Moving Image Biennial ’92: Spanish Visionaries
The word visionary does not necessarily refer to someone suffering from visions or to creators who have taken impossible fantasies and made them real or possible. The word also suggests precursors or forerunners, artists who create in the lucid vertigo of a time enjambed in its time, impetuous and boundless creators who view their creations as possibly mystical searches and who are irrationally defenceless before the judgment of their time, artists who feel their way along the driving essence of human experience. This is the superhuman profile of the genius embodied by Jose Val del Omar (Granada, 1904 - Madrid 1982), Claudio Guerín (Seville, 1939 - Noia, 1973) and many more. These were also damned and marginalised visionaries. The only characteristic that they all have in common is that their work was not created with or for everyone, but despite everything. Their genius was not appreciated in its time; nor did the realities of their time allow their genius to be manifested or even recognised.
Drawing on this broad interpretation of the concept of visionary, the programme is organised into three clearly defined sections. The first part looks at a period of Spanish art made using the four media of the moving image (film, TV, video and synthetic images), highlighting the artists who used aesthetic or conceptual postulates that differed from those being used by their contemporaries. The second part is dedicated to five unique video installations by Spanish artists, following the example of the 1990 Biennial, which presented five video installations by representatives of the international art scene. Finally, the third section, entitled Two Years of Audiovisual Work in Spain, 1990 - 1992, offers a selection of Spanish audiovisual work from the last two years. In no way designed to offer an exhaustive selection of the available works, this Moving Image Biennial seeks to draw attention to some particularly outstanding pieces with a view to reflecting the spectrum of artists working with audiovisual media.