Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Indefinite deposit of the Fundación Reina Sofía. Archivo Privado de Fotografía y Gráfica Kati y José Horna
The Spanish exile in Mexico in 1939, caused by the defeat of the Second Republic, meant not only a painful banishment but also the arrival of numerous artists and intellectuals who joined a vibrant artistic and cultural scene. Driven by the consolidation of the post-revolutionary project and the political and social transformations of the Cárdenas era, the Mexican cultural field promoted a nationalist, public and avant-garde program, led by muralism.
«México: tierra de acogida. Arte del exilio y diálogos de ultramar» analyzes the integration of Republican creators into Mexican cultural life as a process of mutual enrichment, in which collaborations, new ideas and debates arose about the modes of artistic representation and its social function. Remembering and analyzing the relevance of cultural exchange between Spain and Mexico becomes a necessary task when memory and identities are reconfigured in a globalized and multicultural world.
From the arrival of the Republicans in Mexico, the exhibition explores the ways in which they integrated into the artistic and cultural life of the host country, as well as the ways in which they drew on the Mexican context to develop their work. From this perspective, the two-way exchange is understood as a process of pollination and symbiosis.
The exhibition brings together emblematic works by almost fifty Mexican and Spanish exile artists, attending to the networks, practices and collaborations that took place in the fields of muralism, painting, graphic arts and photomontage. From an expanded perspective, it proposes the consolidation of a transnational history of modern Mexican art and affirms exile not as a peripheral narrative, but as a constitutive axis within the local imaginary.
«México: tierra de acogida. Arte del exilio y diálogos de ultramar» is presented within the framework of the XXX Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government as one of two chapters, in dialogue with the exhibition shown at the Instituto Cervantes, which evokes the work of political and literary asylum under the government of Lázaro Cárdenas. The aim of both exhibitions is to commemorate the international solidarity extended to refugees after the defeat of the Second Republic, motivated to a large extent by the coincidences of the social and cultural projects of both governments.
Paola Uribe Line break Luis Rius Line break Carlos Segoviano
© Ministerio de Cultura - Gobierno de España