Serigrafía sobre papel, 59,9 x 86 cm
Rep. pág. 190
Robert Rauschenberg
Sin título, 1968
Gerhard Richter
Litografía foto offset sobre papel, 87,7 x 66,1 cm
Auto, 1969
Rep. pág. 179
Offset sobre cartón, 36,5 x 45,8 cm
Rep. pág. 191
Robert Rauschenberg
XXXIV Drawings for Dante’s Inferno (XXXIV dibujos para el Infierno de Dante), 1969 Gerhard Richter
Offset sobre papel, 36,7 x 29 cm Kanarische Landschaften (Campos canarios), 1971
Rep. pág. 180-185 Heliograbados aguatinta sobre papel, 39,3 x 49,6 cm
Rep. pág. 192
Robert Rauschenberg
Prize, 1969 Gerhard Richter
Litografía sobre papel, 39,5 x 40,5 cm Seestück (Marina), 1969
Rep. pág. 186 Litografía foto offset sobre papel, 50,7 x 49 cm
Rep. pág. 193
Martial Raysse
Visage en bleu (Rostro en azul), 1963 Gerhard Richter
Acrílico sobre lienzo sobre reproducción fotográfica en papel, 146 x 97 cm Seestück (Marina), 1970
Rep. pág. 187 Litografía foto offset sobre papel, 59,5 x 44,8 cm
Donación Brooke Alexander, Nueva York
Josep Renau Rep. pág. 194
Las hembras no deben luchar, 1972
Fotomontaje original de fotografías en gelatina de plata sobre papel coloreadas a mano, recor- Gerhard Richter
tadas y pegadas sobre cartón, 53,1 x 38,6 cm Kanarische Inseln (Islas Canarias), 1970
Depósito Fundació Renau, Valencia Óleo sobre lienzo, 120,5 x 150,5 cm
Rep. pág. 188 Rep. pág. 195
214
Foreword
Francisco Camps Orts
President of the Generalitat
invaded by a continual overlapping of geological layers of ence between these movements and Pop Art was that they
commodities. Alienated consumerism becomes for the mass- did not take the mercantile system as their first and foremost
es another duty to add to alienated production. All a society’s ally, but, on the contrary, denounced it.
sold work becomes transformed into a total commodity whose Pop Art is an artistic movement that was born in England in
cycle must go on. the late fifties and was characterised by the use of images
It is evident that the concept of consumer society is linked to and themes taken from the world of the mass media applied
market economy and, therefore, to capitalism. In this sense, to the art of painting. The term was first used by the British
at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century in the critic Lawrence Alloway in 1962 to define the art that some
United States, having won the war and with the develop- young people were making, using popular art images.
ment of technology, there emerged a society that attained Bearing these premises in mind, the Collection of the IVAM,
levels of well-being and comfort that mankind had never which covers several axes like photography, installations and
before even dreamed of. The American way of life had been new media, Pop Art and abstraction, focuses on different his-
born, and with this category the consumer society came toric periods and grants the same importance to each artistic
forth from the US with the intention of universalising this language.
concept. Despite the fact that Pop Art was born in the United
It was above all, in a more standardised fashion, in the early Kingdom and the United States, it an important exponent in
seventies that a market-oriented entrepreneurial era Spain with Equipo Crónica, who took part in that movement
appeared, when the industrial sector realised that the con- with their own very special idiosyncrasy. From the outset,
sumer’s wishes and needs were at the basis of the whole eco- they evaluated society by using and manipulating mediatic
nomic process. The prime concern of companies was no images to arouse critical interest. That is, Equipo Crónica
longer to sell what they produced but to create social addic- manipulated previously manipulated elements to produce
tion to their products so as to increase demand. meaningful new effects that invited the spectator to make a
A series of artists who identified with the fervent patriotism fresh reflection.
encapsulated in the label “the new American lifestyle” want- All their work vindicates collective work rather than individ-
ed to experiment with the elements society placed within their ual lines of action. By proceeding in this way, Equipo
218
Crónica eliminate the individuality associated with the artis- painting shows us common trades (The Forge of Vulcan), etc.
tic tradition. It is true that according as we approach contemporary times,
The problem is that the stereotypes evoked by the mass these elements we see on the canvases become more and
media, created with the urgency and speed of the consumer more private, more personal, more devoid of the aestheticism
society, are structured with the intention of deforming them. found in the classical canons. They take on an isolated form;
That is, the mass media, which could easily play the part of they emerge from a scene, from the general choreography as
intermediaries between knowledge and society and repre- independent objects that attract every eye.
sent a more “presentable” reality, decided not to play this Playing cards, bottles, signs... all form part of the main
game. imagery of the canvas and posters in Impressionism.
In this sense, the stereotype plays a permanently persuasive Newspapers, books, cafés, showers, lavatories... all form part
role in their rhetoric and composition. They turn something of the objects that appear in the avant-garde movements.
complex into something simple. It is a reductionist complex From the sixties onwards, Pop Art reinterpreted the icons cre-
that usually causes distortion. The stereotype always favours ated by the entertainment industry and this new object, now
someone in the ideological function it performs at the service transformed into an artistic object, acquires an added value
of culture or the dominant society. Thus stereotypes limit the within reach of all the social classes. Everyone should be able
way we see the world. Equipo Crónica, in my opinion, show to have a piece of art at home.
great determination in dismantling those constructions Mass culture manages to manufacture on a large scale, with
organised as unique truths and clothe them with other truths industrial techniques and procedures, ideas, dreams and illu-
that affect society in parallel and are more interesting than sions, personal styles and even a private life that are largely
the spectacle as a mere spectacle. the product of a technique subordinated to profitability and
The team made up of Valdés and Solbes is usually considered the permanent tension between creativity and standardisa-
to belong within Pop Art, but the truth is that, in their hands, tion suitable to be assimilated by the middle class.
the usual devices in this trend –flat colours, the use of images Greek citizens saw their true identity in Mount Olympus,
taken from the mass media or other sources of mass culture– where their myths dwelled. Pop Art, its industry, marketing,
are mere tools that, combined with elements of a very differ- mass culture, entertainment, etc. make Hollywood the place
ent nature, constitute a palpable criticism of the establish- where society must look to find its myths, its true identity. The
ment and also a stance against individualism. public uses symbols created in the form of film narrations,
To go back to the origins of Pop Art and the nature that char- posters, TV series, advertising slogans, desserts, comics... as a
acterises it of using everyday subjects as their maximum way to construct their social reality.
exponent of criticism, I can say that domestic issues have cer- Today the myth can still be found in narrative models, the aes-
tainly been linked to art throughout history. Aristophanes’ the- thetic languages offered by the entertainment world. For that
atre, in comical terms and with a certain amount of cynicism, reason modern society is incapable of organising solid myths
addressed some matters connected with public life in and so the individual is disconcerted as he does not know
Classical Athens. Gothic painting offers us couples standing where to turn to fill his life with reality.
in front of a mirror (The Astolfis), Renaissance painting places Science and knowledge strive to produce stereotyped values
before us tables laden with food (The Last Supper), Baroque and symbols. The three major pillars of this culture are: a
219
commercial culture, a consumer society and an advertising The culture industry generates all possible tools so that the
institution. consumer society may work at full speed and want every-
In this way, if we take a look at the Pop Art in the permanent thing it generates. Pop Art included among its artistic icons
collection of the IVAM, with artists like: Valerio Adami, Anzo, trade marks representing a national culture with the intention
Eduardo Arroyo, Richard Bosman, John Chamberlain, Equipo of extending that dominion as a basic element necessary for
Crónica, Equipo Realidad, Luis Gordillo, Oyvind Fahlstrom, the daily life of citizens.
Alberto Greco, Richard Hamilton, Jasper Johns, Claes For the first time in a serious, industrialised way, art and pub-
Oldenburg, Yves Klein, Alex Katz, Sigmar Polke, Richard licity converge in marketing, combining the dimensions of
Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, Josep Renau, Gerhard Richter, consumer goods and the art market. Although consumerism
Hervé Télémaque, Cindy Sherman, Juan Antonio Toledo and is the raison d’être of publicity, are becomes more of a com-
Darío Villalba, it is a direct approach to reality, in the way they modity year by year.
address their environment with sensibility. Selfportraits, por- The contrast between the object of use and the object of con-
traits, trade marks, icons... transmit the spontaneity that this templation disappears in Pop Art. Whereas the object of art
movement displayed for several decades in the 20th century. becomes a commodity, design products rescue certain values
Therefore, we can say that Pop Art is the movement that best and qualities that were previously reserved for the world of
represents the appropriation of the audiovisual image of pop- artistic creation, an example of which is the famous can of
ular culture. It takes possession of it, gives it form, labels it and Campbell’s soup. The artwork is a useful and reproducible
places it before the public. The image appears as a territory of object-commodity, and the consumer object an artefact with
desire. Desire is a metaphysical movement, a voluntary act symbolic value.
using the object as a means of attraction. Merleau-Ponty sus- In the consumer society, the advertising image is associated
tained that the tension of eroticism and beauty are the vital with diffusion and control, and in art the use of the image as
roots of perception and representation, and describes desire a medium as well as knowledge, motivation, stimulus and dif-
as “an intentional arc” that endows the experience with its fusion is becoming more and more common. Art and adver-
vitality and fecundity. Octavio Paz describes desire as “the tising behave as generators of meanings, where the real and
pursuit of an incessantly fleeing object, be it a body, an idea the symbolic become mixed and diluted with the common-
or an idea made into a body”. place, bringing about the aesthetisation of daily life.
Desire is profoundly related with human nature and Andy Art in all the group of Pop artists no longer responds to the tra-
Warhol took good advantage of that fact in his Factory. ditional concept of artistic form as we have known it until the
Heidegger presents the nature of man as “a being projected present time. It is clear that the situation is heading for a
by his constant desire”. In her lecture “Los espacios del change of paradigm. The art object is dematerialised and its
deseo” (The Spaces of Desire), Silvia Durán synthesises desire function is broadened beyond its aesthetic component. Today
as follows: “It is the force of action. Its natural space is the when we speak about art, we must take into account visual
imagination and it shows a free, projecting, transgressive and culture, and we cannot speak of this without bearing in mind
creative human being who seeks to recover his primitive the significance of the image in the representation.
memory in life, plenitude, pleasure and happiness; all as a By using serialisation in pursuit of promotional and industrial
consequence of his condition.” strategies, Pop Art becomes the principle of everything we
220
witness today. Life and art intermingle when that reality, the
cultural perception of the world, is addressed by the visual
mechanisms of image production. They create meanings and
Pop Art
values in the construction of the reality experienced, with pre-
dominance of the aesthetic experience.
in the Collections of the IVAM
William Jeffett
Without a doubt Pop Art constitutes a watershed in the way
we understand the world. It broke down the barriers between
The IVAM collection of Pop Art is arguably one of the most
art and market; it blended all the arts and brought about cre-
important in Europe and the most important in Spain. The col-
ativity of the senses and a recreation of the spectacle of every-
lection comprises a broad and expansive view of Pop art and
day life, which we still experience today and assimilate part
its legacies in more recent contemporary art. Its point of view
of the great legacy left to us by its artists.
is informed by a consideration of artists of importance to the
development of avant-garde work in Spain, including Spain’s
own important contribution to the ‘tendency’, especially artists
with connections to Valencia. The concept of tendency is use-
ful, because different international manifestations of Pop
developed simultaneously in different countries rather than
radiating outwards from a single point of origin. These mani-
festations may be broken down according to categories rang-
ing from Pop art to post-Pop, New Realism, new image, narra-
tive figuration and critical realism amongst others. In any
case, Pop art was not a programmatic movement driven by a
coherent group whose position was laid out in manifestos.
Rather it was a nexus of different groups and critical positions
which took as a starting point the use of mass-produced
image and varied considerably according to geography and
cultural contexts.
The IVAM collection concentrates on the European contribu-
tion to Pop and strands within British and American art which
complement the European contribution, including Pop’s pred-
ecessors and several artists indebted to its legacies. The col-
lection includes many of the different artistic positions loosely
grouped under what is an expansive understanding of the
word Pop. In this way, while it is heir to the historical avant-
garde in many respects, Pop offered one of the first examples
of Post-Modern artistic practice, precisely because of its
appropriation of existing images based principally on sources
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originating in photography. Collage, photomontage, along images of one of the most famous actresses of the period and
with Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades and Surrealist objects, was included in the 1967 Sidney Janis exhibition Homage to
offer important artistic precedents. Indeed a number of Pop Marilyn Monroe, which included many European and
artists were associated directly with Surrealism (Jasper Johns, American Pop artists1. Hamilton’s Fashion Plate (1969-1970)
Robert Rauschenberg, Hervé Télémaque, even James captured the new sex appeal of the period, just as his offset
Rosenquist). Pop, above all, was informed by the growing lithograph Swingeing London 67 (1968) and the screenprints
consumer society of the 1950s and 1960s: the new reality Swingeing London III (1972) and Release (1969) exploited the
which attracted the attention of the younger generation. language of the tabloid press, in taking the arrest of the
Rolling Stones and London Pop art dealer [Groovy Bob]
Origins of Pop and it Predecessors Robert Frazer on drugs charges as their subject matter. In this
There is a tendency, especially in the English-speaking world, sense Hamilton’s Pop was an affirmation rather than a cri-
to treat the American, and to a lesser degree the British artists, tique: ‘The history of art is that of a long series of attacks upon
as the sole focus of Pop. This is an historical error. Pop did, social and aesthetic values [...] The Pop-Fine-Art standpoint,
indeed, begin in Britain, and the expression was coined by on the other hand [...] is a statement of belief in the changing
the British critic Laurence Alloway sometime between 1955 values of society. Pop-Fine-Art is a profession of approbation
and 1957. However, it is important to note that his use of the of mass culture, therefore it is anti-artistic. It is positive
word referred to what would now be called Popular culture Dada...’2. Hamilton was concerned with the social function of
rather than artworks appropriated from Popular culture. popular culture; his early works were relatively apolitical and
American Pop, of course, came later, around 1960 and shortly affirmative. Still he was capable of self-irony and cynicism
thereafter, and the Europeans did not necessarily take their towards the artworld. His Trademark (1972), made up of the
cue from American developments. Andy Warhol and Roy letters of his name, poked fun at the artworld’s marketing
Lichtenstein are absent from the IVAM collection for this rea- strategies, while his prints and object The Critic Laughs
son. In any case, according to Alloway, British artists had a far undermine the hollow seriousness of many art writers.
greater concern with the social, notably the Independent Similarly the oil on collotype Portrait of the Artist by Francis
Group, founded in 1952, which was associated with the Bacon (1970) and the collotype Palindrome (1974) undermine
Institute of Contemporary Art. the mythic idea of the artist as primordial creator through the
Richard Hamilton is the most important of the group, and a application of photomechanical techniques to the representa-
major early work is his 1956 environment Fun House, which tion of the artist’s image. Similarly in the oil on cibachrome
was made for the Whitechapel Art Gallery’s landmark exhibi- Self-Portrait 13.7.80 a (1990), Hamilton applies paint to a pho-
tion This is Tomorrow. Of course, Hamilton also was close to tographic self-portrait in a gesture of cancellation. On the
Duchamp, and re-worked Duchamp’s Large Glass (Tate level of language, Epiphany (1987-1989), originally conceived
Modern, London), whose ready-mades provided Pop artists in 1964, is equally self-deprecating. Though relatively apoliti-
with an artistic precedent. Hamilton embraced the new con- cal in his early years, the point of departure of Hamilton’s
sumer society, and his lithographs Interior (1964-1965) and colour stencil The Citizen (1985) is a 1980 television documen-
Toaster (1967) derived from advertising images of domestic tary about the ‘dirty protest’ of Republican political prisoners
comfort. Equally his silkscreen My Marilyn (1965) incorporated at the Maze prison, who refused to wear clothing and marked
222
the walls of their cells with excrement. Its companion piece, (1979) and Photem Series I (28) (1981), though these are more
The Apprentice Boy (1987), makes reference to Protestant composites of adjacent images than layered images as
Orangemen (Loyalists) marching in Londonderry3. In fore- before.
grounding the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Hamilton The German-born exile in New York Richard Lindner was
deployed Pop strategies in ways which challenged received another important and idiosyncratic precursor of Pop. Active
political wisdom and sought to demonstrate that Republican as a graphic designer for Vogue and other fashion magazines
prisoners were no more extreme than Orangemen. published in New York, Linder’s direct and colourful represen-
Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, often labelled neo- tations of figures responded to American consumer society,
Dada, were American predecessors of 1960s Pop with a par- often in critical terms, though he remained distant from the
ticularly European sensibility. Johns started off where Marcel American Pop artists. His painting Rear Window (1971)
Duchamp left off, when he conceived such works as the 1968 depicts an extravagantly dressed male figure at right set
series Black and White Numerals: Figures 0-9. The use of against a silhouette of a nude female figure, the contrast
numbers as the subject for the painting introduced a contra- expressing a sense of sex-appeal.
diction and transformed painting into what the critic Nicolas
Calas, following Wittgenstein, has called a ‘language game’4. Claes Oldenburg, New Realism and James Rosenquist
The introduction of a quotation from Leonardo da Vinci’s The Swedish-born Claes Oldenburg, based in New York,
Mona Lisa into number 7 betrays the Duchampian wit in adopted a sculptural approach to Pop imagery, taking ordi-
operation here, where the issues of purity and authenticity, nary objects from the consumer society and transforming
suggested in the textured rendering of the subject, are under- them into large-scale sculptures, sometimes soft, and often on
mined in favour of one based in repetition and appropriation a monumental scale, thus intervening in the public sphere.
of images. Rauschenberg famously claimed to operate in the One of the most important of early Pop artists working in New
‘gap’ between art and life, though the inclusion of photo- York, Oldenburg’s approach to objects recalled the historic
graphic images into constructions or ‘combines’ layering avant-garde approach to the object. His Bottle of Notes (1989-
images with ‘assemblages’ of objects reflected a greater inter- 1990) is the intermediate maquette for the 1993 public sculp-
est in spontaneous processes and even abstract mark-mak- ture of the same title to be found in Middlesbrough (UK). Bottle
ing. Rauschenberg was one of the first artists to work with of Notes refers to the great naval explorer Captain Cook,
photography as painting, and a pioneer of silkscreening pho- whose museum is in Middlesbrough, Cook’s journals, and the
tographic images onto the canvas in a kind of two-dimension- idea of a message in a bottle. The writing making up the exte-
al assemblage which approximated his more three-dimen- rior of this sculpture is taken from Cook’s journal (‘we had
sional works which expanded painting into the viewer’s every advantage we would desire in observing the whole of
space. The essentially photographic nature of Rauschen- the passage of the Planet Venus over the Sun’s disc’ [1768]),
berg’s work lent his approach to printed editions, here repre- while the interior words are from a poem by Oldenburg’s
sented by Untitled (1968) and XXXIV Drawings for Dante’s partner Coosje van Bruggen (‘I like to remember sea-gulls in
Inferno (1969), characterised by transparent layers of photo- full flight gliding over the ring of canals’)5. The sculpture is
graphic images. Later approaches also based in photograph- based on a modified enlargement of a plastic Evian water
ic source can be found in Glacial Decoy Series (Etching I-IV) bottle onto which scribbled writing was inscribed. Clearly his
223
intermediate sculpture at the IVAM, and the final monument, formances documented in photography. These were first exe-
are greatly modified from the first maquette, the result being cuted using the firewall of Bunsen burners and the three-
a transformation not only of size but of scale, form and design. metre-high fire columns presented at his 1961 exhibition at the
Oldenburg may be related to the French strand of Pop Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld9. The fire paintings represented
labelled New Realism and promoted by the critic Pierre both an act of destruction (of painting) and a mystical affirma-
Restany. Here ordinary objects are transformed into art. tion (of primordialism).
Restany proclaimed a New Realism of the object. As Restany In his Arte Vivo-Dito happenings, the Argentine Alberto Greco
wrote in his so-called manifesto, ‘À quarante degrés au- brought to Spain a stance close to that of Klein’s actions.
dessus de dada’: ‘Les Nouveaux Réalistes considèrent le Though not a member of Restany’s group, Greco sought to
monde comme un tableau, la grande œuvre fondamentale give life to art by designating himself and other ordinary
dont ils s’approprient des fragments dotés d’universelle sig- pedestrians as works of art through the act of signature. In
nifiance’6. The group is represented in the IVAM by Martial Madrid in 1963, he drew chalk circles around people standing
Raysse and Yves Klein, but it also included Arman, César, in the street and then signed the circle nominating them as an
Nikki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri. ephemeral work of art. Greco conducted similar actions in
Of the New Realists, Martial Raysse was the only member of Piedralaves (Ávila), where he painted posters nominating vil-
the group to approach the image and use technique similar to lagers and even a donkey as artworks. His 1962 ‘Manifesto
the Anglo-American artists. His Visage en Bleu (Face in Blue, Dito dell’Arte Vivo’, published in Italy, proclaimed ‘L’arte vivo
1963) draws on commercial images and representations of è l’avventura del reale... L’arte vivo è contemplazione e comu-
female beauty and relates to his 1963 Mirrors and Portraits nicazione diretta... Dobbiamo metterci in contatto diretto con
exhibition at the Dwan Gallery in Los Angeles, where he gli elementi vivi della nostra realtà: movimento, tempo, gente,
embraced recent innovations in technology to render the conversazioni, odori, rumori, luoghi, situazioni’10. These were
images of contemporary beauty. As Didier Semin has pointed terms close to Restany’s declarations. Greco’s collages of 1963-
out, this position was ambiguous: ‘Son exploration des ver- 1964 incorporated Pop images cut from magazines. His Todo
tiges de l’artifice est pourtant constamment en équilibre entre de Todo (All of Everything, 1964) incorporated his own name
l’éloge et la dénonciation, la fascination et le dégoût’7. Yves and the words of the title into a collage of pasted, painted and
Klein’s Cosmogeny (COS 43), from the series Anthropometries drawn images. Another collage, XXV Años de Paz (25 Years’
(1960), in its use of nude female models to make imprints in his Peace, 1964), took an ironic swipe at the pretentious year-long
signature blue paint, paralleled the Happening in its empha- celebrations dedicated to the Caudillo and set a photomon-
sis on the event with the image functioning as a bearer of the tage of Franco and his family alongside comic and grotesque
trace of the action. The art historian Laurence Bertrand figures suggestive of social turmoil. Indeed, the 1964 victory
Dorléac has called this phase of Klein’s work ‘un épisode celebrations were marred by the resurgence of strikes by the
enchanté de la destruction de la peinture et de la fin d’idéolo- miners in Asturias11.
gie moderniste’8. Klein opted for blue, because it had no Equally performative was the action Paris, La Cumparsita
dimension or boundary. His F95, from the series Fire Paintings (completed 1972), staged by the Spaniard Antoni Miralda exe-
(1961), is equally performative and the image is achieved cuted between 1969-1971, where the artist carried a giant,
through the artist’s direct application of fire, achieved in per- white toy soldier around the French capital as a kind of
224
mobile monument. The action was documented in a film by mer represents the disjointed logic of collage and incorpo-
Benet Rossell and related to an earlier body of work, where rates a real object in an ‘assemblage’ that serves to unite the
elaborated environments were made out of small, white toy images into an enigmatic and new unity, incorporating an
soldiers. Miralda resided in Paris from 1962 until 1972, where extra-pictorial logic; the latter playfully pokes fun both at the
his work was enthusiastically supported by Restany. An iron- seriousness of art and the traditional museum visitor, who is
ic reflection on the artist’s military service during the mid- now transformed into the object of the images applause.
1960s, which intruded into his work in Paris, this piece may Rosenquist has described this collage in the following terms,
more broadly be understood against the backdrop of the anti- ‘The essence of collage is to take very disparate imagery and
war movement of the late 1960s12. put it together and the result becomes an idea, not so much a
The American John Chamberlain’s Oh Absolutely (1992) con- picture. It’s like listening to the radio and getting your own
sisting of a crushed car can be related to the work of New idea from all these images that are often antidotes — acid —
Realists, especially César, whose ‘compressions’, were made to each other. They make sparks or they don’t. The best thing
from compacted car bodies, though Chamberlain obviously is they make sparks...’14. With its deceptively simple and
retains elements in his work related to American Abstract frontal images, Nails (1973) plays on the logic of representa-
Expressionism and accordingly a more spontaneous poetic tion; while the later Mask of Montezuma II (1990) represents
position. more complex layering of images derived from the artist’s use
Another American, James Rosenquist, is strongly represented of photography and in its suggestion of tropical foliage relat-
in the IVAM collection, arguably because his work was the ed to his many years working in Florida.
most European and was a constant reference above all in
France during the 1960s, when it was exhibited alongside Narrative Figuration
French artists associated with Gerard Gassiot-Talbot’s ‘narra- Gérald Gassiot-Talabot defined ‘narrative figuration’ in terms
tive figuration’13. of different forms or categories of narration, a central aspect of
Rosenquist is an important figure within Pop, because of his modern art which had been ignored: ‘La narration répond
idiosyncratic departures from the more image-based posi- aujourd’hui à une disposition générale de l’être en face du
tions of Warhol, Lichtenstein and other Americans. Rosenquist monde, à une volonté de le vivre, de le connaître, de se mesur-
remained painterly even as he departed from models based er avec lui, selon une expérience existentielle qui place tout
on collages of images derived from glossy magazines which idéalisme nouménal hors de portée de l’artiste. C’est là sa fran-
were transformed through the process of scaling-up. Their chise et sa limite. La narration constitue dans tous les cas un
monumentality, together with their often social imagery, sug- épisode important de l’histoire de l’art moderne, un tournant
gested an intervention in the social sphere. The recomposing décisif, qui remet en question quatre-vingts années de dogma-
of fragments of images also suggested a generalised critical tisme anti-temporel, et opère, souvent sur des techniques nou-
relation to the function of images and further the possibility of velles et toujours dans un climat créateur inédit, un retour à des
their recomposition in a new narrative distinct from their réflexes profonds et anciens’15. This variable nature of narra-
sources. Three important phases are represented in the IVAM tion he held up against the static and iconic nature of much of
collection. Notably, Blue Spark (1962) and the kinetic Red American Pop art, especially Warhol and Lichtenstein, despite
Applause (1966) represent the formative years of Pop. The for- Lichtenstein’s use of the comic strip device: ‘Nous l’avons dit, l’e-
225
sprit narratif est incompatible avec tout un aspect de l’esthé- rative dans l’art contemporain, Jaguer’s ‘Phases’ group of
tique du Pop art. Lichtenstein et Warhol peuvent donner l’illu- Surrealists rose to Duchamp’s defence with a written manifesto
sion d’y participer, l’un en isolant certaines scènes de comics, of protest called ‘Le troisième degré de la peinture’, the docu-
l’autre en répétant des effigies de stars ou des scènes de faits ment was surprisingly signed by some of the artists in Gassiot-
divers. Mais tous les deux, au lieu de concevoir une suite évo- Talabot’s exhibition: Télémaque, Monory and Klasen18.
lutive, arrêtent le temps, figent l’instant...’16. Arroyo’s later Vestido bajando la escalera (Dress Descending
With a sweeping exploration of the consumer society and con- a Staircase, 1976) further explores an ironic critique of both
siderations of history, as in Rosenquist’s famous F 111 (1964- Duchamp and Surrealism. But there was much to be said for
1965), he approached the more political Pop position of the the critique offered by these young painters, and perhaps
Paris-based-painters Gilles Aillaud, Hervé Télémaque and Surrealism no longer represented a viable mode for challeng-
the Spaniard Eduardo Arroyo, with whom he sometimes ing an ever more conservative society.
exhibited. Though Rosenquist remained distant from the posi- In his Esso-LSD (1967), the Swedish Öyvind Fahlström bor-
tion of Gassiot-Talabot, and also the Neo-Surrealism promot- rows from advertising icons such as an Esso sign, and redi-
ed by Édouard Jaguer, he was associated with these writers rects its semantic readings towards alternative and subver-
and exhibited with them, and was notably included in the sive ends. Fahlström’s gesture amounts to a critique of a
1965 exhibition La figuration narrative dans l’art contempo- petroleum-based corporate culture and an embracing of a
rain (Narrative Figuration in Contemporary Art). counter-culture proposing alternative paradigms of mental
The Surrealists remained sceptical about Pop and queried processes. His sculpture Red See-Saw (1967-1968) and its
how it could both partake of the consumer society and offer a drawing-study, Notes for See Saws (1968), suggests the pre-
critique of it at the same time. Nevertheless, this was precisely carious political balance of the world in 1968, at the time of the
the position which Aillaud, Arroyo and Télémaque proposed, US presidential elections, including references to Nixon and
in what we might call ‘critical realism’. In a collective work, Agnew, in both witty and critical terms indebted to the lan-
Arroyo, Aillaud and Recalcatti attacked Duchamp in a kind of guage of comic strips. As he wrote in 1973, ‘Like many people,
multi-panel painting manifesto, called Vivre et laisser mourir, I began to understand during the late ‘60’s that words like
ou la fin tragique de Marcel Duchamp (Live and Let Die, or the “imperialism”, capitalism”, “exploitation”, “alienation” were
Tragic End of Marcel Duchamp, 1965), the final panel of which not mere ideas or political slogans, but stood for terrifying,
depicted Duchamp being buried, with an American flag absurd and inhumane conditions in the world. Living in LBJ’s
draped over his casket and carried by Rauschenberg, Olden- and Nixon’s America during the Vietnam war — culminating
burg, Warhol, Arman, Raysse, and Restany. For Gassiot- in the Christmas ‘72 terror bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong
Talabot, ‘Aillaud, Arroyo et Recalcatti ont eu le mérite et le and Watergate — it became impossible not to deal in my work
courage de savoir aller trop loin en se moquant du style et des — once I had the stylistic tools — with what was going on
interdits... Cette figuration, chargée de dynamite, mi-sincère, around me: Guernica, multiplied a million times’19. Though
mi-provocante, a déjà faits des dupes et provoqué de he spent much time in the US and far less in France, works
vertueuses indignations. Nous retrouverons d’ailleurs Arroyo like Notes for See Saws convey a didactic and narrative
et Recalcatti plus loin, une bombe allumé cachée derrière leur dimension and it was for this reason Fahlstöm was included
dos’17. When this painting was exhibited in La figuration nar- in La figuration narrative dans l’art contemporain.
226
Though in the standard histories of Pop, notably those by Lucy poetic dimension. As Gassiot-Talabot noted in 1973, ‘Avec
Lippard and Marco Livingstone20, the more critical forms of Télémaque, justement, les choses ne sont jamais ce qu’elles
the tendency are included, other writers, such as Theodor sont.... Télémaque aime à retenir les objets pour ce qu’ils pos-
Adorno and Christian Mamiya, supported the position that sèdent de signification extérieure à leur sens ordinaire....
Pop was incapable of achieving a social and political posi- Télémaque précise encore cette notion : laissons les objets en
tion, because by its very nature it legitimised the consumer “attente de sens”, dans le flou conscient, et il nous parle de ce
culture it represented precisely through the mechanisms of jeu du cercle sur le trou, “de ce flou où les choses ne sont pas
that culture21. As early as 1964, the Italian critic Umberto Eco nommées”’24. For André Breton, whatever reservations he
pointed out that appropriation was a dangerous and double- had about Pop art’s incapacity to offer a critique of the con-
edged instrument, ‘Today, it is often avant-garde culture sumer society, the work of Télémaque and Rauschenberg rep-
which, reacting against the density and the scope of mass cul- resented an exception he was prepared to embrace25.
ture, borrows its own stylemes from Kitsch. This is what Pop The subjects in Arroyo’s Sama de Langreo. Asturias. Septiem-
Art does when it chooses the most vulgar and pretentious bre 1963 (Sama de Lñangreo, Asturias, September 1963, 1970)
graphic symbols of advertising... by blowing them up out of or his El regreso de Campanys a Barcelona (Campanys’
all proportion and hanging them on the walls of a museum. Return to Barcelona, 1970) have overt historical and political
This is the avant-garde’s revenge on Kitsch... But even here, references to the repressive political situation in Franco’s
Kitsch does not waste any time taking its revenge on the Spain. These works further support Marchán-Fiz’s argument.
avant-garde, by borrowing its procedures and its stylemes for Arroyo’s Robinson Crusoe (1965) points to the artist’s isolation,
its ads, where once again the only thing that matters is the while José María Blanco White amenazado por sus
production of an effect and the display of a higher level of seguidores en el mismo Londres (José María Blanco White
taste’22. Simón Marchán Fiz seeks to address this problem by Threatened by his Followers in London, 1978) highlights the
separating Pop from what he calls ‘critical realism’. On the experience and importance of exile in the formation of the
one hand, ‘la postura Pop frente a la sociedad nunca es críti- artist, as well as a more general climate of repression and
ca en sentido estricto’, while on the other, critical realism censorship, though these two works also function on a more
sought a semantic and pragmatic attempt to ‘transformar o allegorical level. Arroyo’s later works Toda la ciudad habla
contribuir a cambiar a los hombres y sus relaciones’23. de ello (The Whole Town is Talking about it, 1982) and
In Marchán Fiz’s sense, works such as Aillaud’s Le jour et la Valeriano León (1985) demonstrate the artist’s mature engage-
nuit (Day and Night, 1963), Télémaque’s La Scène (L’homme ment with theatre and opera set design.
de la cicatrice) (The Scene [The Man with the Scar], 1970) and The Italian Valerio Adami, also represented in Gassiot-
Arroyo’s Robinson Crusoe (1965) form part of what he calls a Talabort’s La figuration narrative dans l’art contemporain,
post-Pop art or ‘critical realism’. While Télémaque’s painting worked in New York towards the late 1960s, and at various
is far from overtly political, his diagrammatic approach to the other times was based in London and Italy. In his Plein Air N.Y.
image, consisting of arrows, broken lines and a map-like (Outdoors NY, 1968), Adami placed the critical approach to the
image, brings to mind hidden second meanings of a narrative image on the semantic level of language. Based on photo-
nature, perhaps contained in the obscure interiors of the tents graphs taken in New York in 1966, which are nevertheless
and safe in the right half of the canvas giving them also a greatly altered in the final composition, Adami treats line
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almost as a form of writing and focuses on the letters which impactos (The Impacts) and El día en que aprendí a escribir
appear in the urban billboard advertising of the New York con tinta (The Day I Learned to Write in Ink) use a language
landscape. The inclusion of the Guggenheim museum in the from Hollywood film noir to evoke a censorship based on
right segment of the canvas further treats a symbol of high gangsterism and violent, extra-legal repression. The same
culture on the same level as that of industrial mass-manufac- year, works like El patio de la tentaciones (The Courtyard of
tured culture. While anchored firmly in the image, Adami’s Temptations), Mármoles, sedas y metales (Marbles, Silks and
approach to figuration was highly schematic, intellectual and Metals) and Tres nubes sobre el imperio (Three Clouds over
linguistic. It is based both on photographs and often on texts, the Empire) appropriate images from old master painting to
though less so here. Adami invites us to read these paintings. make an ideological critique of contemporary Spain. Equipo
Emphasising the literary dimension, Henry Martin has noted, Crónica sought to renovate the pamphletist tradition of Josep
‘What’s meant here is that any single painting by Valerio Renau, Director General of Art during the Second Republic,
Adami always has the quality of a statement in simple prose and the anti-Nazi militant and Dadaist John Heartfield. Their El
— which is to say that the painting constitutes a structure of Panfleto (Pamphlet) 1973 was one of the group’s most ambi-
signs that refer to other structures that lie outside of it... Adami tious paintings and arguably the one which stated most clear-
has developed a form of painting whose purposes, after all, ly their political position. Similarly an attempt is made to estab-
are not entirely pictorial... He is above all a narrator...’26. lish a link with the vanguard position of the 1930s in Heartfield
In Spain, especially Valencia, this Pop form of critical realism / Lissitsky (1973). El (1977), from the series La Partida de Billar
was of paramount importance in the examples of Equipo (The Game of Billiards), represented a challenge to artistic for-
Crónica, Equipo Realidad, Juan Genovés and Anzo. The malism understood as a game and proposed as an alternative
informal painting, or gestural abstraction, of the 1950s, to the productivism of El Lissitzky, with a hand holding a com-
notably the work of Manolo Millares and Antonio Saura, tend- pass symbolic of the artist’s role in constructing a new society.
ed towards dark tones in an attempt to forge a modern and As Lissitzky argued, ‘The task was clear — it consisted in ele-
abstract expression of what José María Moreno Galván called vating architecture in terms of its artistic and pragmatic values
‘lo español’27. The bright palette represented a distinct shift on to a level consistent with the values of our own age... A group
focus, while references to the Spanish tradition of old master was formed which placed the main emphasis on construction
painting was parodic and ironic. The use of such material and which demanded the direct application of the methods of
was distinct from American Pop’s near-exclusive use of con- the engineer and the builder to architecture’28. For Tomàs
temporary mass-manufactured images. Equally different was Llorens, Equipo Crónica deployed painting in terms of com-
the critique of consumer society and the evolving power struc- munication with the popular game of billiards providing a
tures which benefited from the new wealth which it produced. mechanism of communication which could be subverted or
From around 1964 the group Equipo Crónica (Rafael Solbes, redirected, ‘En el ciclo del billar el puente metafórico es a la
Manolo Valdés and briefly Juan-Antonio Toledo) launched an vez más abstracto y más puramente visual, las asociaciones
acerbic critical project, as in the gouaches Sin Título (The se producen a un nivel más conceptual que connotativo, más
Executive) (Untitled, [The Executive]), La Cinta (The Ribbon) “analítico” que “textual”; la sugestión del “billar como forma
and La Bandeja (The Tray), which demonstrate the collusion of de vivir” se subordina a la presentación del “billar como
corrupt power with wealth. In 1972-1973 paintings like Los forma de hacer o de jugar” la partida’.29
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The mature Josep Renau, working in exile in Mexico (1939- events during and leading up to the war, a series which is
1958) and the former East Germany (1958-1982), forged a sus- substantially represented in the IVAM’s collection. Equipo
tained critique of American-style capitalism in his extensive Realidad based these images on an Argentine encyclopae-
series of photomontages and book called The American Way dia called Crónica de la guerra española. No apta para irrec-
of Life30. These were executed from 1950 to 1976 when they onciliables (Chronicle of the Spanish War. Not Suitable for the
were exhibited in their definitive state in the Spanish Pavilion Unreconcilable)32. They faithfully translated the illustrations,
at the 1976 Venice Biennial. The American Way of Life is here selected principally for visual impact, from this publication
represented by Beautiful (1967), El tiburón (The Shark, 1971), into painting, as if the minimum of modification meant that the
Sociedad de Consumo (Consumer Society, 1972), Las hembras historical events could be both recovered and allowed to
no deben luchar (Women Must Not Fight, 1972) and speak for themselves. As they wrote in 1973, ‘estamos tratan-
Autodespotismo (Self-Despotism1973) — all were executed at do, no la guerra, sino su imagen’33. Through this neutral
a time which overlaps with the production of Equipo Crónica. approach, Equipo Realidad addressed the problem of what is
In such images, Renau demonstrates in visual terms that the now called historical memory. As Jaime Millás explained at
consumer society is an industrial form of Fascism, for exam- the time, ‘El Equipo Realidad, al pintar los antecedentes y
ple, a position elsewhere in Europe argued by the filmmaker hechos más importantes de la guerra civil española, busca
Pier Paolo Pasolini31. relevar los distintos mecanismos que las imágenes poseen
Working with similar strategies, the team Equipo Realidad para transmitir de generación en generación unos con-
(Jordi Ballester and Joan Carcells) made ironic commentaries tenidos históricos’34.
on the daily comforts of the consumer society in Spain as in Juan Genovés’s Aproximación (Approximation, 1966) suggests
Hogar, dulce hogar (Home, Sweet Home) and Galega juguet- the growing resistance to repression in the forms of the stu-
ona en pos de un símil (Playful Galician Woman After a dent movement and worker discontent in the 1960s. In 1965,
Simile), both 1972, works which took their point of departure university students in Madrid protested the dismissal of five
from interior design magazines. That this comfort was based professors; in 1966 a new ‘liberal’ Press Law was drawn up by
in part on military power and the economic impact of US mil- Manuel Fraga Iribarne under the principle of publish and be
itary spending was made clear in their earlier Populorum damned; in 1968 Madrid University was closed from the end
Progresso (1967), executed the year leading up to the negotia- of March through early May; and at the beginning of 1969 a
tions on the renewal of the American airforce base at Torrejón state of emergency was declared35. Stress on the public’s tol-
(September 1968). That American cultural power was based erance for the American alliance began when the US Navy
on military power was further reiterated in El Nacimiento de lost a hydrogen bomb at Palomares (Almería) in January 1966,
Apolo o la Perla de Occidente (The Birth of Apollo or the Pearl which was only recovered after some time and with consider-
of the West, 1972). Further, a sense of comfort was based on able difficulty. Fraga and the American Ambassador were
the necessity of historical amnesia, especially the need to for- photographed bathing nearby to calm widespread concern
get the events of the Spanish War (18 July 1936-1 April 1939). about potential contamination of the sea and beaches.
This was made manifest in their ambitious 1973-1976 series of Similarly, while in 1966 there were 100 strikes, by 1968 this fig-
black and white paintings, Hazañas belicas (Feats of War), or ure had risen to over 300. These events were met with arrests.
Cuadros de Historia (Paintings of History), based on key For example, in relation to the university upheavals in 1969, of
229
739 detentions, 315 were students. The forces of order often cultura”. Lo más corriente son los procesos de degradación
responded with violence, and between 1969 and 1974 there de la “alta cultura”, como consecuencia de la relaciones de
were 17 deaths of demonstrating strikers36. Genovés points to las clases sociales, básicamente. Pero también existen
how resistance is paired with repression on the part of the mecanismos de cambio interno. (La vanguardia cambia, por
forces of order. In Uno, dos, siete, siete (One, Two, Seven, mecanismos internos). En estos cambios, hay cosas que se le
Seven, 1968), the fleeing crowds are viewed as through a tel- escapan de los manos al poder. En determinados momentos
escopic sight, and in the fourth panel of the sequential images desbordan su función inmediata. Nunca un producto cultural
the figures are depicted as lying dead on the ground, victims corresponde funcionalmente a su contexto socio-geográfico
of a sniper’s rifle. Not surprisingly Genovés painting El Abrazo exactamente, sino que tiene posibilidades de utilización’37. In
(Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía) was used for a this 1976 text, written at the beginning of the Transition, Toledo
poster calling for a general amnesty for political prisoners in understood social reality in dynamic terms which went
1976, an image so widely diffused and indeed popularly sym- beyond artistic intention.
bolic of the Transition that it makes an appearance in José Luis Anzo’s series Aislamiento (Isolation) focuses less on the social
Garci’s 1977 film Asignatura pendiente. sphere of action than on the alienation of the individual from
society and his disappearance in the face of an overwhelm-
Following his brief period of collaboration with Equipo ing and inhuman technology, as can be seen in his
Crónica, Juan-Antonio Toledo worked in a realist direction, Aislamiento 7 (Isolation 7, 1967), executed in photolithography
painting images based on photography and realism as tools on a steel plate. As he has recently written, ‘Lo mío ha tenido
to construct a critical analysis of the ideological functioning of siempre una línea dentro de Pop, pero marcadamente crítica
representation. Like Equipo Crónica, Toledo understood soci- y social’38. His choice of the technique was related to printing,
ety as a process and the relation of so-called ‘high’ and ‘low’ ‘El fotolito era en realidad la preparación para la multipli-
culture as a dialectical one. In his painting Sin Título (Untitled, cación...’39. Indeed, around 1964 Anzo was an active partici-
1969-1970), Toledo introduces himself into a painting which pant in the Estampa Popular collective of socially committed
includes a Picassoesque figure as a form of criticism of the by printmakers, the group which paved the way for the critical
then institutionalised avant-garde. The 1983 painting Pop artists working in Valencia40.
Paradigma (Paradigm) took the iconic family photograph as The 1976 Venice Biennial exhibition featured a special exhibi-
the compositional basis for a reflection on how representation tion called, Spagna. Avanguardia artistica e realtà sociale,
solidifies social and economic structures, such as the family; 1936-1976 (Spain. Artistic Avant-Garde and Social Reality)41.
while Pompidou (1991) reflected on the institutionalisation of Curated by Tomàs Llorens and Valeriano Bozal and using the
the culture industry and its transformation by the State into a strictest criteria, the exhibition sought to reconnect recent art
mechanism promoting consumerism. Toledo understood art practice, especially Pop-related positions, with the historical
as an ‘instrument of power’ and he sought through his explo- vanguards of the 1930s. It considered, on the one hand, the
ration of critical realism an internal space within the mecha- avant-garde in terms of ideological and class struggle and, on
nism of art which could function outside of the dominant the other, ‘the movement of Spain towards... “normal capital-
power structure: ‘En los contenidos culturales de la “alta cul- ist society”’.42. The exhibition examined how in the 1950s an
tura” hay un dinamismo. Y se producen cambios en la “baja autochthonous modernism had been used by the Dictator-
230
ship. It sought to ground its analysis of artistic development in ing with those facing other capitalist societies. This analysis
concrete historical contexts rather than either rhetorical or was prescient, for Spain was already rapidly moving from
ideological posturing. As a counterpart to the vanguardism of autarky to a consumer society, a process of course which
the 1950s, it offered the position of critical realism notably rep- formed the social base for the emergence of any form of Pop.
resented by the Valencians: Estampa Popular, Equipo A related but more literally realist position, deriving from Pop
Crónica and Genovés amongst others of a critical Pop posi- practice, was adopted by the Valencians Manolo Boix, Artur
tion (including Arroyo) — that is the most politically committed Heras and Rafael Armengol. While Boix’s Sant Bru (1973) and
Spanish artists. At the same time, the exhibition rejected the Heras’s Azul (Blue, 1973) play on illusion and reality in an
position held by José María Moreno Galván and Vicente almost Surrealist sense, demonstrating the artifice underpin-
Aguilera Cerni that all avant-garde artists were necessarily ning the medium, Armengol’s Jamón (Ham, 1972) or his La
anti-Francoist; neither did the exhibition pretend to group matanza del cerdo (1ª serie) (Pig Slaughtering [1st Series],
together all anti-Francoist artistic tendencies. Rather it sought 1972) take popular local references as their sources which are
to present a socially engaged avant-garde within the con- depicted in trompe l’œil, though they do so in an ironic regis-
crete situation of a changing Spanish social reality. The inclu- ter. No less realist, but decidedly more didactic is Antoni Miró’s
sion of the until then exiled Josep Renau affirmed the link with Sobre la procesión (serie Dólar) (On the Procession [Dollar
the historical avant-gardes of the Second Republic. Equally series], 1975-1976). Here the canvas is turned against the wall
important was the presence of Pop figures like Gordillo and and the realist painting executed on the reverse, with the
the younger conceptualists Alberto Corazón, Antoni Munta- stretchers visible, so as to draw attention to the ideological
das, Francesc Torres and Grup de Treball, who pursued an functioning of the medium; while the realist images of soldiers
alternative political critique based in language. Tomàs with bayonets point to the anxiety attending the death of
Llorens has discussed the polemic surrounding this exhibition Franco and the onset of the Transition.
in terms of the ‘dissociation’ of the avant-garde and politics: ‘À Another strand of Spanish Pop addresses the subjective dimen-
une époque où le régime franquiste fusillait encore ses sion of painting practice and functions according to the inter-
opposants les plus éminents, user le terme “revolution” pour subjective and often psychological experiences of the artist.
le réduire immédiatement à une “révolution (artistique)” rele- Less preoccupied with the social, this form of Pop addressed
vait plus de l’obscénité sophistiquée que de la puérilité. Le problems more specific to painting and the crisis of the break-
parcours qui va de cette première conviction, selon laquelle down of so-called objective modes of abstract painting.
“avant-garde” et “revolution” seraient la même chose, à cette Though little inclined towards a critical relation to politics, the
conscience critique face à l’avant-garde, qui nous semblait Madrid-based Darío Villalba was no less interested in basing
être le principal trait définissant la gauche artistique espag- painting on photographic images. Opting for a dark palette,
nole au moment de la fin du franquisme, était précisément Villalba’s images suggested a sense of existential unease, far
l’histoire que nous proposions de raconter à la Biennale de from American Pop painting, though he has expressed an
Venise de 1976’43. Finally, Spagna. Avanguardia artistica e early interest in Warhol and worked both in the US and UK in
realtà sociale, 1936-1976 considered the contemporary avant- the 1960s when many Spanish artists opted for Paris. His use
garde of the 1960s and 1970s in terms of the options presented of the image remains subjective and idiosyncratic as can be
to a Spanish society and culture in transformation as converg- seen in the five panel Superficie interior fusión (Interior
231
Surface Fusion, 1968-1993). For Villalba, the use of photogra- constituido esencialmente por transferencias de tecnología,
phy approached both Pop and Conceptual practice on a sub- de modelos de organización y de prácticas financieras y de
jective level, ‘Mi uso de la fotografía, limpia, apenas tocada gestión, pero también, aunque en menor medida, de institu-
como cuadro capaz de albergar en su desnudez todo tipo de ciones económicas y modos culturales de comportamiento’47.
pulsiones, mistificaciones, contradicciones o armonías del This change was double-edged. American culture was at
imaginario, hace que de manera visionaria y desde luego no once liberating in relation to that of Franco’s retrograde view
del todo consciente, creara en 1970, una plástica personal of Spain. At the same time, America represented consumerist
que [...] abriera las puertas al diálogo con el arte pop, y pos- neo-imperialism and moreover was the first significant power
teriormente el conceptual’44. to recognise Franco’s regime (1950-1951). So Pop developed in
The Sevillian painter Luis Gordillo first approached Pop by part along the lines of Americanisation and in part along the
incorporating images derived from photography into figura- lines of critical realism. As in France, with the intensification
tive painting, as in his Cabeza sonriente (Smiling Head), El of the Vietnam War, 1968 was the fault line, and critical images
hombre vespa (Díptico) (Vespa Man [Diptych], 1965) and of the US increased significantly from this date onwards in
Bombo unitario (Unitary Drum, 1967). His approach to figura- both Spanish and French Pop. The context of 1968 was per-
tion was ever-more personal and based on his experience of haps most dramatically embodied in La Salle rouge pour le
psychoanalysis, following a crisis in 1969, so that painting Viêt-Nam (Red Room for Vietnam) planned for the Salon de la
increasingly became a labyrinth of collage-like images at Jeune Peinture but only exhibited in 1969 at the Musée d’art
once biological and abstract45. The result was a body of post- moderne de la Ville de Paris. In 1960 such anti-Americanism
Pop painting suspended between abstraction and figuration, was far from evident: ‘The notion that pop art harboured a
as in Gruyere D (1983), a work conveying great emotion, and hidden social critique of consumer culture underneath its
typical of his mature paintings that marked a younger gener- blasé façade was always more prevalent in Europe.... It was
ation of Spanish painters. Gordillo explores the subjective with the rise of the international protest movement against the
dimension of painting, as he has said, ‘Creo que cuanto más Vietnam War and the intensification of the student movement
subjetiva es una obra, más específicamente vital se hace...’46. in 1968 that the initial enthusiasm about things American
Spanish Pop may be understood in part as suspended turned sour...’48. Indeed, in the first years of the 1960s, few bar-
between the French critical perspective and the far less criti- riers were apparent amongst international Pop artists. Ameri-
cal American position. From 1952 onwards America played can artists were notably visible in Europe, while French artists
an increasingly important role in Spanish cultural life. So a often worked in the US. This was markedly different from the
part of the rise of Pop art had to do with how to face an more hostile cultural climate of the 1950s.
increasing process of Americanisation, that is: administrative, Similarly, in Germany Pop represented for the young genera-
technological and cultural transformation. As Dominique tion a form of liberation remarkably fresh from the grim post-
Barjot has argued, ‘La americanización tuvo, con todo, su war years that were characterised by austerity and an over-
manifestación más palmaria en el acceso al consumo de whelming sense of historical amnesia. While the older gener-
masas, que implicó profundas transformaciones en el tejido ation simply wanted to forget the war, it was their children
productivo de la mayor parte de los países europeos... La who looked outwards for alternative models, and increasing-
americanización se ha convertido en un fenómeno global, ly in the 1960s confronted the hypocrisy of their parents. ‘In
232
short, Pop became the synonym for the new life styles of a His use of plastic bubble wrap as a material perhaps is a Pop
younger generation in rebellion against their parents and the device pointed at signifying the fragility of human life within
restoration culture of the conservative and repressive 1950s. the totalitarian history of twentieth-century modernity.
Americanism was in. The more blatant the better. American Richter’s approach to Capitalist Realism was equally based in
icons and American music were un-German... . Pop com- photography and is here represented by a strong group of off-
bined the cool detached look with new intensities of percep- set lithographs. The analytic capacity of the medium is
tion, and that it hit upon the sensibilities of the young. It chal- explored in works like Auto (Car, 1969) and 9 Objekte (9
lenged the European privileging of indigenous high culture Objects, 1969), where objects are removed from their ordinary
with its traditions of anti-Americanism. Pop, American to the concept and endowed with a conceptual dimension. Seestuck
core, accelerated the decline of cultural nationalism in (1970) takes its point of departure in landscape photography
Germany— and not only there’49. as does the oil Kanarische Inseln (The Canary Isles, 1970) and
Clearly, Pop played different roles in different contexts, and related heliogravures Kanarische landschaften (Canarian
this is an important point clear in the IVAM collection. In Fields, 1971), with specific references to Spain. Here photogra-
Germany, Pop offered an open and outward-looking cultural phy and realism are used as critical tools to question repre-
position and one far less repressive than traditional models. sentation in painting. In another register, the serigraph
At the same time, it offered new ways of approaching recent Farbtafeln (Colour Charts) (1971), with its rectangles of colour,
German history. Polke and Richter, both emigrants from East offers a Pop critique of abstract modes of representation, con-
Germany, together with Konrad Lueg, in 1963 forged what cerns which would later emerge as central to the artist’s
they called ‘Capitalist Realism’ in what was both an essential- mature development. As Richter notes, ‘When I painted the
ly Pop position and one capable of exploring critical positions. Colour Charts in 1966, that had rather more to do with Pop art.
Richter recalls how this represented a ‘third way between They were painted colour pattern cards, and the beautiful
capitalism and socialism’, explaining that this entailed mov- effect of these colour patterns was that they were so opposed
ing away from the culture of painting, ‘That’s why I even to the efforts of the Neo-Constructivists...’51.
painted photos, just so that I would have nothing to do with Polke and Richter were also early collaborators in the produc-
peinture— it stands in the way of all expression that is appro- tion of collective offset lithographs, as in Hotel Diana (1967),
priate to our times’50. with its references to both artists, Sin Título (Untitled, 1968),
Polke’s Two Girls (1967-1969), with its use of the printed dot pat- referring to landscape and the eclipse photographs, and
tern, makes references to commercial images representing Hande (Hands, 1973), based on photographs of a hand and
sex appeal. His Polkees Peitische (1968) directly uses automat- therefore pointing to the emerging concern in the early 1970s
ic machine-printed photographs of himself making different with the use of photography as documenting performance.
exaggerated grimaces in an assemblage in which the photo-
graphs are attached by cords to a stick. The suggestion is self- Legacies of Pop
ironic and deflating of idealist mystification of the artist. Far from being an isolated phenomenon located in the pre-
Polke’s Sin Título (Hochstand) (Untitled [Watchtower], 1984) cise historical moment of the 1960s, Pop art has become one of
departs from the image of a concentration camp guard stand, the most widespread influences on more recent painting
as a means of evoking the darkly modern history of Germany. practice and other related forms of visual production. A cen-
233
tral focal point of the IVAM’s Pop collection is the centrality of impact and framing them as information, though unlike the
photographically-based works. Two classic examples of work of the previous generation his re-workings are devoid of
American Pop are particularly relevant to more recent prac- ideological implications. Nan Goldin subverts the conventions
tice. Alex Katz’s mature phases of painterly work, though of fashion photography and chooses her cast of real charac-
departing from photography and readily recognised images, ters from an underground world which is presented in an
pointed at the same time towards the abstract nature of all almost documentary fashion, though with no pretence
forms of representation, as can be seen in his monochromatic towards documentary. In its powerful simplicity and negated
nocturne Wet Evening (1986). John Baldessari recovers the tra- glamour, Goldin’s approach to photography recalls the exper-
dition of photomontage in his direct use of photography as a imental nature of Warhol’s films, notably the highly impro-
principle medium. He suggests time in terms of sequences of vised Chelsea Girls (1966). On a more playful note, the dead-
images that refer to cinematic narrative. In this way his use of pan photographic and video images by Swiss artists Fischli
photography amounted to a dismantling of the transparency and Weiss offer an ironic comment on the over seriousness of
of cinematic convention. Baldessari’s impact was mainly felt their native Swiss culture.
in the 1970s, and his position as an important teacher at Pop’s legacy and the impact of photographic modes of repre-
California Institute of the Arts marked a new generation of sentation was felt also in painting itself. Painters such as the
artists. His use of found film stills provided a way of using pho- American Peter Halley made not so much abstract painting
tography as a mode of both questioning the language of cin- as simulations of abstract paintings which operated in an
ema and of finding a mode of communicating with an audi- ambiguous space between abstraction and decoration, there-
ence beyond the elite art world. As he noted in an interview, by demonstrating abstraction’s inherently decorative dimen-
‘I was exploring those stills a lot, not in a programmatic fash- sion. The Californian Allan McCollum foregrounds the fram-
ion but in a kind of oceanic fashion — I would go to these vast ing of abstract painting as simulation in his series of
bins of unsorted movie stills and develop piles according to Surrogate Paintings, groupings of indistinguishable painted
various themes’52. Similarly he sought to break the tyranny of objects that vary in size and which elegantly demonstrate that
the frame with shaped works made up of montages of images. painting is a socially constructed convention. The British artist
The precedent of Baldessari’s practice can be seen most obvi- Tony Cragg, after working with found objects, in the 1980s
ously in the work of Cindy Sherman and her early series of often made cast reproductions of objects, sometimes of a high-
works simulating film stills from the 1940s and 1950s: Untitled ly realistic nature, as a means of transforming them.
Film Stills (1979). In this case, she stages photography as cin- The New York painter Richard Bosman studied with Philip
ema in a theatrical sense, which may also draw into question Guston and Alex Katz. His figurative works recall scenes from
how photography shapes identity: ‘My “stills” were about the comics and film noir scenarios, and suggest narrative yet deny
fakeness of role-playing as well as contempt for the domineer- us access to a full sense of a narrative framework. Bosman fur-
ing “male” audience who would mistakenly read the images ther treated such images in painterly terms, which distances
as sexy53. Richard Prince likewise departs from mass-media him from artists more directly preoccupied with photography.
uses of photography and moving images, notably advertis- This concern clearly relates him to the painterly precedent to
ing. After working with collage, he also re-photographed be found in the work of Alex Katz — perhaps more so than nar-
existing images, thereby distancing us from their immediate rative figuration as such. The Spaniard and Valencian Manuel
234
Sáez approaches the object also in refined painterly terms 5 OLDENBURG, Claes, VAN BRUGGEN, Coosje and CORK, Richard, Bottle
of Notes Middlesbrough Borough Council, Leisure and Libraries
with an application of pigment which hides the touch of the
Department, Middlesbrough 1997, especially pp 20-22.
hand. Departing from photographs often of ordinary objects, 6 RESTANY, Pierre, ‘À quarante degrés au-dessus de dada, mai 1961, Paris
he makes drawings which gradually simplify the source (2e manifeste)’ in Avec le Nouveau Réalisme sur l’autre face de l’art Éditions
Jacqueline Chambon, Nîmes 2000, pp. 39-41.
image, which is often treated as a monochrome. His replica,
7 SEMIN, Didier, ‘Martial Raysse, alias Hermès : la voie des images’ in
consisting of four panels, treats the same objects in terms of
PAQUEMEMT, Alfred and CALLE, Robert, Martial Raysse Galerie nationale
four different monochromes, in what he calls a Réplica du Jeu de Paume Paris 1992-1993, p. 14. See also pp, 52-56.
racional (Rational Replica, 1999-2000). In this approach Sáez 8 DORLÉAC, Laurence Bertrand, L’Ordre sauvage: violence, dépense et
sacré dans l’art des années 1950-1960 Gallimard, Paris 2004, p. 104.
parallels the example of Alex Katz, whom he admires along
9 STICH, Sidra, Yves Klein Hayward Gallery and Cantz, London 1995), p.
with the more socially activist figurative painter Leon Golub.
224.
At the same time, photography is one step in the artistic 10 RIVAS, Francisco, Alberto Greco IVAM, Valencia 1992), p. 106.
process that serves to distance the image, which in the paint- 11 PRESTON, Paul, Franco Fontana Press, London 1995, p. 716.
ing is greatly transformed. Speaking of the art if the twentieth 12 RESTANY, Pierre, Une vie d’artiste Internationaal Cultureel Centrum, 1978.
century, Sáez has noted, ‘estoy totalmente convencido de que 13 For a consideration of the importance of Rosenquist’s presence in France
la fotografía forma ese sólido y hermoso pedestal sobre el que see JEFFETT, William, ‘James Rosenquist: Painting in the Age of the Cold
War’ in James Rosenquist Salvador Dalí Museum, Saint Petersburg 2000,
se sustenta la mayor parte del arte de este siglo’54. As he is one pp. 8-21.
of the youngest artists represented in the IVAM’s Pop art collec- 14 James Rosenquist [19 April 2002] in BLAUT, Julia t, ‘James Rosenquist: col-
tions, Sáez’s statement perhaps best sums up the conceptual lage and the Painting of Modern Life’, in HOPPS, Walter and BANCROFT,
Sarah, James Rosenquist: A Retrospective Guggenheim Museum, New York
foundation of the collection’s clearly-defined position: the mul- 2003), p. 17.
tifaceted significance and sustained importance of essentially 15 GASSIOT-TALABOT, Gérald, La figuration narrative dans l’art contem-
photographic modes of mechanical reproduction to the pro- porain Galerie Creuze, Paris 1965, n.p.
16 Ibid., n.p.
duction of an avant-garde practice and its continuing ramifi-
17 Ibid.
cations in contemporary art. Pop art in the widest sense of the
18 In PIERRE, José, Tracts surréalistes et déclarations collectives Eric Losfeld,
word provided a narrative for the construction of an avant-
Paris 1980, vol. II, p. 238.
garde practice which retains an ongoing centrality for the 19 FAHLSTRÖM, Öyvind, ‘Historical Painting’, Flash Art No 43, December
most important developments of emerging practice. 1973 - January 1974, Milan, p. 14.
20 LIPPARD, Lucy R, Pop Art Thames and Hudson, London 1966 and LIVING-
1 HAMILTON, Richard, My Marilyn, 1966, Colour serigraph, 20 3/8 x 24 7/8, STONE, Marco, Pop Art: A Continuing History Thames and Hudson, London
60/70 Collection: Miss Frances Keech, Catalogue 23 in Homage to Marilyn 1990.
Monroe, Sidney Janis, New York, 6 December-30 December 1967. 21 See ADORNO, Theodor, Aesthetic Theory [1970] Routledge & Kegan Paul,
2 HAMILTON, Richard, ‘For the Finest Art, Try Pop’ in HAMILTON, Richard, London 1984, p. 340 and MAMIYA, Christian, Pop Art and Consumer Culture:
Collected Words 1953-1982 Thames and Hudson, London 1982, reprinted in American Supermarket University of Texas Press, Austin 1992, p. 160.
HARRISON, Charles and WOOD, Paul, Art in Theory 1900-1990 Blackwell, 22 ECO, Umberto, ‘The Structure of Bad Taste’ [1964] in , The Open Work
Oxford 1992, p. 727.
Hutchinson Radius, Cambridge 1989, p. 215. See also for related points in
3 Both of these works are related to Hamilton’s canvases in the Tate Modern ECO, Umberto, La definición del arte, Lo que hoy llamamos arte ¿ha sido y
collection, London. será siempre arte? Martínez Roca, Barcelona[1970] 1990, pp. 210 and 275.
4 CALAS, Nicolas, ‘Jasper Johns and the Critique of Painting’ [1976] 23 MARCHÁN FIZ, Simón, Del arte objetual al arte de concepto: Epílogo
Transfigurations Art Critical Essays on the Modern Period UMI Research sobre la sensibilidad «postmoderna» AKAL, Madrid [1974] 1986, pp. 48
Press, Ann Arbor 1985, pp. 199-203. and 73.
235
24 GASSIOT-TALABOT, Gérald Hervé Télémaque Galeria Arte Borgogna, 44 VILLALBA, Darío, ‘Darío Villalba versus Darío Villalba’, Todo muro es
Milan January 1973, n.p. una puerta: Darío Villalba Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma 1998, p. 144.
25 BRETON, André, ‘Entretien avec Guy Dumur’ [1964] in Perspective caval- 45 Luis Gordillo: Superyo congelado Actar, Barcelona: 1999.
ière, Gallimard, Paris 1970, p. 231. 46 CALVO SERRALLER, F., Doce artistas de vanguardia en el Museo del
26 In DAMISCH, Hubert and MARTIN, Henry, Adami, Leon Amiel Publisher Prado Mondadori, Madrid 1990, p. 90.
and Maeght Éditeur, New York and Paris 1974, pp.78-79. 47 BARJOT, Dominique, ‘El modelo norteamericano en Europa’ in Lorenzo
27 MORENO GALVÁN, José María , ‘La realidad de España y la realidad de Delgado and María Dolores Elizade (Editores), España y Estados Unidos en
un informalismo español’, Papeles de Son Armadans , No 37, Palma de el siglo XX, CSIC Madrid 2005, p. 171.
Mallorca April 1959, pp. 117-128. 48 HUYSSEN, Andreas, ‘Pop Artretrospective’ in documenta X — the book,
28 EL LISSITSKY, Russia: An Architecture for World Revolution,MIT Press, Kassel and Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1997, pp. 399-400.
Cambridge 1984, p. 30. 49 Ibid., p. 400.
29 LLORENS, Tomàs, Equipo Crónica: La partida de billar, autonomia i 50 BUCHLOH, Benjamin, ‘Gerhard Richter: Legacies of Painting’ [interview]
responsabilitat d’una pràctica, Galeria Maeght, Barcelona 1978). in Jeanne Siegel (ed.), Art Talk: The Early 80s, Da Capo Press, New York
30 RENAU, José , Fata Morgana USA, : Eulenspiegel Verlag, Berlin 1967; 1988, pp. 106 and 108.
RENAU, Josep, Fata Morgana USA The American Way of Life, IVAM, 51 Ibid., p. 109.
Valencia 1989); FORMENT, Albert, Josep Renau: catàleg raonat, IVAM,
52 SIEGEL, Jeanne, ‘John Baldessari: Recalling Ideas’ in Jeanne Siegel, op.
Valencia 2003).
cit., p. 41.
31 PASOLINI, Pier Paolo, Écrits corsairs, Flammarion, Paris 1976.
53 SIEGEL, Jeanne, ‘Cindy Sherman’ in ibid., p. 272.
32 Various authors, Crónica de la guerra española: no apta para irreconcil-
54 In Manuel Sáez, IVAM and Consorci de Museus de la Communitat
iables Editorial Codex, Buenos Aires 1966-1968, five volumes.
Valenciana, Valencia 2000-2001, p. 323.
33 Equipo Realidad, ‘Entrevista’ in Equipo Realidad, Galería Punto,
Valencia 1973, text reprinted in Teresa Millet and J. Gandía Casimiro,
Equipo Realidad IVAM, Valencia 1993, p. 96.
34 MILLÁS, Jaime, ”Equipo Realidad: pintar la guerra civil”, Triunfo 649, 8
March 1975 in Julian Díaz Sánchez and Ángel Llorente Hernández, La críti-
ca de arte en España (1939-1976), ISTMO, Madrid 2004, p. 447.
35 CARR, Raymond and FUSI, Juan Pablo, Spain Dictatorship to Democracy
Unwin Hyman, London [1979] 1981, pp.136-149.
36 TUSSELL, Javier , Dictadura franquista y democracia, 1939-2004 Crítica,
Barcelona 2005, pp. 254 and 228-232.
37 ‘Síntesis de la conversación mantenida entre: Tomàs Lloréns, Equipo
Crónica (Rafael Solbes y Manuel Valdés) y Joan-A. Toledo’ in Joan-A.
Toledo, Temps Galería de Arte, Valencia 1976.
38 GANDÍA CASIMIRO, José, ‘The Artist Speaks from his Isolation: Anzo and
José Gandía Casimiro, Alone’ in Anzo, Consell General del Consorci de
Museus de la Comunitat Valenciana, Valencia 1998, p. 40.
39 Ibid., p. 46.
40 Estampa Popular IVAM, Valencia 1996.
41 In La Biennale di Venezia 1976. Catalogo generale: Ambiente, parteci-
pazione, strutture culturali, Venezia: Edizioni La Biennale, 1976.
42 Ibid.
43 LLORENS, Tomàs, ‘Autour de la dissociation entre avant-garde et poli-
tique en Espagne dans les dernières années du franquisme’ in Jean-Paul
Ameline (ed.), Face à l’histoire 1933-1996 Éditions du Centre Georges
Pompidou and Flammarion, Paris 1996), p. 379.
236
A Melancholic Feast
Years later, the members of the British Independent Group, set
up in 1952, devoted themselves to the study and re-evaluation
Santiago Olmo of popular culture and the impact of the media on society.
In an exhibition entitled Parallel Life and Art held at the ICA
Unlike other international artistic movements, the origins of in London in 1953 and organised by some of the members of
Pop Art were based on the specific conditions of the social the group, photographs of everyday life and others taken
contexts where it was first born (the United Kingdom and the from the press were displayed alongside artistic images with-
United States), so that, strictly speaking, historiographers tend out establishing hierarchies or orders, in such a way that the
to concentrate on these two countries when addressing the two registers were mingled. In Lynne Cohen’s words,
phenomenon, and consider Nouveau Réalisme, created in “[Lawrence] Alloway (one of the promoters of the Inde-
France in those same years, as a parallel movement. pendent Group) coined the term ‘Pop’ initially to refer to the
Nevertheless, in spite of this limited view, Pop Art, rather than widespread interest in popular culture as it was expressed by
a concrete style or argument, constitutes a visual approach the members of the Independent Group in their discussions
towards popular mass culture and the iconography of the and lectures and other group activities”2.
media by means of appropriation strategies, decontextualisa- In general, the importance of this group has been under-
tion, analysis of its meanings and symbolic values, and, scored in the consolidation of a new view of everyday life, the
above all, an immersion in the breach between the order of media and advertising and the awareness that the future of
desires and their social and even political implications, which our contemporary society depended upon the analysis of
can be applied in any context and with a great variety of these issues3.
objectives. The ensuing triumph of American Pop Art in the early sixties
If we understand the Pop movement in this broad sense, the eclipsed the contributions of the Independent Group thanks to
theoretical contributions of Robert Rosenblum1 are very signif- its greater systematic and visual capacity for using a more
icant, since he considers Cubism as a historic precedent of Pop developed advertising and consumerist system. Some fore-
because of the systematic and always meaningful use the most British Pop artists like Richard Hamilton and Lawrence
Cubist painters made of press cuttings, advertisements and Alloway moved to the United States, whereas most of the
graphic elements taken from publicity that submerged the British artists initially involved in Pop produced painting or
contemporary spectator in recognisable everyday keys and sculpture that did not fully develop the lines they had begun
often with a humoristic note. Rosemblum considers it one of in the fifties.
the most important moments in the aesthetic union of elite and However, American Pop emerged spontaneously, without
popular culture and underscores how readily both Picasso any group or manifestoes, without any programme, as a
and Juan Gris carried out illustration projects or even (in the series of individuals who happened to connect after the first
case of the latter) comic strips, while they showed a strong and exhibitions that announced the phenomenon. In its approach
humorous inclination towards images that represented the to popular consumer culture, with its figures, its characters
most kitsch taste of the time and used them as the points of and its products, there was no analysis, only a systematic
departure for their paintings and selected them as postcards appropriation of images and their conversion into icons by
they sent to D.H. Kahnweiler, their agent and art dealer. means of an alchemical visual operation that consisted in
237
shifting them from the banal context of ordinary everyday life adapted to every context as a bitterly critical analysis not nec-
to the territory of the painting, the exhibition and the museum. essarily connected to the ideology of consumerism and not
In other words, to the territory of high culture. But this sleight necessarily using its iconography, although it was linked to a
of hand involved something more important: the progressive certain symbolic imagery of popular culture.
dissolution of the boundary between the popular and the cul- This occurred in Latin America, where Pop strategies were
tured, between the elite and the vulgar, thus establishing an used to analyse political situations through their reflection in
intermediary space of visual negotiation that takes a glance the media or by using the drawing style of the comic, often
at anthropology. Although this operation did not arise exactly with simple outlines and flat colours. The iconic elements of
as a theoretical reflection, it did consist more precisely of an American consumerism acquired in some cases a signifi-
attitude that in time became critical, albeit tinged with certain cance more akin to the symbol of colonisation and “Yankee
complacency. political oppression” than consumerism strictly speaking.
If we analyse American Pop artists individually, we can see In any case, we must point out that in the United States these
there are radical differences in the way they address the phe- elements of consumerism did not refer to an opulent or luxuri-
nomenon of consumerism and in the resolution, sense and ous context but underscored their insertion within a more
meaning of their images. Therefore, as no manifesto was popular level. On a merely economic plane, they addressed
brought out at the beginning and they did not form a compact cheap products lacking distinction, accessible to everyone,
group with common interests, there was enormous divergence which embraced the ordinary and tended to characterise the
and variety between them. Whereas Jasper Johns shows certain commonplace, and which, even when interpreted as not
nostalgia for the signs and flags that were common in America being limited to any one social class, can be seen at a banal
in the thirties, when the consumer society was beginning to and popular level as a social advancement that enhances
appear within the most vernacular craftsmanship, in one’s lifestyle. Consumer products, especially household
Rauschenberg we find a tension of serigraphic support along appliances and cars, but also precooked food, were catapult-
with the appropriation of objects by means of collage-style jux- ed before the eye of the potential consumer by advertising as
taposition, Lichtenstein’s iconic references focus on comic strips elements that made everyday life rather more dignified and
and textures of printing and Warhol appropriates the most triv- effortless than before. Although consumerism was well con-
ial commercial elements to redefine them in a “glamorous” way sidered in the United States, abroad it was seen as commer-
at the same time as he turns The Factory into a space for exper- cial-cum-cultural colonisation. Outside the United States, it
imentation that includes the cinema and pop and rock music4. took on other meanings, even when inserted in developed
So there are no strict guidelines to mark a stylistic or concep- European societies with the same objectives.
tual unity, even among what is considered to be the first gen- For example, the use of a Coca-Cola bottle changes mean-
eration of American Pop Art. This diversity meant that Pop Art ing according to the context in which it appears. In general
turned into a series of extremely versatile approximations and in Latin America, the use of logos, advertisements or North
visual strategies that were adopted by artists from other tradi- American products in works of Pop Art tends to be above all
tions and working in very different contexts. ideological and only tangentially refers to a mimetic sort of
From the sixties onwards, the model of consumer society consumerism, implying an attempt to be other than what
spread all over the world and the versatility of Pop Art was one is.
238
In the interpretation of the psychological content in Warhol ing as a document of colonialism, and the importance of North
established by De Diego5, most North American consumer American culture, identified with popular consumerism and a
goods in his work indicate the artist’s desire to be integrated in life model that was frowned upon in Cuba for being capitalist
that society (to be accepted, fit in, be one of them, live up to and neo-colonial. However, ambiguity is evident and in the
expectations) from which he felt excluded because he was the sad atmosphere of these paintings there is undeniable nostal-
child of poor Czech immigrants. gia for a lost tropical world, where the Spanish and North
Almost everything is determined by the conditions of a specif- American heritage construct an impossible but real Cuba,
ic context. with criticism of both the past and the present. In spite of the
If we take, for instance, two works by Warhol dated respec- distance and generational difference, Pedro Álvarez uses the
tively in 1960 and 1962, Coca-Cola and Large Coca-Cola, the legacy of Pop Art to establish his own interpretations, which
bottle object assumes a symbolic character, the black and have little to do with consumerism and more to do with a his-
white and the painting style mark a certain distance, where- torical reflection and an ideological criticism.
as the logotype of the brand name in italics is either incom- Strange though it may seem, Pop Art was widely practised
plete in both works or partly covered by black brushstrokes or and has considerable influence in revolutionary Cuba in the
left out of the picture. The treatment of these works is very sixties. Pop language, somewhere between design, the comic
painterly, very different from the serigraphic standardisation and propagandistic advertising, influenced the dominant
he produced a few years later. The sense of the two bottles style of posters, especially for the cinema, introducing a ludic,
seems to refer more to the fragmentary image of the weather- carefree air that foretold a future utopia that was feasible and,
beaten advertisements on hoardings all over the United above all, fun.
States than to consumerism proper. A far cry from the works In the sixties the painter Raúl Martínez portrayed on his can-
where the same bottle is reproduced in serigraphy and vases the icons of the Cuban revolution, where there was no
colour. room for capitalist consumerism. To replace it, it was possible
In the nineties, the Cuban painter Pedro Álvarez made a to generate a light-hearted iconography for a socialist revolu-
series of paintings where the exuberance of a landscape of tion in the Caribbean made to the rhythm of the rumba.
tropical vegetation full of coconut trees is mixed with the awe- Instead of elaborating a critical thesis or a social analysis,
some presence of emblematic buildings in Havana, such as Raúl Martínez proposes an operation of adaptation and divul-
the Capitolio (a replica of the Capitol in Washington D.C.), gation, creating a carefree atmosphere easily accepted by the
typical Cuban characters taken from the popular satirical new young committed socialists, for the busts of the leaders of
paintings by Landaluce (a painter based in Havana at the the revolution. In the 1970 work Sin título (Untitled), the busts
end of the 19th century, creator of Costumbrismo on the island) of Bolívar and José Martí appear as venerable forerunners of
and characters from Coca-Cola advertisements of the fifties: emancipation, along with Lenin and Marx and Camilo
the smiling deliveryman, the happy little blonde girl and of Cienfuegos, Ché Guevara and, naturally, Fidel Castro, whose
course the lorry with the red trade mark clearly visible in the bust and torso occupy a prominent position6. In another work
background. of the late sixties displayed in the permanent collection of the
Pedro Álvarez’s intention is to place on the same level the Museo de Arte Cubano in Havana, he portrays a series of
influence of Spanish culture, embodied in Landaluce’s paint- slightly different pictures of Fidel Castro’s face as he speaks
239
into a microphone, reminiscent of a cinema sequence, with a cigars. Unique since 1492”; Fidel Castro sitting in a rocking
mixture of storyboard and comic book treatment. The analo- chair smoking a cigar beside an advertisement for a Cuban
gies between his paintings and certain graphic compositions fashion boutique: “La maison, Casa cubana de modas”. This
on the pop music record sleeves of the period are a token of series of paintings is neither an idealisation of the
how in a context such as Cuba Pop Art proposes a similar Commander nor a political critique, in spite of the irony, dis-
treatment for heroes and revolutionary figures as for pop creet and circumspect as to be expected in a regime based on
stars. No doubt it would not have been possible to state this an excessive personality cult. It is more of an analysis of lan-
fact at the time either inside or outside Cuba. At times it is only guage in a symbolic tone, which would not have been possi-
possible to understand the zeitgeist of the times in retrospect. ble without the ironic breakthrough brought by Pop Art. In
As an example we have the fate of the Ché’s face in the pho- Toirac’s work, however, we find an interesting mixture of a
tograph taken by Korda which can be found today on bright- language with Pop roots (insofar as its referential world
ly coloured scarves or T-shits, in plastic or metal key-rings or resides in the popular culture of its context) and an acerbic lin-
fridge magnets, not to mention ashtrays, that inundate street guistic analysis based on the conceptual legacy.
markets in Cuba and elsewhere, and has recently been used It must be borne in mind that all the representations of Fidel
repeatedly in anti-globalisation manifestations all over the Castro in Cuban plastic art are submitted to a strict official
developed world. A similar fate shared by other more popu- control that filters deviations from the canonical image of the
lar, cheaper and less refined supports bearing Lenin’s effigy Commander. Not only were the images required to be official,
on Soviet and post-Soviet souvenirs. but they were not supposed to be seen outside Cuba, which is
The official portrait of Mao was also subjected to appropria- almost tantamount to endowing artistic representations with a
tion by Andy Warhol for another of his serial pictures dated power akin to that granted to sacred images or relics by the
between 1972 and 1974, at the precise time that he symbolised Church: that is why these works by Toirac were never exhib-
the antagonistic axis of the United States still involved in ited outside Cuba as paintings, but as light boxes made
Vietnam albeit on the verge of abandoning the battlefield. But abroad in the show Cuba. Siglo XX (Cuba. 20th Century) held
Mao was also printed on paper by the artist and used as a in several cities in Spain7.
background for several pieces, such as, for example, those It is thanks to Pop’s versatility also that its strategies of visual
displayed in an exhibition held at the Musée Galliera in Paris analysis made their way little by little into European Socialist
in 1974. societies, especially after the eighties, and into China during
The paintings made in 1995 by another Cuban artist, José the nineties, under labels like Neo-Pop or Post-Pop.
Ángel Toirac, can be described as post-Pop; they combine in As regards the events of the last few decades, where Pop
the same space of the painting pictures of Fidel Castro taken strategies have become chameleonic and adopted new
from ordinary official photographs with publicity slogans that analyses and even stylistic solutions, our idea of Pop Art
give an ambiguous view of the leader of the Cuban revolu- should be more and more open and less restrictive about
tion: Fidel Castro taking photographs with a camera in his what is considered Pop and what is not, and also about how
hands alongside the habitual trade mark of Canon; Fidel and why it is still considered valid, because the glance reaf-
Castro smoking a Havana cigar next to the words “the mark firms a canon. No doubt it is not a question of mixing up every-
left by a masterpiece is not always imperishable. Havana thing that has an anthropological air, contains icons of con-
240
sumerism, political narratives or social analysis with Pop. But (1956-65). At the end of the fifties he moved to Berlin in the
Pop tends to become diluted in each of the contexts or territo- German Democratic Republic and it was there that his series
ries conquered. of photomontages titled Fata Morgana USA. American Way of
In Spain the fatality of the Civil War had cut off the country Life was first published in 19678.
from Europe and although at the beginning of the sixties eco- Nevertheless, Renau’s influence on Spanish Pop artists, who
nomic recovery and tourism heralded a change, the time was were born in the densely political atmosphere of Estampa
still not ripe for the emergence of a modern consumer society. Popular9, was indirect and late in arriving. Equipo Crónica
However, the experience of propaganda used in the Civil War made several homages with a direct dedication to Renau,
had shown the importance of icons in the ideological con- such as El panfleto. (A Josep Renau, cartelista) (The Pamphlet.
frontation between fascism, democracy and socialism. All this [To Josep Renau, Poster Artist]), of 1973, which portrays a car-
had led to the creation of propaganda apparatuses (not only nivalesque scene in the style of Georg Grosz, or more explic-
used by the government of the Republic, but also by trade itly in another piece titled Renau Fotomontador (Renau,
unions and political parties, and naturally by the government Photomontage Maker), where the sentence “Taule de treball
the rebel army set up first in Salamanca and later in Burgos). del mestre fotomontador Josep Renau, Valencia l’any 1937”
Special emphasis was put on the growing importance of the (Work bench of master photomontage maker Josep Renau,
media and world diffusion as a way of channelling help and Valencia 1937) is written in pencil on a painting of his work
alliances for the war and resulted in the production of posters bench.
with the participation of many artists connected to the avant- Equipo Crónica use collage and photomontage techniques
gardes, especially on the Republican side. Among many oth- transferred to painting to establish a critical interpretation of
ers, it is worth mentioning Josep Renau, who was also Director the images and icons that were foremost in the visual culture
of Fine Arts. Renau, who had worked as an illustrator and of Spain at the time, but they also criticised the past and his-
poster maker in the twenties, got involved in photomontage tory by attempting to find ways to reinterpret current affairs.
through the magazine AIZ, where John Heartfield’s anti-Nazi This confluence of present and past undeniably differentiates
works were published. He worked mainly on posters during them from the many international formulations, which only
the Civil War, but he also collaborated with theoretical publi- addressed the visual values of the present. In a way, this fea-
cations like Función social del cartel publicitario. After the ture also characterised Equipo Realidad, who delved into the
Civil War he went into exile first in France and later moved to photographic archives of the Civil War to underscore the
Mexico. There he showed an interest in the impact of the importance of politics in people’s memory10.
North American media on Mexican society, especially in the It was not only Franco’s regime but the problem involved in
Spanish edition of the magazine Life. In his photomontages assuming memories as an unfinished historical issue that
he makes an acid criticism of the icons and myths of the US marked Spain in the sixties and the seventies. Exile was also
capitalist society and unconsciously adopts the language that a tradition, and it is not surprising that an emblematic figure
was later to become the patrimony of Pop Art. Renau is a sort like Blanco White was the point of departure for a work made
of political forerunner of Pop Art and that is clear to see in in 1978 by Eduardo Arroyo José María Blanco White ame-
some of his works produced during the fifties, such as nazado por sus seguidores en el mismo Londres (José María
Photogenic Melancholy (1955) and American Celebrities Blanco White Threatened by his Followers in London).
241
(Eduardo Arroyo was himself exiled in Paris after his exhibi- ry of anticipation, where we can find the influence, albeit indi-
tion held at Galería Biosca in Madrid in 1963)11. rect, of subjective (Kafka-style) narratives, and literary or cin-
If, on the one hand, resorting to history implied triggering ematographic science fiction. An example of this kind of work
reflection about the activity of censorship, on the other hand it is the series of works titled Aislamiento (Isolation) by Anzo
meant reopening a discussion about the different ideas of (José Iranzo Almonacid), where the individual confronts the
Spain, which appeared for years as an open wound. It was no machine and the archive, that is, dehumanisation, on his
good making a criticism of the supposedly successful tourist- own. Anzo, whose studies included excellent technical train-
filled present without delving into the phantoms of history, ing at the Arts and Crafts school in Valencia and the Superior
starting with recent times, embodied by exile and the Civil School of Architecture in Barcelona, and who worked in
War, to go on to reconsider the Baroque as a moment of splen- advertising, experimented with the materials and procedures
dour but also profound crisis. Picasso had also addressed his- of the graphic arts and became one of the key figures in Pop
tory in his way, with his extensive series based on Las Art in Valencia12.
Meninas. In the history of Spanish painting there are many On the other hand and with different intentions, Darío Villalba
examples, from Goya, who revisits Velázquez to paint the por- uses photography as his basic work tool expressing a tragic
trait of Carlos IV’s family, to Antonio Saura, who tackles view of life and human condition.
Goya’s “half-buried dog”, to portrayals of Christ and Baroque In both cases they are clearly indebted to Pop, and yet we see
portraits, all deformed in Informalist style. History and natu- no reference to advertising or the consumer society, but they
rally memory in 20th century Spanish culture always seem to are not exactly political statements either, although their ulti-
be the unfinished business that makes one think and reflect mate meaning is essentially political. A case where political
about the present. vindication is the essential axis of the work is the painting of
However, this resorting to memory, to the painting of the past Joan Genovés, where aerial views of demonstrations appear
or cult movies, present both in Equipo Crónica and Equipo repeatedly, with crowds running and separating into individ-
Realidad and Eduardo Arroyo, is not only limited to the uals with the visual quality of photography.
sphere of Spanish culture but involves constant interrelation Luis Gordillo is the least political artist of them all. His work
between popular culture and high culture. This is something involves plastic research that does not even include the literal
that does not seem to adjust to the early premises of Pop Art, terms of appropriation of images from advertising or the
but in the eighties even Warhol included in his paintings media. He has other interests, more connected with the value
works by Munch, De Chirico or Leonardo da Vinci’s Last of the visual elements and the symbolic meaning created by
Supper in one of his lattermost great series. After Solbes’ the chromatic atmospheres. Furthermore, he is inclined to use
death and the ensuing disappearance of Equipo Crónica, drawing, elements from comics, whether narrative or not, that
Manolo Valdés dedicated himself to exploring the plastic pos- plunge the spectator into a realm of psychedelic delirium and
sibilities offered by a reinterpretation of art history and uni- a fantasy of modernity. In fact his project approaches Pop Art
versal culture by means of the wide range of techniques pro- to produce a different sort of painting. The connection that can
vided by modern tradition. be established between his paintings and the incipient
The history of Pop Art in Spain also addresses the present. A Spanish-style consumer society has to do with a subtle percep-
universal updating of dehumanisation and unease. It is histo- tion of the changes being brought about in the collective way
242
of seeing things, but it has to do above all with the plastic val- on art, but also on political and social issues, on the icons of
ues of colour, of forms in movement, of the terms involved in the cinema, music, bullfighting, tourism and advertising or
the composition and an allusion to subjects like cars, portraits, the comic that emerged under Franco’s dictatorship after the
cartoon-style drawings, very controlled serialisation, for we Civil War, but also earlier. These and other icons configured a
often find variations where the initial drawing changes from mediocre universe, where the kitsch air gave rise to a bitter
frame to frame: this is a psychological approach, but very humour that became a tool of social criticism that managed to
effective. So much so that his style attracted many followers, elude traps set by the censorship of the regime. The strategies
not actually as Pop Art, but as a strategy of gestural, formal of Pop provided a (not only visual but also intellectual) frame-
and chromatic explosion and liberation, as a form of painterly work that, thanks to the contradictions enclosed in this icono-
renovation through Pop Art, in order to reach richer and graphic encyclopaedia, constituted a point of departure for
denser places. Gordillo’s colour reminds us of posters and political and social reflection about the present. This point of
advertising, printed matter, albeit not in a mimetic or literal departure allowed Pop to survive in neo and post formula-
manner, but always indirect and with few explicit quota- tions, where the contribution of a legacy of conceptual tradi-
tions13: his research is based on a plastic and graphic tion was essential as a useful tool to address the collective
approach where his own collages, photomontages and even subconscious of all Hispanic myths (naturally including
paintings are reproduced, altered and manipulated. peripheral nationalist ones). Perhaps that is why Pop Art has
Indeed there are many possible versions of the history of survived in Spain as a neo or post resource until the present
Pop in Spain, but none of them will be canonical. The pro- day. The list would be endless, from Manuel Sáez to Juan
posals could be precursors or latecomers, but they will all be Ugalde, using Pop as a tool for analysis rather than a style.
long-range. From an orthodox viewpoint of art history, Pop was exception-
The historical and political viewpoint is undoubtedly one of al in Spain because of the absence of a consumer society in
the major keys to understanding it, but it is not the only one14. the sixties, unlike other countries is western Europe and the
The interest in history and memory in the art of the sixties and United States, However, what was very successful was a pop-
seventies is not only necessary because of the political cir- ular level which the political authorities hovered over but
cumstances, but also because of the need to vindicate a con- were unable to control. The Francoist regime tried to use this
tinuity in the tradition that was interrupted by the Civil War iconographic archive to further their nationalistic and pro-
and exile, and above all an attempt to establish other read- foundly conservative aims, but the mediatic system of the
ings and interpretations that oppose and contradict the offi- national folklore worked in an excessively anarchistic and
cial history advocated by Franco’s regime. disturbing way.
These concerns are closely related to the terms of the polemic Las Sevillanas (Folklore)(Sevillanas [Folklore]) is the title of a
that had arisen a few years earlier between Américo Castro gouache by Equipo Crónica dated 1966. A photographic
and Sánchex Albornoz to establish the character of image of Spanish dancers is repeated in a comic-strip
Spanishness, a reflexive field opened up also by Ortega y sequence and the images become more and more distorted
Gasset15. until they form a caricature-like tone. In this work the irony is
The tale or tales of this history cannot be linear, and in order not about the dance or flamenco, but rather about the use the
to understand them properly, they must not be focused only regime made of flamenco in its propaganda, which meant
243
that the parties of the jet set of the time always ended up with (1962) or Cuatrodedos (Four Fingers, 1963) as the antihero of
flamenco dancing or a visit to a tablao. It was this world com- Francoism. In Sama de Langreo, Asturias, septiembre 1963
bined with the world of bullfighting that so fascinated Ava (Sama de Langreo, Asturias, September 1963) and La femme
Gardner and Errol Flynn, and Hemingway, although for dif- du mineur Pérez Martínez, Constantina (dite Tina), tondue par
ferent reasons. la police (The Wife of the Miner Pérez Martínez, Constantina
Throughout the 19th century in Spain popular culture based [known as Tina], Has her Head Shaved by the Police, 1970), by
on the heroic figure of the bullfighter and the “ethnic” glam- taking the physiognomy of popular ballad singers, which tend
our of flamenco, folk and popular music singers came to its to be superposed over the faces of statues of the Virgin in Holy
peak, and formed a sort of show business culture that was the Week processions, and applying it to this woman, he shifts
precursor of today’s mediatic society, where sports, fashion, things around to show the face of political repression as a case
the star system and rock stars reign. of modern martyrdom, somewhere between a religious scene
Viaje por España, by Charles Davillier had been one of the and the pseudo-tragic paraphernalia of popular songs. In
most popular travel books of the post-Romantic period since another work also from 1970, Caballero español (Spanish
the 19th century. Baron Charles Davillier travelled around Gentleman), the slim rounded silhouette of flamenco dancers
Spain in 1862 accompanied by his friend Gustave Doré, who is followed by the face of an Iberian sex-symbol with bril-
made the illustrations for his book: bulls and dancers were liantine in his hair and a little moustache, who can be identi-
already an attraction foreigners saw as exotic but Spaniards fied as a prototype of the fascist Spanish hidalgo, and here the
considered an essential part of their leisure. intention is not only political but also social insofar as it criticis-
This popular tradition generated an iconography of male and es the male chauvinism that was rampant in the social sphere
female saints, singers who looked like virgins but appeared of Francoism. In Chien espagnol (Spanish Dog, 1964), a
on the stage as allegories of desire. The advertising of the German shepherd, the dog most frequently used by the police
early decades of the 20th century took advantage of all these in their repressive activities, is fanning itself with grotesque
items to present oranges held by falleras or olive oil carried flirtatiousness in the style of one of Goya’s Majas against a
by flamenco dancers. Bullfighting, dancing and wine went background of pastel shades. From bullfighting to fans, with
hand in hand. Julio Romero de Torres is a mediocre painter figures of virgins and singers in between, making reference to
whose hackneyed symbolism covered the period between the Goya’s most typical works, including the Majas, also profusely
twenties and the forties. But when one of his most popular reproduced in business calendars, these were the most
paintings, La piconera (The Charcoal Seller), was used to absolutely putrid symbols of popular culture in Francoist
illustrate the hundred peseta note in the sixties, his dark- Spain until the seventies.
haired beauties started to appear on calendars as images of The cinema has followed similar parody procedures, apart
the “saintly whore”. from the Movida in Madrid (which must be considered a gen-
Eduardo Arroyo used all this imagery in a very clever way, uine post-Pop phenomenon). Films from the forties presented
half-ironical, half-grotesque, making a parody of the symbols prototypes that were reinterpreted in an absurd manner in the
of “Spanishness16” but with the intention of undermining the eighties, especially in films by Pedro Almodóvar or Álex de la
vulgar, idyllic image of Franco’s regime. Arroyo’s parody is Iglesia, and particularly in the Torrente saga directed and
centred initially on the figure of the bullfighter, as in Carancha played by Santiago Segura, as the ultimate expression of the
244
poor, ignorant mentality of a rancid popular tradition, along 11 See the text by Valeriano Bozal, “El arte Pop en España” in the catalogue
of the exhibition Arte Pop held at the Museo Nacional Centre de Arte Reina
with the creations of Guillermo Fesser, which go beyond this
Sofía, Madrid 1992, p.241.
uncouth tone to reflect a very vivid humorous image of televi- 12 See the text by Julián Gállego published in the catalogue of the exhibi-
sion in Spain today, with its new mediatic popular culture. tion of Anzo’s work in the Salas de Exposiciones de la Dirección General de
Bellas Artes, Madrid 1974.
In Spain Pop arrived with a political intention, shunning the
13 The following can be considered exceptions to this: collages like the
commercial spaces of incipient or nonexistent consumerism,
series on Peter Sellers, with photographs of the well-known British actor
lacking opulence and smacking of survival, but containing an taken from magazines, or the series with swimming pools, although in this
case the bird’s-eye-view treatment linked to the kidney shape and the dif-
iconography that still today sustains the legitimacy of a Pop ferent greens gives them a very personal touch.
Art analysis that is not strictly commercial but rather social. 14 For a more precise view of Spanish Pop Art, it is worth consulting the text
by Valeriano Bozal, “El arte pop en España”, included in the catalogue of
1 ROSENBLUM, Robert: “Cubism as Pop Art”, in Modern Art and Popular the exhibition Arte Pop, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía,
Culture. Readings in High and Low, The Museum of Modern Art, New York Madrid 1992, and the texts by William Jeffett, Marko Daniel and Santiago
1990. published on the occasion of the exhibition High & Low held at that Olmo included in the catalogue of the exhibition Spain is Different.
museum. 15 The question about Spain and the idea one has of it as a country, culture
2 Cohen, Lynne, “The Independent Group: British and American Pop Art in or way of being was a constant feature in 20th century Spanish thought and
Modern Art and Popular Culture. Readings in High and Low, op. cit., p. 204. literature, from the Generation of ’98 to José Goytisolo, and more recently
Álvaro Junco or José María Ridao. A possible genealogy of these discus-
3 In 1990 the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London organised a ret-
sions about history can be found in La España invertebrada by José Ortega
rospective exhibition of the Independent Group, which was later shown at y Gasset, published in 1921, and followed by La realidad histórtica de
the IVAM and then travelled to Los Angeles. España (1948) by Américo Castro, discussed by Sánchez Albornoz in
4 In her book Tristísimo Warhol, Cadillacs, piscinas y otros síndromes mod- España, un enigma historico (1956).
ernos (Ediciones Siruela, Madrid 1999), Estrella de Diego makes a very sug- 16 Francisco Calvo Serraller, in his text “Españolada”, included in the cat-
gestive personal reading of American Pop Art, inserting it in the cultural alogue of the exhibition dedicated to Arroyo at the Museo Nacional Centro
and social context of the time. de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 1998, speaks of the painter’s parodical use
5 De Diego, Estrella, Tristísimo Warhol, op. cit. of the symbols of popular culture in Spain during his first period in Paris.
About this subject also, see the text by Germaine Viatte, “Eduardo Arroyo,
6 It is a work reproduced on page 150 of the catalogue of the exhibition
aguafiestas”, included in the same publication.
Cuba siglo XX. Modernidad y sincretismo (Cuba 20th Century. Modernity
and Syncretism). Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran
Canaria 1996.
7 The exhibition Cuba. Siglo XX was presented in Las Palmas, Palma de
Mallorca and Barcelona.
8 The first edition of Fata Morgana came out in Eulenspiegel Verlag in 1967.
Before this, Renau had published the odd photomontage in the magazine
Eulenspiegel in Berlin.
9 Among the many critics who have addressed this period it is worth men-
tioning especially Valeriano Bozal and Tomàs Llorens, who took an active
part in the debate that preceded the appearance of Equipo Crónica. See
Facundo Tomás, “El Equipo Crónica cuarenta años después” in Equipo
Crónica en la colección del IVAM, Valencia 2005.
10 Equipo Realidad, made up of Jordi Ballester and Joan Cardells, used the
title Hazañas bélicas. Cuadros de historia (Feats of War. Paintings of History)
for a series of paintings based on the graphic memory of the Civil War, whose
reference is the reproductions that appeared in a popular encyclopaedia
published in Argentina. See José Gandía Casimiro, “Hoy tengo una duda:
quizás no eran ellos quienes pintaban, sino que lo hacían sus imágenes” in
the catalogue of the exhibition Equipo Realidad¸ IVAM, Valencia 1993.
245
Pop Art
new “artifices of taste”, according to Daniel Bell’s definition of
the mass society and its “mediating function” in the middle
class that emerged in those years. And the most important
improper appropriation? thing was the effect this mass society was having on what was
pompously known as high culture.
Lluís Fernández
Was Pop Art not like a sort of return of the repressed popular
“Ainsi, après le foisonnement culture that had been lying in wait since the appearance of
experimental des avant-gardes,
the very first avant-garde movements? Was it not implicit in
ce serait l’ère du vide esthétique
qui prendrait la relève” the boutades of Marcel Duchamp’s early ready-mades like a
(“Réflexions sur l’esthétique contemporaine”,
by Yves Cusset)
projectile to be shot at the incipient cultural industry? The fact
that it took forty years to show its face with the fashion of Pop
It is difficult not to see all the signs of bad taste that announce Art and post-Modernity tells us to what extent the avant-
the coming of the last of the avant-garde movements or the gardes tried to restrain the advent of the mass media simply
first of post-Modernity in Richard Hamilton’s collage Just What by taking its place. But the arrival of Pop Art went further than
is it that Makes Today’s Homes so Appealing? (1965). In this that, since, Dada-like, itself an avant-garde, it revealed the
manifesto of Pop Art, Hamilton still has recourse to the blatant intrinsic banality of the avant-gardes. The operation of inte-
modernity of the objects he affectedly portrays: the pink comic, grating the “mass arts” in the avant-garde had its compensa-
the cinema posters, the body-builder, the housewife with the tion: definitively integrating the avant-gardes in the consumer
vacuum-cleaner, the lollipop with the word “Pop”, which society where they had always been, without attempting to
refers to Paolozzi’s gun that says “pop”, the corned beef, the acknowledge that they were there, and becoming just anoth-
Ford trademark, the nude calendar girl, the tape-recorder and er fashion, stating what was “in” and what was “out”.
the television set, symbols of the change in household customs In the fifties, when the Independent Group drew up its mani-
that has taken place in the capitalist society during the 20th festo, a few years before Richard Hamilton made that inaugu-
century and these objects in the fifties, after World War II, have ral Pop Art collage, it was clear that the extremely vulgar ele-
become not only status symbols and articles of prime necessi- ments of mass cult used in the painting in a non hierarchical
ty, but cultural icons of the society of affluence. Similar ele- manner were essential to provide a critical definition of a new
ments of mass culture and high culture can be seen in the aesthetic that inaugurated a new artistic movement in
impressive collage on the sleeve of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely England under the name of Pop Art, as a reaction against the
Hearts Club Band (1967), to the greater glory of the Beatles, asphyxiating Informalism that prevailed at the time. Just when
made by the English Pop artist Peter Blake, who also started post-Modernism was emerging in architecture as a reaction
his career making collages with elements of popular culture. against the Modern Movement, with Robert Venturi and his
As Hamilton wrote, “what we need is not so much to define the influential Learning from Las Vegas at its head.
meanings of the image as to develop our capacity to accept Where do Pop Art and post-Modernity converge then? It
and use the constant enriching of visual material”. seems evident that in that they appropriated elements of pop-
It is clear that there is still an ambivalent fascination for the ular culture and its “Kleenex” aesthetics. It does not matter
aesthetic of the mass media and a critical attitude to these that these elements were used as a criticism of the consumer
246
society and in favour of avant-garde elitism, which was its own variations and knows full well that the contents are
where Formalist artists wanted to belong. In those years it also mere images”.
was still a sign of modernity to be amazed at the rise of the Suddenly, when compared to the mystic density of Abstract
welfare state, above all after emerging from the subsistence Impressionism, any object in Pop Art was as superficial as it
economy brought about by World War II, and conspicuous was suitable to be made into art and anybody could do so. A
malaise at the bad taste of the middle class. Dwight legacy, no doubt, of the Surrealist maxim of combining art and
Macdonald reacted ferociously against it in “Masscult and life, mixed with Duchamp’s heretical practice and his “aes-
Midcult”: “Masscult neither offers its clients an emotional thetically anaesthetised” objects. Since everything could not
catharsis or an aesthetic experience, because this requires yet be art, life would be the superfluous thing, it would be the
effort. […] The only thing it proposes is to entertain.” passe-partout around the work of art, lacking artistry. Until the
Against this apocalyptic stance, to use Eco’s terminology, for advent of Conceptual Art, the appropriating post-Modern
an integrated individual like Daniel Bell the emergence of gesture did not yet include the public, the vacuum and the
mass production and consumerism levelled “the lifestyles that gallery as essential parts of the post-Modern work that the
differentiated the classes”. And what ensued was even more “critical appropriationism” of the late eighties took as the
difficult to predict, high and low culture were homologated at basis of the “displacement of the work to the frame” and its
the same rate, creating new ways of seeing and understand- immateriality.
ing avant-garde art: Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s commercial- So what else could “Art” be but anything that could occupy
isation of the culture industry. And incipient globalisation. that place in the sacred space reserved for the sublime art-
Despite the pessimism of the philosophers of the Critical work? To use Lacan’s terminology, according to his herme-
Theory, everything has improved. In the capitalist society, the neutist Slavoj Zizek, “the sublime character of an object is not
apocalyptic have gone on with their gibberish, but the inte- a feature of its intrinsic nature but only an effect of the place it
grated have won the day. But in the fifties things happened occupies (or does not occupy) in the phantasmatic space”. We
fast. Really fast. Many new products appeared; new musical could call it the “Duchamp effect”; any piece of rubbish
rhythms succeeded each other as fast as the avant-gardes placed in a sacred artistic space acquires the status of an art-
had done earlier. All of this was followed by a feeling of free- work and loses, through this mystic transubstantiation, its spu-
dom and change of customs and personal relationships pre- rious origin. And what is worse, it becomes integrated in the
viously unheard of. Democratisation, ostentatious con- iconosphere, in the museum and in the consumer society,
sumerism, socio-cultural equality. Beside this the Futurists’ denying the main objective of “critical appropriation”, as is
fascination for machines and speed felt as old-fashioned and proven by the artists who have won the Turner Prize and their
naïve as Surrealism and its objet trouvé, intellectualist ves- covetous complicity with the system they criticise.
tiges of the last totalitarian avant-gardes. In comparison with After this displacement, by means of the “appropriationism”
Pop Art, the symbols of the mass society seemed as removed initiated by Duchamp and the ironic status of ready-mades
from art as democratic equality. But it was those signs that produced after 1913 as artworks, nothing stood in the way of
flooded the art world in democratic societies and changed any object “elevated to the dignity of a Sublime Thing” being
their cultural physiognomy utterly. For Fredric Jameson, post- an artwork. Post-Modernity had arrived and it would not be
Modernity is more formal, more “distracted”, it “only records long before the “action” was created, a fetish term that,
247
together with “performance”, constituted the conceptual the prevalence of what is today considered contemporary
galaxy of the post-Modern art of the following half century, aesthetic or, in Arthur C. Danto’s words, “the posthistoric
which crystallised in the universe of trash avant-garde. “In moment”. In Is Modern Art Dead? Suzi Gablick pointed out
advanced democracy,” says Peter Sloterdijk, “artistic novelty that modern art and culture might be coming to an end, for
could never have expected a better reception; dangerous “as long as we are willing to consider anything art, innova-
nevertheless, because the disappearance of criteria brings tions do not seem possible or even desirable”.
the arts closer and closer to the threshold of nihilism and also The main premise of postmodern action, that equation that
artworks, most of which not only emerge from the limits of turns everything into art, as it annuls historic time and
trash but go beyond them.” responds to the acritical motto “anything goes”, is that the
artist should realise, should “see” like an epiphany, that the
Modernity and Post-Modernity world of masscult around him is an artistic installation in pur-
But to go back to those first years, for Dwight Macdonald, suit of that sublime place that will canonise it. In the very act
masscult was a parody of high culture, “indifferent to any val- of combining “n” elements of any type meaning is created
uation criterion”. This rather elitist intellectual stance pro- and the multiple layers permit so many “readings” that the
duces the postmodern effect by reaction: by considering mass postmodern work is elusive from the very moment when it is
production something unworthy, although assuming it ironi- exposed to the critics, its first and exclusive addressees, so that
cally in the paintings of Paolozzi, Blake and Richard Hamilton they may sanction it as an artwork with a torrent of philosoph-
has a destructive effect on culture. ical approximations. In this aspect also it differs from the his-
The post-modern condition appears to be naïve and paradox- toric avant-gardes, for the theoretical apparatus does not
ical. Despite the banal critiques of the consumer society that come before the work, nor is it the work itself, but comes after
will continue to exploit the criticism ad nauseam of the left it and is like a sophisticated “instruction manual”. A quotation
wing and that Michelangelo Antonioni symbolically portrays from Tom Wolfe in his book about Pop Art The Painted Word
in the final scene of Zabriskie Point (1970), in Hamilton’s “mod- helps clarify this. “Naturally, the chic of Modernity put special
ern house”, the status symbols of the cultural industry appear emphasis on theory. Each new movement, each new ism of
in slow motion and seem to be taken for emblems of the Modern Art, claimed to enjoy a new way of seeing that the
dreaded mass culture. The paradoxical thing is that, by intro- rest of the world (viz the bourgeoisie) could not understand. It
ducing these adulterated elements into avant-garde art, they was around 1946,” continues Tom Wolfe, mocking “those men-
become accepted as high culture. It no longer matters that tal constructs” called Theories of Art, “when the art of our time
Pop Art is “an art about signs and sign systems”, as Lawrence appeared, an art more specifically literary than any other of
Alloway defined it. As time went by, it is evident that homolo- those insulted by the wildest fury of the Fauvists and Cubists.”
gation affected both sides, and a true fact faded into the back- And he concludes with the epiphany function of the theory: “
ground: that it was the Fine Arts that discredited Arts & Crafts, The new situation of the art world is this: first you get the Word
and became associated little by little to trash culture. and then you can see.”
Perhaps that was the only way for the avant-gardes to sur- Once Alloway, who coined the term Pop Art, established that
vive: to safeguard that sacred place traditionally occupied by it was neither abstract nor realistic, Pop Art was also perfect
“sublime art” from the onslaught of the conceptual void and for updating the political discourse of the left, which had got
248
stuck in the quagmire of totalitarian communist propaganda ed to seek a non-escapist effect with their paintings and com-
in the thirties and forties with pompier “Socialist Realism”, but bine social and individual issues. As Valeriano Bozal said,
only in those countries under a dictatorship that was starting “An art of denunciation and testimony with symbols or
to wane, like Spain in the sixties, with the artists of Estampa images that made it possible to give a view of art and culture
Popular in Valencia and critical realism: Equipo Crónica, from an oppositional stance”. In a word, “the class condition
Toledo, Juan Genovés, Equipo Realidad, whose guru was of artistic products […] inserted in the class struggle”.
Eduardo Arroyo, and in the mellowing Russia of the perestroi- It sounds rhetorical, because, historically speaking, between
ka: “Actionism” and the Sots Art of Komar & Melamid and 1940 and 1950 international left-wing intellectuals had been
Kosolapov. abandoning the class struggle, transforming political criticism
In the case of Spain, during their most committed period, into cultural criticism. With the emergence of the large middle
these artists, especially Equipo Crónica, most of whom were class, the global expansion of the mass media and “the trans-
members of the Communist Party, used connotations, denota- formation of the relationship between the intellectual and
tions, quotations and tributes to produce art that was some- society,” says Daniel Bell, “turned problems of mass culture
times subtle but always effective in intellectually masking into a leading issue at mid century”. Besides, they were part
their dissident discourse without risking police reprisals. This of Gramsci’s thesis, proposing the subversion of the appara-
led to their being considered formal albeit elitist painters tuses of bourgeois power by transferring the class struggle to
thanks to their air of engaged intellectuals. This was also a the terrain of mass culture and the creation of a cultural elite
way of escaping from the repute of being bourgeois and elit- that would make their way in like moles to occupy these
ist endured by Formalist painters. And, worse still, from the “apparatuses of power” in universities, and cultural and intel-
label of kitsch art. One could be formalist if one was critical, lectual circles to contaminate them. Specifically, in Spain, the
left wing and politicised the formal object by using the semi- Communist Party had noticed the failure of the attempts to
otic store of signs apt to become committed art. Those “sym- overthrow the dictator by violence and uprisings, so that the
bolic trinkets” that allowed Pop Art, in itself ironic, to accentu- Marxist way of winning over for the cause intellectuals, artists,
ate the irony by means of “Brechtian distanciation”. The ide- the “vital right” and useful fools put the fight against
ologists of Equipo Crónica pompously dubbed this ironic polit- Francoism on a par with the conquest of a new future society
ical reflection “symbolic documentalism”, although it led by the Communist engineering of that artistic, social and
responded to the analysis of “ideological criticism directed at cultural avant-garde dominant today.
the language of mass culture and a first semiological disman- So artists gave up the open fight against Francoist Spain
tling of that language” in Roland Barthes Mythologies. because it was too compromising and pointless, and decided
Equipo Crónica undeniably occupied an essential place in to make symbolic art, similar to what Carlos Saura was
European Pop Art: political Pop Art, at least until the end of beginning to do in the cinema, by confronting different
the seventies, when Francoism came to an end and the pre- images of popular culture with easily recognised icons of
democratic phase began, permitting these artists to emerge Spanish Baroque painting. The effect was quite spectacular.
from the narrow path of politicisation and ideological indoctri- Anyone could see the intention of the painting: not so much to
nation and initiate new more personal forms of expression. subvert high culture, for only certain paintings by Velázquez,
Until that time, theirs was a militant art, insofar as it attempt- El Greco or Goya representing monarchs, aristocrats and
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politicians from the Empire period and absolutism were cho- partida de billar (The Billiards Game) are still exceptional
sen because of the obvious symbolic parallelism with the pieces. Equipo Crónica were always two outstanding
Francoist historic present (the ruling classes are the same) painters, not mere assemblers of objects.
and figures from mass culture, although the result was some- Nevertheless, as regards the content rather than the form, in
times midcult and sometimes merely kitsch. They just as easi- some paintings by Equipo Crónica their engagement and
ly appropriated images like Velázquez’s Las Meninas or El denouncement of the political situation in Francoist Spain,
Greco’s Caballero de la mano al pecho (Gentleman with his analysed from a slightly biased leftist standpoint, was more
Hand on his Chest) and subverted them by introducing popu- important than the consumer society open up to modernity
lar elements like in El Guerrero del Antifaz luchando contra el that was beginning to exist in the then developing Spain and
Guernica (The Guerrero del Antifaz [a popular comic-book the appearance of social strata that no longer had anything to
hero] Fighting against Guernica) or, in a rather more sophis- do with the Civil War and the mythology of the Communist
ticated way, Picasso’s Meninas, music-hall and the film noir Party. And in others, this modern society was exalted even
mixed with Solana’s figures of the most wretched and tragic ignoring these slogans.
period of Spain. At the same time as they criticised Franco’s The same appropriationism, but in the opposite direction, in
dictatorship with pictorial allusions to the popular culture that the Brehznev era in the seventies, was performed by Komar
was produced during Francoism by means of classical refer- and Melamid, Erik Bulatov and Ilya Kabakov, creators of the
ences to the repressive imperialist Spain of the autonomous Sots Art movement, an abbreviation of Sotsialisticheskiy
communities and a minority that advocated a democracy Realizm, with their paintings denouncing Stalinism, with a
much more repressive than Franco’s. The proof is that this pictorial reformulation of “Socialist realism” or “totalitarian
type of painting never criticised the brutal repression of kitsch”, using images from the world of advertising and
Communist totalitarianism and the Gulag and enthusiastical- American imperialist propaganda, the result of which is an
ly approved the anti-imperialist struggles in Cuba and the explosive mescal of neo-Pop, Dadaism and rabid kitsch.
Latin American guerrillas. These are also exceptional realist painters immersed in a
Added to this is the use of the daily chronicle of the mass soci- comatose socialist dictatorship.
ety combined with paintings by the masters of American Pop Komar & Melamid inaugurated Soviet Actionism by auction-
Art: Lichtenstein and Warhol, and the historic avant-gardes, ing Andy Warhol’s soul for 30 roubles. After their first scan-
with a clearly ideological intention. This is rare among inter- dalous underground exhibition in Moscow, they emigrated to
national Pop artists and the exception are Spanish artists: Israel and later to New York, where they became known as
Genovés and Equipo Realidad; Arroyo’s politicisation is of a Formalist painters critical of the Soviet system. Initially, like
more literary nature. However, although many of these paint- Equipo Crónica’s Pop Art, Sots Art was a political satire of the
ings are “dated” because of their political content, others are clichés of Social Realism intended to destroy the myths of the
still magnificent works perhaps because they go much further Russian political system. Thence the Dadaist series of recre-
than the political situation of the moment and the “stylistic ations and pastiches of historical paintings by masters of
transgression” still “works” or “maintains a dialogue” or is in heroic realism like Gerasimov and of the Baroque photo-real-
open dialectic confrontation, resulting in aesthetic efficacy at ism of Isaak Brodski and Alexandr Laktionov. In Double Self
a merely pictorial level. The Serie negra (Black Series) and La Portrait as Young Soviet Pioneers, the painters, dressed up as
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Love and student riots across the world. Valdés individually. We set up a working group in the sum-
In Britain, 1964 was ‘time for a change’ year in which Harold mer of 1964 and met periodically, at first once every couple of
Wilson’s Labour Party returned to power with a tiny majority, days, and then just once a week. I was the only critic and to
while in the US, where Bobby Kennedy had been assassinat- start with there was a core group of five or six artists and
ed the previous year, his successor, Lyndon Johnson, won by some others who came less frequently. Those who came con-
a landslide. Yet while the US and most of Europe rocked in the sistently in the beginning were Solbes, Valdés and Juan
force of change, Spain remained in the stranglehold of a Antonio Toledo. The intention was to form a group that was
repressive and outmoded regime. Conscious of cultural leaned towards Action Realism – a conception of realism
developments outside Spain, and especially the Pop paint- inspired by Marxist thought in the tradition of Georg Lukacs,
ings that were then being produced in Britain and the US, a but mainly of Bertolt Brecht. The group grew out of the proj-
group of young artists from Valencia – a city which one of ects of Estampa Popular of Valencia, which had had its first
them, the artist Manuel Valdés, describes as feeling then as exhibition at the University of Valencia early in 1964. It was a
though it was ‘at the end of the world’ – started to talk about fairly large group and eventually, from within this group,
how they might respond to their situation, through the medi- Solbes, Valdés and Toledo decided to take the programme a
um which obsessed them most: painting. In 1964 the group step further and set up an impersonal working team, which
staged its first exhibition under the name Equipo Crónica became Equipo Crónica. There were models for this in the art
(Reporting Team), and as time passed it continued to reduce of the 20th century, above all in the field of abstract political
in size until only two members remained, Rafael Solbes, and art. Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel1, which was founded
Manuel Valdés, who continued to work together until the in Paris in 1961, served as a concrete reference point, as did
death of the former in 1981, coincidentally the same year that other groups and teams from Italy like Gruppo N in Padua,
the remaining forces of Franco’s Fascist Regime made their who also worked impersonally. But working impersonally in
last, and unsuccessful, attempt to seize power from the demo- the area of abstract constructivist forms is not the same as
cratically elected government. Here the critic Tomàs Llorens, working with a realist proposition.
who maintained a close creative relationship with Equipo
Crónica throughout its existence, and Manuel Valdés, the sur- CC: You were the only critic involved in this group of artists.
viving half of the team, take 1964 as the starting point from How did your role differ for theirs?
which to look back over Equipo Crónica’s work, that of its con- T L: I assisted with study and reflection. I made plastic propo-
temporaries, and the world that they inhabited. sitions but I never had a creative role per se, nor did I wish to.
I helped with practical things such as providing explanations
for educational purposes.
TOMAS LLORENS
CC: You have mentioned other models of groups working
Clare Carolin: How did you first become involved with impersonally with abstract forms, but with the exception of
Equipo Crónica? Andy Warhol’s Factory, which, although collaborative, was a
Tomàs Llorens: At the beginning of the sixties before Equipo hierarchical organisation, and the Valencian group Equipo
Crónica existed I got to know Rafael Solbes and Manolo Realidad, whose formation post-dated that of Equipo Crónica,
252
this impersonal collaborative group model is unusual, if not CC: How would you characterise the difference between the
unique to Pop art. positions of Spanish and American Pop, Equipo Crónica and
T L: The model of Warhol’s Factory was something that we Warhol, to take two concrete examples?
found out about only towards the end of the sixties, although T L: Warhol’s work is not programmatically realist in the sense
from around 1964 we followed Warhol’s painting closely. We that the work of Estampa Popular or Equipo Crónica, is. Even
were also aware of the work of Rauschenberg from 1962 though Warhol’s work uses elements of the cultural language
onwards. Some of us had seen exhibitions of Warhol and Roy of the masses – equivalent to the use of slang expressions in
Lichtenstein’s work at the Sonnabend gallery in Paris and the theatre of Brecht, and in keeping with the realist tendency
they interested us very much. – it is fundamentally ambiguous. In contrast to Equipo
Crónica and Equipo Realidad, Warhol’s position is always
CC: What was it about the work of Warhol and Lichtenstein profoundly subjective and at its root maintains the separation
that interested you? – which abstract art and in fact all modernists have chosen –
T L: Two things: In the first place its objective, realist intention between the work of art and the real world. In Warhol’s work
addressed contemporary humanity’s cultural experiences, the relation of mimesis between the work of art and the real
because to speak of realism, or of this sort of realism, is to be world is completely ignored and, as in the symbolist tradition,
conscious of the mechanisms of language and therefore con- the works of art themselves operate as stimuli for states of
scious of the cultural framework that art inhabits. This meaning mind, of moods.
is apparent in American Pop, but even more so in British Pop,
which we were aware of before the American variety: we were CC: Nevertheless, many of Warhol’s subjects are overtly polit-
very interested in Richard Hamilton and above all in Ron Kitaj, ical, for example the Race Riot series that he began in 1963 –
whose work is ideologically closer to that of Equipo Crónica or the year that Martin Luther King marched on Washington DC
Equipo Realidad, and closer to this realist, objectivist ideology. to claim equal rights for all regardless of race – his depictions
Together with Richard Linder, who worked in Paris, the English of political figures such as Kennedy, Lenin and Mao and his
Pop artists supplied examples of this realist intention that from camouflage series from the eighties that shows subjects such
the beginning of the sixties can be considered as the alterna- as the Statue of Liberty covered in camouflage.
tive to European abstraction. The second aspect which T L: It’s true that works like these that play with that possibili-
appealed to us was Pop’s position between a consciousness of ty but I don’t think that there is a programmatic position there;
realism and a consciousness of cultural mechanisms and its they are experiments more than anything else.
use of the so-called communications media. Of course this con-
sciousness was present the work of Estampa Popular, but CC: Whereas works like Equipo Crónica’s Metamorfosis del
Equipo Crónica’s work was more analytical, more reflective piloto (Metamorphosis of the Pilot, 1965), to pick a specific
than that of Estampa Popular. The creation of Equipo Crónica, example, are unambiguously didactic in the tradition of
which took place around the end of the 1964, was effectively the Brecht’s War Primer, a portfolio of war photographs compiled
creation of a group that was more powerfully integrated than from newspapers during the Second World War, each accom-
Estampa Popular. Crónica’s first exhibition under that name panied by an acerbic satirical poem. One picture dated
was in Paris in the Salon de Jeune Peinture in January 1965. September 1940, the month in which the Luftwaffe mounted a
253
devastating blitz on London, shows apprehensive German structures. In general at that time, the Communist Party main-
pilots in the cockpit of their craft and is accompanied by these tained its opposition by forming united fronts or coalitions in
lines: the cultural and intellectual worlds, but these were not inte-
It’s we who fly above your city, woman grated organically into the structure of the party,
Now trembling for your children. From up here
We’ve fixed out[r?] sights on you and them as targets CC: So Estampa Popular was a front?
If you ask why, the answer is: from fear2 T L: No. But the Communist Party encouraged and helped
TL: All the members of Equipo Crónica had some sort of liter- Estampa Popular and other artists to form fronts. Above all,
ary training. Within the group Rafael Solbes was the one with the Party was active in the fields of culture and industry,
the closest knowledge of Brecht’s photographic diaries. where it formed clandestine unions, but union opposition to
Brecht’s influence can also be seen in the work of Estampa the Regime was still very scarce at the beginning of the 1960s,
Popular. However, what does not exist in Brecht but does exist although it grew over time. By the end of the decade the
either in Equipo Crónica or Estampa Popular is the introduc- unions were much more active and powerful and the first
tion of the mechanisms of visual language of advertising, strikes against Franco were organised.
such as seriality.
CC: But from the moment it was established in 1964 Equipo
CC: Obviously the social and political situation in Spain at Crónica’s work was critical of the Regime.
that time was what galvanised these artists’ programmatic T L: Criticism of the Regime was a fundamental principle of
engagement with their subjects. According to Warhol the only both Estampa Popular and Equipo Crónica.
thing that was ‘‘‘underground’ about American underground
movies, in the strict political sense of hiding from some author- CC: And did the Regime make problems for you for this reason?
ity, was the fact that the censorship had a problem with nudi- T L: I was in prison for three years between 1969 and 1972.
ty’3, the implication being that the ‘underground’ label was Solbes and Valdés received frequent visits from the police.
nothing more than a fashionable distinction.
T L: In Spain the social context was that of an authoritarian CC: Were the exhibitions themselves closed by the authorities?
dictatorship in which all cultural activity was policed by the T L: Yes, Estampa Popular’s first exhibitions in Valencia, which
Franco Regime and all activity on the margins of the Regime took place at the University, first in the Faculty of Medicine
was kept utterly secret. One of these clandestine activities was and then in the Law Faculty, certainly gave the Regime some-
the formation of political groups opposed to the regime, thing of a shock. Later, in 1964, they had an exhibition in the
groups that were inspired by Marxism and were also quite Casa de Cultura that was closed by the police the day it
close to the Communist Party. I would say that Estampa opened and that was the last exhibition that Estampa Popular
Popular, although it is now considered to have been a collec- had in Valencia – though they did continue to have exhibi-
tive initiative in opposition to the Franco Regime, was actual- tions in Barcelona and other places in Spain in which people
ly directly inspired by the Communist Party. All of us, some from Estampa Popular of Valencia participated. At this time
more than others, were close to the Communist Party, there were activities that the police prohibited, and others that
although none of us was properly initiated into its clandestine they permitted by the act of not prohibiting them.
254
CC: As a major part of the Venice Biennale of 1976 you and ed, and badly publicised, and ignored by the Anglo-Saxon
Valeriano Bozal curated the exhibition Spagna: Avanguardia cultural world, and totally rejected by the Spanish cultural
artistica e realtà sociale 1936-1976 (Spain: Artistic Avant- world. It was one of the jokes of history.
garde and Social Reality 1936-1976), which set out to connect
the positions of Pop and Action Realism with the historical CC: But now the attitude has turned completely in favour of
vanguards or the 1930s; it was also the first major project to what we might call Spanish Pop. The IVAM, for example, has
present the work of Spanish Pop artists to a broad internation- a great deal of work by Equipo Crónica?
al public. How was the exhibition received? T L: In the years between 1985 and 1989, when I was respon-
T L: Not just our project, but all the projects of the Venice sible for forming a public collection for the IVAM, I bought a lot
Biennale that year were received very badly by the art world. of work by Equipo Crónica, some directly from the artists
The protests of 1968 had provoked a crisis for the Biennale and (although by this time Solbes was dead and so I was buying
in 1974 the Italian government intervened and completely directly from Manolo Valdés) and some from private collec-
restructured it. The newly remodelled Biennale was heavily tions. Outside Europe there are very few works by Equipo
mediated by leftist parties, above all the Italian Socialist Party, Crónica. The Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris own a piece
and the Biennale’s president, Carlos Ripa de Meana, was in but I don’t think that they have ever hung it; there is a little in
fact also a deputy of the Italian Socialist party. The art world, other museums in France and Italy, but not much. You have to
particularly its North American and Anglo-Saxon compo- keep in mind that America and American galleries dominat-
nents, reacted very negatively against this change. The art ed the art world throughout the seventies and eighties and
magazines and the dominant galleries condemned every- systematically ignored everything that was produced in
thing they saw as having anything to do with this ‘red’ Europe, especially when it had a Marxist character.
Biennale, the most obviously ‘red’ initiatives of which were
seen to be its two principle exhibitions: one was a major cultur- CC: I think that few people in the Anglo-Saxon world are even
al criticism of Chile and its dictator Augusto Pinochet while our aware of the existence of Spanish Pop art, just as in the United
project, Spagna: Avanguardia artistica e realtà sociale, rather States there is a degree of ignorance about English Pop.
than being an exhibition of protest, was a historical analysis T L: But English Pop is the father of American Pop. Lawrence
significantly influenced by Marxism. We had begun planning Alloway is the critic who defined the programmes of Pop most
the project a year or so before the Biennale. At first our plans closely, before anyone else, and certainly long before anyone
were completely ignored, but then as soon as Franco died (in had written about Pop in the United States. Later Alloway
November 1975) suddenly, out of convenience, the entire world went to live in the US where he was completely marginalised.
of culture shifted position and there was a universal race to the I remember commenting to Leo Castelli that English Pop pre-
left. So the artists who had initially resisted participating in the cedes American Pop and that Alloway was one of the found-
Biennale suddenly, and without exception, were all desperate ing critics of the movement and Leo Castelli told me that
to participate. And because we wanted to maintain our proj- Alloway was a Marxist and that he had nothing to do with
ect as a strict historical analysis, some of the artists who want- Pop, and I think that Castelli’s attitude reflects a very gener-
ed to be included but who did not fit with the concept were alised attitude which continues to prevail in the Anglo-Saxon
excluded and as a result the exhibition was completely reject- world.
255
more focused, and after some time we set out see if we could CC: What was your relationship to the Communist Party at
plan another exhibition which had no signature and was made this time?
up of the pictures that had been planned and discussed in the MV: During the Franco years the only political party that
meetings. So this became the basic operating principle of opposed the Regime was the Communist Party and most of its
Crónica, which we continued to develop, always in this slow, activities remained undercover. From around the time that we
tentative way. It’s not as though we sat down and said, ‘let’s see formed Equipo Crónica we had good relations with José
what we come with, what shall we invent?’, but these influ- Ortega, a Party member and friend of Picasso who, in a man-
ences and needs that I have described started to create the cli- ner of speaking, consolidated the opposition. Ortega was con-
mate that produced collaborative work. cerned with Party questions related to painting and when our
group exhibited together we got in touch with him to discuss
CC: Where did the name Equipo Crónica (Reporting Team) our operations. Later in the decade, almost all the intellectu-
als in Valencia, including ourselves and many of the people
come from?
around us, were all actually card-carrying Party militants.
MV: Strangely, there is disagreement about this. I always say
That is to say, we were members, we paid our membership
that it emerged from conversations with Tomàs Llorens, but
fees and we held meetings. Within the Party we were, on the
even Tomàs says that it was invented by, or somehow emanat-
one hand, playing the role of artists, and on the other hand,
ed from, Vicente Aguilera Cerni. I don’t think that the magic
doing what we could from the political point of view: attempt-
word just appeared one day but Aguilera spoke of the report-
ing to bring about a political normalcy in Spain.
ing of reality (‘Crónica de la realidad’4), and we were touching
on subjects to do with contemporary realities. But this question
CC: To what extent was it also necessary to keep the activities
of the name remains unclear because everything about
of Estampa Popular and Equipo Crónica secret from the
Crónica appeared little by little, and was not the result of a
authorities?
strategy. We didn’t just invent the group and the name one day
MV: It’s important to be very careful when speaking of the
– it was slower, more confused and complex than that.
repression of Equipo Crónica because one has to keep in
mind that at this time the police did not really bother with
CC: And from the outset Tomàs Llorens was connected to the
artists. In some ways they did bother but how can I say that
group? they really bothered when at the same time they were killing
MV: We have always been closely connected to Tomàs people? The repression of artists was minimal and consisted
Llorens. Unlike Vicente Aguilera Cerni, Tomàs was the same mainly of confiscating passports, and on the occasions when
age as us, and as our thoughts about painting were evolving, we were taken to court we received only minor sentences. I
so Tomàs was developing his own thinking about the history can’t say that we suffered as others did – the workers for
of art. I always felt more comfortable with, and closer to, example. There were people in the Valencian Communist
Tomàs than to Aguilera – despite the fact that at that time Party who were thrown in prison by the police and beaten so
Aguilera was more powerful because of the art magazine5 he severely their backs were broken. Obviously they did not do
directed, which at that time drew a lot of people together, this to us, primarily because the harm we were able to cause
including us – but the personal affinity and understanding the Regime was minimal and so the authorities pursued other
was with Tomàs Llorens. things. Nevertheless, at this time all the artists in Spain were
257
on the left, and struggling against the Regime – but Tàpies, MV: I still don’t know. We discovered Pop suddenly, at a dis-
Chillida, all these people, made abstract paintings, so of tance far removed from the United States – through the Venice
course less attention was paid to them because what they Biennale and in exhibitions we saw on our trips to Paris.
were doing apparently did the government no harm. On the Warhol and Lichtenstein showed us a way of doing things that
other hand, the police and the institutions certainly took note suited us, that caught our imaginations, and that it felt right to
of what we were doing, and they were constantly making throw ourselves in with. We were bewitched by everything:
declarations against us, and against Estampa Popular, the series, the repetitions, the materials, the prints. We found it
because we made pictures of concrete subjects, and because all incredibly stimulating. Pop caught our imagination; it
they saw us and the students who mobilized around us as a excited us in the social sense and so we wanted to use the
focus of resistance – but I insist that there is no comparison images that Pop had shown us how to use – the images of
with what they were doing to others. mass media, the press, the news – but to give them content, to
add this social dimension that American Pop did not touch.
seemed to me that he was the better, more thorough artist, well! Because here they still haven’t realized that my work is
whereas there is something imperfect about Warhol’s pic- better!’
tures: they are more like ideas and that’s why I thought less of
them then – but over time I’ve started to change my opinion, CC: Did you first come across the work of Lichtenstein through
and I now see Warhol as someone who has been very useful publications?
both to the history of art and to artists, someone who has MV: No, above all through the Venice Biennale of 1966, and
helped us a great deal and opened a lot of doors. then through publications and the odd group exhibition in
Paris in the Musée d’art contemporain, where I also discov-
CC: Did you ever have the opportunity to meet either of them? ered Rauschenberg for the first time, four or five years before
MV: It so happened that Lichtenstein had once made a visit I started working with Crónica. Later on, Lichtenstein became
to Spain where the journalists had asked him what he knew a pretty big point of reference for us and we gathered consid-
about Spanish art, and he very kindly said that he was famil- erable knowledge of what he and the other North American
iar with the work of Equipo Crónica and that he liked it. To Pop artists were doing although none of us travelled to the
me this was a gift from heaven! Time went by and I moved to United States. Of course we would have liked to get to know
New York, where I did an exhibition of my work, under my the work in a more direct way, but the anti-Americanism that
name as Manuel Valdés, and Lichtenstein left me a note con- we practiced at this time made it impossible for us to even
gratulating me and so I got up the courage to call him and think about going there.
we met up. After that every once in a while we would visit
each other’s studios. Lichtenstein told me that he thought – CC: For those on the left of the political spectrum Spain’s then
given that the twentieth century had begun so gloriously for highly compromised relationship to the United States must
Spain with Picasso leading the way and Juan Gris, Miró and have felt extremely uncomfortable. In the immediate after-
Dalí – that is was strange that he had heard so little about math of the Spanish Civil War the US had been among the
Spanish painting more recently. And he said that he found it first nations to acknowledge the Franco Regime, a decision
amusing that from this situation of underdevelopment – to which was clearly strategic as the US military presence in
put it extremely – there was someone who knew something Spain grew exponentially in the post-war decades with the
about his work. In fact, he once said to me, half jokingly, that construction of numerous bases that remain to this day. How
when we in Spain were quoting the work of the American did you feel about this?
Pop artists in our paintings, Pop in the United States was still MV: We lived a kind of schizophrenia. On the one hand, we
unknown. That is certainly was not the case, because the were damned, influenced… however you would have it, by
Venice Biennale had introduced North American Pop to an American culture. On the other hand, we did things like
international audience some years before, but the point is throw stones at the door of the Institute of Valencia – which
that Lichtenstein was pleased to find out that his reputation was actually an American library that clearly served a posi-
had travelled so far, so fast. He also asked me so many ques- tive purpose because it lent books – that is to say that in that
tions about Spain at that time. He was really curious about instance, and in others, we made a distinction that was defi-
what was going on there, in that place at the end of the nitely mistaken. But I think you also need to take into account
earth, and when I told him that at that point he interested me the fact that this sort of thing still happens; despite the anti-
far more than Warhol, he said, again half-jokingly: ‘Just as Americanism that exists in Spain, or in Europe in general, we
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continue to copy American models. In the sixties we separat- CC: Where do you think Equipo Crónica’s practice might
ed the politicians from the politics… the United States was at have led, had the partnership not ended with the death of
war with Vietnam but US culture was the culture that we were Solbes in 1981?
offered, and that we accepted and even liked. MV: I often ask myself the same question; would we still be the
same? Well, we’ll never know. But the answer must be surely
CC: Do you think it is possible to speak of the existence of a not, because when I go back over the history of Crónica I see
counterculture in Spain in the sixties? that towards the end of its time we began to change, we start-
MV: I think that there was a lot of confusion, a lot of hopes and ed doing things differently, we introduced new subjects –
illusions – things were very mixed up. What I see looking back obviously, because a lot had happened and by that time the
on it from this distance in time is that there was a real compul- political situation had normalised to democracy. So of course
sion to be up to date with everything, for everyone to be like the old themes did not interest us so much any more. And on
everyone else. But I have the impression that in the circles in
top of that, an aesthetic revolution had come about, and this
which I moved there was actually a lot of underdevelopment
also determined a lot of changes.
and ignorance. There were definitely people who were
smarter and more clued up, but I didn’t know them and the
CC: From my (Anglo-Saxon) perspective, Equipo Crónica’s
truth is that we are talking about Valencia; an isolated city
work, including the early work from the mid-sixties onward,
completely lacking in culture. But if you look at it the other
has always looked very post-modern, very ahead of its time.
way round, you can see this as the success or the merit of
The work shares many of the qualities and the style of mature
Crónica – that we produced this work in a place that was
British and American post-modernity of the UK and the US in
completely removed from everything else.
the 80s.
MV: Recently MOMA did an exhibition of artists’ books in
CC: You seem to feel very ambivalent about the period. Do
which they reproduced a small etching by Crónica
you see the work of Equipo Crónica as reflecting this ambiva-
(Avionetas, [Small Planes], 1966). From my point of view, it’s
lence, or as an accurate historical document of the time?
strange that they seemed more interested in the fact that the
MV: We always set out to do paintings, not politics. In a way
etching is about the American air bombardments of Vietnam,
we used painting to make a social critique, but we were com-
pletely obsessed with composition, and the specific character- and that you can see images of Mickey Mouse on the wings of
istics of painting, so it is that relationship between politics and the aero planes, than in the quality of the work. Strange also
painting that informs my perception of the works when I look in the sense that I believe that there are better works by
at them now. I find it incredible that in Spain at that time there Crónica from this period that MOMA were not interested in.
were these two guys from Valencia who came up with this That is to say that the readings that are made of the works that
way of doing things. There are pictures in which the treatment have ended up here in the United States are more ideological
of the subject is quite naïve, and I would say that today I don’t than anything else, and that they don’t account for the quali-
share their thinking, but, nevertheless, I like the way they are ty of the work, its prescience, or the postmodernism character-
done. There are others towards which I have conflicting feel- istics that you mention. And it is certainly surprising that the
ings, but I am still very happy with what we did, and when I work has this quality when you consider that it was made in a
look at a lot of the works now I get a pleasant surprise. very poor city right next to Africa.
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