Mayoral is delighted to present “Venus”, a curatorial booth at PAD London 2016. Venus
is the female divinity, the goddess of love, the goddess of beauty, the image of natural
origin and of life, the divinity of motherhood. It is also associated with desire and the
woman as such. The goddess figure has been immortalised
by many painters of all times; Venus has been admired, imagined,
painted, sculpted, engraved, dreamed. In the mind of
the artists we present, the Venus figure underwent different
transformation processes, giving as a result a series of very
varied and dynamic works. Taking the image of Venus as a
point of departure, the artists’ imagination creates personal,
poetic and bold representations, in which the different qualities
of the woman flow: beauty and ugliness, voluptuousness
and sensuality, obscenity and purity. In this artistic project
we present paintings, drawings and sculptures by a constellation of first-rate artists like
Miró, Picasso, Chagall, Torres García, Dalí, Laurens, Gargallo, J. González and Saint Phalle. All of them,
in a general way, identify Venus with every woman: wife, lover, artist, worker, child, mother, muse… and
they represent them in a symbolic, grotesque, carefree, ironic, poetic, surrealist, artificial or schematic way.
Through his Portrait of Dora Maar (1942) —his lover
from 1936 to 1943—, Picasso shows a plural and private
woman by creating a balance between elements
of his cubist and “Guernica” styles. With Women V
(1969), Miró leads the spectator into a symbolic and
poetic world by using a vibrant and forceful line.
On the other hand, Saint Phalle, with Sphinx – The
Empress (1983), culminates the total representation
of the Venus concept in itself, a woman artist who
sculpts a curvy woman like a sphinx and an empress, as indicated
by the title. Through shapes and colours, she causes
a totally intentional visual impact in order to give women a
place in society and art. Chagall, with Horsewoman with Fan
in a Green Rooster (1935), combines a daring colour palette,
fauve and with a deliberately ambiguous and flat distribution
of the space. With Anatomies (1937), Dalí dismembers the Venus concept by showing that the
beauty of the body is temporary and will eventually disappear, whereas the beauty of art is timeless
and everlasting.
About Mayoral
Mayoral, founded in 1989, is a gallery specialised in modern and post-war art of Barcelona,
focusing on the period 1930-1975. The main artists we present are Miró, Dalí and Picasso
and, at the same time, we also defend and foster the founders of the Catalan avant-garde
group Dau al Set, as well as other great artists related to Barcelona, like Calder and Chillida.
We stage exhibitions of the artists we present, curated and organised in collaboration
with the foundations, associations and families of the artists, who work to safeguard
their legacies. The exhibitions, which are the result of a process of research, include: talks,
guided visits with experts, conferences, film screenings and educational activities. One of
our recent projects, presented in London and New York, was “Miró’s Studio”, curated by
the former director of the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró (Mallorca), and with the collaboration
of the artist’s grandson and art historian, Joan Punyet Miró.
Salvador Dalí, Anatomies (1937)
Marc Chagall, Horsewoman with Fan in
a Green Rooster (1935)
Joan Miró, Women V (1969)