Through this exhibition program "The Invited Piece," MACA aims to bring to the public works temporarily loaned by other institutions that acquire a new meaning in the Museum when presented as an exhibition of a single work in relation to the context of the permanent collection. The Twentieth Century Art Collection allows for an enriching program of invitations. Specific works that, in dialogue, discussion, contiguity or contradiction, are shown immersed within the museum's exhibition context. On this occasion we have invited the Martínez Guerricabeitia Collection to share space with a splendid work by Valencian artist Juan Genovés. JUAN GENOVÉS
Relato, 1968 Acrylic and oil on canvas 180 x 170 cm. Signed and dated on the back MARTÍNEZ GUERRICABEITIA COLLECTION Universitat de València
Relato won one of the prestigious Marzotto awards in 1968. It clearly presents the discoveries that sparked international interest in his painting: figuration as a way to transmit unambiguously a fact. The incorporation of flat space and, finally, the eminent narrative, sequential and modular character of the representation. The central motif of the painting is framed by two broad horizontal red stripes created with an airbrush as a screen that marks a distance between the viewer and the scene. A vibration in murky red reinforces awareness of the drama that unfolds. The central area is occupied by a sequence divided into five reiterated images, like cinematographic frames that appear poorly defined, in the grisaille in which beings are perceived from a great distance. The resources employed by Genovés: the reduced size of the figures, the point of view, the chromatic contrast, the dramatic effects of photography provoke the emotional involvement of the viewer in an empathetic identification with the victim. The narration, something that happens and disappears leaving barely any traces, is captured as if being observed through a telephoto lens or viewfinder, not of the artist or the viewer, but of power, of the coercive apparatus of terror. Imbued with cinematic and literary culture, Genovés's gaze accounts for the human condition in the face of the oppressive presence of power. The Martínez Guerricabeitia Collection is a peculiar and atypical collection. Composed of a total of 520 pieces, it is centered on artists whose mode of artistic expression is figuration and realism and whose intention, whose ideological content is always criticism, dissidence and commitment. Formed by Jesús Martínez Guerricabeitia, it was donated to the University of Valencia in 1999.
