Telluric and primitive - Spanish artistic renovation 📷 Malaga - Spain

There are exhibitions that have the virtue of surprising in a big way, and this has already happened to me several times. When I see the posters in the city announcing new art exhibitions, I often don't know what they are about, but I don't want to miss a single one. Some of them are very big or semi-permanent, at least they are on for about six months, like the exhibition I bring you today, which will be on until March this year.

I went to this wonderful exhibition a while ago, almost immediately when it opened, but then with the Christmas holiday period these wonders were waiting to come to light, until today.

Although I had seen many posters in the city, I had no idea what I was going to find, and that is the good thing about not researching on the internet beforehand, to be surprised at the moment of entering the museum. The large exhibition is called ‘Telúricos y Primitivos’ and includes more than 60 works of art by different artists who focused on a complete renovation of Spanish art from the 1920s and 30s until the end of the 20th century.

As almost all museums do, there are always detailed explanations of the art exhibits on the walls, although there are also plenty of museum staff, both for security and to explain anything visitors need. I like to go in and read a bit before seeing the works, to get an idea and to situate myself for example in the historical and cultural moment of those paintings and sculptures.

On this occasion there is a return of art to the earth, to nature and to the language of signs and the essential, that is what gives the name to this exhibition alluding to the earthly and the primitive, a return or a rebirth of art in the era of Spanish modernity. There was a break with old structures before the civil war and after a few years there was a renewal and progress in the artists of that time with different techniques and tendencies, both individually and collectively. This exhibition is about redefining art, artistic expression under new assumptions.

That is why it alludes to the earth, the natural, the original, the real. That is why I believe that many of the works, whether paintings, engravings, drawings or sculptures, resemble the cave art of a primitive era, where the indigenous people expressed their history and daily life through this type of art, and which has often been found in caves or caverns.

This is a new beginning of Spanish art, taking into account the earth, nature and the most ancient signs in the history of human expression.

Also, in addition to paintings and sculptures I was able to see several photographs in the same style or referring to the same theme.

The art exhibition was divided into two parts, but intertwined at the same time. It is an exhibition that proposes avant-garde works, colours referring to the earth, but also with a mixture of the graphic, the natural and even the dreamlike.

As you can see in the first part referring to the telluric, there are works from the 20s and 30s of the Vallecas School and others, with a look at the original, the countryside, the rural and the surreal. New landscapes, art and nature united, but where dreams and the unreal also have a place.

A post-war renovation that reaches the 1950s with a lot of abstraction, but without losing the theme of the land, the natural, the origin. There is a lot of variety in the works and I liked that a lot, because you can enjoy each one as unique. The artists expressed themselves in an intense way, sometimes irrational and sometimes experimenting with different styles and techniques. Both abstraction and figurative are present.

I could see a variety of materials, from metallic, wood in the sculptures. Then fabrics, plastics, as well as traditional oil paintings, engravings and photographs.

In the second part referring to the primitive, I could see the influence of African art, which influenced all this renovation of Spanish art, prehistoric painting, of indigenous cultures, but also much presence of the things in which those cultures believed, such as dreams, the unconscious, the primitive of the minds.

In these works you see symbolism, geometry, abstraction, very basic forms, where in some works I seem to see walls or floors with few strokes. I suppose it also has to do with that cave style I was talking about before.

I could also see a lot of that simplicity and going back to the first forms within sculpture, where I felt like I was seeing that cave art, but in 3D.

It has really been a great art exhibition, where each work is worth looking at closely. Some we may like more, others less, but they all have their value as an expression of an era and of that renewal and avant-garde of Spanish art that was coming out of very difficult times and where artists were looking for new forms of expression, going back to the origins of everything.

I hope you enjoyed this art exhibition as much as I did and of course if you have any favourite works you can let me know in the comments.

Thank you very much for joining me today, I send you my best regards. See you soon.
Amonet.