Documentos 1. Art, Words and Memory in the Texts of Gómez de Liaño
The programme Documentos, which revolves around themes related to the Museo Reina Sofía Documentation Centre, presents its first activity: Art, Words and Memory in the Texts of Gómez de Liaño, a round-table discussion which looks at the output of Ignacio Gómez de Liaño.
Since the 1960s, Ignacio Gómez de Liaño has written numerous texts on an array of contemporary artists, with his work reflecting the diversity of the trends and styles that distinguish these creators’ output. Equally, this quality responds to the eclectic spirit and multi-faceted personality of the author himself: a philosopher, historian, narrator, poet, translator...
In his writings, which have recently come to the fore in the collection entitled Libro de los artistas (The Book of Artists, Ediciones Asimétricas, 2016), critical analysis, sentimental memory and literary volition converge, as does a decisive premise that safeguards the unity of the whole: the friendship he maintained with each artist to which he dedicated his biographical sketches and essays. This circumstance implies not only direct knowledge of the works but also the living context, enabling him to orbit the surface of the artistic activity in order to examine the relationship between the visible and the utterable: “There is nothing like looking at the deed to know what the words mean”.
This round-table discussion features the participation of Alain Arias-Misson, Selina Blasco, Ignacio Gómez de Liaño and José María Parreño, and is moderated by José Luis Gallero.
Participants
Alain Arias-Misson (Brussels, 1936) is an artist, novelist and essayist. Born to an English mother and a Belgian father, he grew up and studied in New York. He earned a degree in Greek and French Literature from Harvard University, and, in the 1960s, was a pioneer of the experimental poetry movement in Spain, along with Joan Brossa, Herminio Molero and Ignacio Gómez de Liaño. He invented “public poems”, which he created from 1967 in Brussels – and in Madrid in 1969 – citing them as a way for him to “write on the page of the street”. His works have been displayed in numerous exhibitions and have been published in anthologies in Europe, the USA, South America and Japan.
Selina Blasco (Madrid, 1959) has a PhD in Art History from the Complutense University of Madrid and is a professor of Art Theory and History at the same university’s Faculty of Fine Arts. Since writing her dissertation La fundación del Escorial de fray José de Sigüenza (The Foundation of the El Escorial of Brother José de Sigüenza), she has specialised in literary art and texts on art and architecture, as well as the more general field of the relationship between text and image. Her recent publications include: Mariano Fortuny: la casa y la tela (Mariano Fortuny: House and Cloth, 2013) and Mantener las formas. La academia en y desde las prácticas artísticas (Maintaining Forms. The Academy in and from Artistic Practices, 2013).
José Luis Gallero (Barcelona, 1954) is an editor, art critic and exhibition curator. Among other works, he has published Solo se vive una vez: esplendor y ruina de la movida madrileña (You Only Live Once: Splendour and Ruin in the Madrid Movida Movement, 1991) and Heráclito: Fragmentos e interpretaciones (Heraclitus: Fragments and Interpretations, 2009). Furthermore, he has worked on preparing the editions of critical text collections on Quico Rivas, Cómo escribir de pintura sin que se note (How to Write About Painting Inconspicuously, 2011) and Ignacio Gómez de Liaño, Libro de los artistas (The Book of Artists, 2016).
Ignacio Gómez de Liaño (Madrid, 1946) is a writer, philosopher and professor of Aesthetics. He has lectured at the Advanced School of Architecture, Madrid, the Faculty of Political Science and the Faculty of Philosophy at the Complutense University of Madrid, as well as universities in Osaka and Beijing. He is a regular contributor in numerous media, and the author of works that span from poetry and theatre to art, philosophy and personal journals. His noteworthy publications include Athanasius Kircher: Itinerario del éxtasis o las imágenes de un saber universal (Athanasius Kircher: Itinerary of Ecstasy or the Images of Universal Knowledge, 1986), Iluminaciones filosóficas (Philosophical Illuminations, 2001), Sobre el fundamento (On the Foundation, 2002), En la red del tiempo. 1972 1977 (In the Network of Time, 1972-1977, 2013) and Libro de los artistas (The Book of Artists, 2016), his most recent work.
José María Parreño (Madrid, 1958) is a professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid. He was previously deputy director of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Esteban Vicente, Segovia, from 1998 to 2004, and director between 2004 and 2007. He is also an art critic and exhibition curator and has published a dozen books of essays and poetry, the most recent of which include Arte y Ecología (Art and Ecology, 2014) and Pornografía para insectos (Pornography for Insects, 2015).