The reverse of consensual reality never before Joel-Peter Witkin had been shown with such diabolical perfection and such crossing of artistic genres. It was in the late Middle Ages when iconographies with cynical streak were developed to erode the status quo, being the mundus inversus (the donkeys riding the men, the rich serving the poor …) and the «macabre dance» those who mostly devastated social hierarchies and taboos. Bearing in mind that in medieval times the […]
El envés de la realidad consensuada nunca antes de Joel-Peter Witkin había sido mostrado con tan diabólica perfección y enrevesado cruce de géneros. Fue en la Baja Edad Media cuando se desarrollaron iconografías que con jugosa vena cínica erosionaban el status quo, siendo el mundus inversus (los burros montando a los hombres, los ricos sirviendo a los pobres…) y la danza macabra los que mayormente arrasaban con jerarquías sociales y tabúes. Teniendo en cuenta que en época […]
The wisdom of Homo Sapiens is questionable. The more knowledge, the less understanding. It would have been more appropriate to call the species Homo Spiritualis, said the anthropologist amazed by the rock art of the cave of Chauvet. But, as the title of Werner Herzog’s documentary reads, those ancestral dreams were forgotten. But, as it says in the title of Werner Herzog’s documentary, those ancestral dreams were forgotten. We neither understand the propitiatory meaning of these magical symbols nor […]
La sapiencia del Homo Sapiens es cuestionable. A más conocimiento, menos entendimiento. Hubiera sido más adecuado llamar a la especie Homo Spiritualis, decía aquel antropólogo maravillado por el arte rupestre de la cueva de Chauvet. Pero, como reza el título del documental de Werner Herzog, esos sueños ancestrales se olvidaron. Ni comprendemos el sentido propiciatorio de esos símbolos mágicos ni somos ya capaces de establecer relaciones tan básicas y al mismo tiempo tan complejas con […]
In the pictorial universe of Santiago Ydáñez the snow is never virgin, the children are not innocent, the human tends to bestiality, the statue acquires carnal morbidity and the living flesh is mummified. The animal oscillates between the tenderness and the monstrous, becomes a haunting metaphor like the winter landscape, idyllic and at the same time atrocious. Inveterate collector and lover of Baroque carvings, Santiago does not hesitate to visit the assorted churches of virgins […]
Life is a game of chess lost beforehand; the important thing is to participate. Medieval painters represented death playing chess with their victims, a time when our provisional, ephemeral nature was more accepted than now. macabre dances, vanitas… were reminders not exempt from underground sarcasm. A black humor that somehow was lost with the pathos of the Baroque memento mori. Gino Rubert recovers the irony associated with our existential decay, adopting a festive-pop tone debtor […]
