Unknown author, [Blanca Sánchez reflected in a mirror, painting her eyes], ca. 1975
Susan Sontag already said it: a taste for excess, irony without cynicism. But she was also certain that artifice, those images we consume and appropriate, holds the reflection of oneself.
Milk, snow, tear, hand. The know-how of Blanca Sánchez concerns the way of working of Blanca Sánchez Berciano (Madrid, 1948-2007), inseparable from her being and presence. Curator, cultural manager and collector, here her creative impulse is highlighted from the perspective of camp and her practice of collage as a methodology for constructing a conceptual reality based on the articulation of visual and material fragments.
Trained between London, Frankfurt, Paris and Cologne, in 1971 she returned to Franco-era Madrid. During her almost forty years of career, she worked in teams such as those of the Vandrés (1971-1980) and Vijande (1981-1986) galleries, and the Círculo de Bellas Artes (1992-2006). Although many of the materials gathered here reveal the effervescence of the Madrid movida, of which Sánchez was a central figure, the exhibition covers her entire trajectory. The broad and at times uncertain dating of these materials defines this curatorial proposal: Sánchez's creative practice is recognized as a constant.
This approach is materialized in the central table of the room, which refers to Blanca Sánchez's workspace, a place where documents and flowers coexisted on equal terms. Thus, chocolate wrappers, sugar cubes, photographs and clippings are arranged to generate intuitive associations. Notes are also presented that refer to her professional side, which show how the associative exercise developed in her albums, seemingly incoherent, formed a collage logic with which she moved between tasks and times. For Sánchez, high and low culture were not opposites, but zones of contact.
Supported by these documents, Milk, snow, tear, hand reviews Sánchez's work from her own practice, through which she becomes a key figure in Madrid culture of the last fifty years. Her presence is invoked in the anonymous piece that gives the exhibition its title, preserved in the Blanca Sánchez Berciano Archive. Blanca in a glass of milk. Everyday Blanca, raw and ephemeral like snow. A Blanca who is moved, who cries and laughs, and who invites us to extend a hand to one another.
© Ministerio de Cultura - Gobierno de España