‘Ramon Casas, la modernitat anhelada’
Maricel Museum Sitges (Fonollar, s/núm)
Price combined Cau Ferrat Museum and exhibition Ramon Casas: 10 €
Guided tours: From Tuesday to Friday at 5pm in Catalan and at 6pm in Spanish.
Organizers: Heritage Consortium of Sitges, La Caixa Bank Foundation, Government of Catalonia, Department of Culture, Province of Barcelona, Sitges Town Council and MNAC.
Curators: Ignasi Domenech (head of Collections from Museum of Sitges) and Francesc Quíllez (coordinator of Collections of the National Museum of Art of Catalonia).
Ramon Casas, much yearned modernity is the central exhibition belonging to Ramon Casas year that commemorates the 150th anniversary of the birth of the painter. It is a production of the Museums of Sitges and the Foundation La Caxias Bank, the Government of Catalonia, the Barcelona Provincial Government, City Council, of Sitges and the National Art Museum of Catalonia.
The exhibition is presented at the Museum of Maricel and can be seen later at the Caixa Forum in Madrid (March 7 - 11 June 2017) and Caixa Forum Palma de Mallorca (July 5 - 22, October 2017)
The will of the curators is to show the work of Ramon Casas on the context in which they appeared, grouped into five themes. With the presence of works by other artists, the route is seen as a game of mirrors, a dual route path, which allows you to view the influences, similarities and common interests that exist between Casas and other contemporary authors.
The exhibition in Sitges includes a selection of 178 works, including works by the painter in various media such as painting, drawing and poster. Especially important is the presence of a large group of vintage photographs that help to frame his work within the social and cultural context of the period in which he lived.
The fact that we are dealing with an exhibition in three different venues (Sitges, Madrid and Palma de Mallorca), which will be roaming almost a year, prevents that all works are present at the three venues, though the catalog is a common element throughout the exhibition cycle. The preservation of works requires a dynamic rotation. Moltes obres sobre paper, per exemple, no poden estar exposades un any sencer i per altra banda alguns museus nacionals i internacionals mai presten una obra tant temps.
The exhibition features works from private collections from around the state, as well as loans from domestic and foreign museums such as the Museum of Cau Ferrat in Sitges, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, or the Museo Nacional del Prado, the Museo Picasso, Museo de Bellas Artes de Córdoba, the Sabadell Art Museum, the Museum of History of Barcelona (MUHBA), the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée Picasso, Toulouse Augustinian Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Bordeaux, Museum of Versailles and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
With the aim to place the work of Ramon Casas in context, his paintings, drawings and posters will be presented related to works by Carolus-Durand, John Singer Sargent, Antoni Caba, Thomas Couture, Francesc Masriera, Romà Ribera, Toulouse-Lautrec, Santiago Rusiñol, Joaquin Sorolla, Joaquim Torres-García, Julio Romero de Torres, Anders Zorn and Pablo Picasso, among others. Photographic works by Frederic Ballell, Antoni i Josep Esplugas, among others, enrich the route and allow us to understand the existence of shared interests between painting and photography. Similarly, this material also brings us closer to the formal and compositional influence that photography had on the work of Casas. Frames, views, aerial views are some of the loans included by the painter.
THE EXHIBITION THE NARRATIVE THREAD
The 150th anniversary of the birth of Ramon Casas (1866-1832) became a magnificent opportunity to rediscover the work of the painter who grasped better the emergence of a new time in which the idea of modernity called at the door of history. With his attitude, sometimes bohemian, sometimes irreverent and sly, Casas made a firm declaration of support to the proposals made in the course of the last decades of the nineteenth century. In this regard, we must not ignore the use of certain devices -the bicycle, automotive- evident conviction in optimistic technological possibilities offered by the myth of progress. Somewhere, in between desire and reality, the work of Casas was very receptive to assimilate a number of influences: the poster, photograph, or a Japanese stamp, however, despite the incorporation modern elements, his poetic impulse was not enough to cause an earthquake in Catalan art at the time.
The discourse f the exhibition is divided into five different scopes:
SCOPE 1: BUILDING AN ARTISTIC IDENTITY
The beginnings of the artistic career of Casas were very marked by his early decision to travel to Paris, where he went to study when he was only 15 years old, and a city that constituted a permanent reference throughout his life. In the context of the 1880s, the contact with the main European art center was a stimulating incentive, since he became acquainted with a rich variety of languages and creative trends. The painter was very receptive to all these influences assimilated during a formative stage privileged as against what had been normal was not mirrored in the local models, but he made a leap brave and determined in the work of international artists, some of them, as was the case of Carolus-Durand, with a proven track record.
In this dynamic environment, it is natural that the young Casas was dazzled and adopted a much undetermined eclectic and poetic record, without the possibility that could emerge a different and original proposal. This hybrid symbiosis is reflected in an imprecision of language and a dominance of introspective exercises, dominated by portraits of family, friends, anything that allows you to self-assert as a painter, with the aim of making a fundamental self revelation based on stares and references emanating from the works of other authors. A few years later, the game mirrors will revert positively and give way to a process in which the work of Casas will become the mirror that reflects the work of the coming Catalan artistic generation.
SCOPE 2: THE PARADOX OF THE MODERN ARTIST
It is still paradoxical that a cosmopolitan painter, receptive to international trends in painting is to popular themes. The strong presence of picturesque elements in its production, with a special predilection for the representation of bullfighting scenes or types of Maja and bullfighters, very in tune with traditional Spanish "brava" inspiration, stating the apparent permeability of Casas when incorporating a repertoire full of local references, much appreciated by a clientele identified with these symbolic elements. Ultimately, however, once again, his work demonstrated a hybrid model in which modern painter was sensitive to nourish his imagination with all those elements that could enrich it, overcoming the traditional difference separating high culture form common culture. The circus, bullfighting and populace allowed the connection to popular forms of recreation deeply rooted in the popular imagination and awoke the interest of new generations of artists. However, the abusive an exaggerate interpretation of the theme produced the opposite effect, since Casas also had a tendency to fix a topic and stereotyped image, without seeking to review the hegemonic folkloric vision.
SCOPE 3: THE POETRY OF CROWDS
With the completion of "Garrot vil" (garrotte), 1894, Casas opens s series of compositions dedicated to the so called "social chronicle" Although he had previously initiated the path of discovery of a new and sensible material such as the appearance of the public in the bullfighting scenes, it was not until then that the painter decided to incorporate multitudes to his work in a much more intense manner.
In fact, the theme connects with the tradition of nineteenth-century historical painting that serves as mirror, but with a desire to overcome the constraints and conventions of the genre. Casas integrates in such works a new historical element: the anonymous multitude. The virtuous hero, brave and epic, the classic model of exemplum virtues in his painting gives way to a dematerialized multitude not individualized, in which ethical references have disappeared. Beyond the moral implications of the subject, the absence of individual values or the tendency to social alienation, for Casas, represented narratives allow the painter to capture the aesthetic possibilities of an amorphous mass of clustered people. Similarly, the compositions reveal the influence of photographic technique, and effect that is especially perceptible when using a type of fragmented frame and an open visual framework that suggests a continued action.
SCOPE 4: BOHEMIAN FEEL
Els Quatre Cats opened doors in January 1897. The venue located at street Montsió became an irradiating center of a cultural alternative model dedicated to encourage and stimulate artistic creativity and freedom. Following the model of the famous Parisian cabaret Le Chat Noir, which was mirrored. The space gathered during its six years of operation all types of popular activities - Chinese shadows, puppets, and boxing - al also artistic activities. Although there was no alteration with existing artistic relations, the attitude of the bohemian group led by Casas, Romeu and Rusiñol, showed the crisis of the official system of the arts, unable to output the most innovative drives and dynamics of the time. Beyond the ratings of informal, irreverent, even extravagant, with were used to limit and turn into a caricature the scope of the experience, during this period the artist lived a moment of intense productivity. With its popular creations, Casas created the brand advertising from the popular tavern and knew how to provide visibility to a large of the ideals of the group. Although brief, this episode of Barcelona's cultural history was one of the most original and stimulating contributions to Catalan modern art.
SCOPE 5: AMBIVALENT IDENTITIES
Great specialist in the genre of portraiture, Casas transformed the image of women in one of the most common reasons for his artistic career. The exhibits include a variety of types sufficiently representative of the various models in which the research on the aesthetic ideal of feminine beauty was based, all that dominates the profile of a sophisticated, refined, elegant and charming woman, much closer to decorativism style in 1900. This ambiance of sophistication, luxury and wealth plunges us into a society whose hedonism and cult to aesthetic pleasure, are much stereotyped values representing the decadentisme of the late nineteenth century. But , besides this debtor of anecdote painting and oriental sensuality, also emerges as a publicity stunt, a model of emancipated women, active, which has a major role coincident with modern life and who like activities such as reading or sports, far from the traditional image. Similarly, the series of nudes made during the 1890s became one of the freer and more stimulating pictorial episodes of Casas. In formal terms, we are dealing with works that exceed academic conventions and result in formal proposals of great audacity and a great visual strength.
Parallel activities of the exhibition
With the exhibition, Sitges scheduled several parallel activities, which aim to transfer us to the times of Ramon Casas and modernists. In this regard, various restaurants in Sitges have scheduled the campaign Having lunch with Ramon Casas, offering dishes from the period between 23 November and 18 December. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, another restaurant will offer the Tapa Ramon Casas, while a brewery created the Beer Ramon Casas, that includes flavors of anise and whiskey. The actions will continue in January, with an exhibition of modernist showcases held at various shops in Sitges.