Artist featured at Kennedy influenced by Spanish Civil War experience
May 29, 2008
Spanish artist Juan Genovés is one artist on display at the Kennedy Museum of Art in the “Portfolios and Suites from the Print Collection” exhibit.
His work is influenced by his personal experiences during and after the Spanish Civil War, according to a press release. As a child, Genovés and his family suffered when the Nationalist party emerged victorious at the end of the war and banned, among other things, their native tongue of Catalan. Post-war Spain fell under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and as Genovés grew older, he watched the regime become increasingly repressive, eventually restricting even basic freedoms of assembly and expression, according to the release.
Genovés gained the most popularity as an artist in the mid-1970s when he was asked by the Junta Democrática (the umbrella organization uniting all opposition groups) to paint a poster in protest of political imprisonment in the Franco regime. The group selected a painting Genovés had completed previously, entitled, “The Embrace,” or El Abrazo, which is not on display at the museum. Upon release of the work in poster form, Genovés was imprisoned and over 25,000 of the posters were burned.
According to the release, the poster was made iconic when terrorist gunmen murdered a group of lawyers in front of a copy of it, splattering it with blood. Eventually, over 500,000 reproductions of the poster were released in Spain, and proceeds were used to set up the Spanish branch of Amnesty International.
The print series currently on display at the museum, entitled “Silencio, Silencio,” was completed a year after the Franco regime suspended freedom of expression.
“Portfolios and Suites from the Print Collection” will remain open at the Kennedy until June 29. Visit www.ohiou.edu/museum for more information.
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