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/ Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Puerto Rican Surrealism Art Heading to New York, London ‘Surrealism Beyond Borders’ opens in Oct. at the MET and moves in Feb. to the Tate Modern Museum
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Jorge Rodriguez
jrodriguez@elvocero.com
ver since José Correa Vigier decided to mount the exhibition “En el camino al Mirador Azul” at the Art Gallery of Sacred Heart University in 2014 when he was a student, following the guidelines of his thesis on surrealism in Puerto Rico, his commitment to this movement has been so thorough that the Metropolitan Museum of New York (MET) invited him to integrate his Puerto Rican studies on this art movement with their own. “I received an invitation in August 2019 from the MET to present my research on surrealism in Puerto Rico and ‘Mirador Azul.’ The [work] began to take shape around what was going to be exhibited in New York. I gave them my research, photos, documents, catalogs, the selection of surrealist pieces on the island, and after a while they evaluated my research and decided to include it in the catalog of the ‘Surrealism Beyond Borders’ exhibition, which opens on Oct. 11 at the [MET], and in Feb. 2022 at the Tate Modern Museum in London,” he told THE WEEKLY JOURNAL. The exhibition is under the direction of Stephanie D’Alessandro, curator of Modern Art at the MET, and Matthew Gale, head of Exhibitions at the Tate Modern in London. There was very little information about
“Barrio bohemio,” oil on canvas,1950, by Luis Maisonet Crespo
José Correa Vigier with Cossette Zeno’s work, “Steppin Out,” from 2009 >All photos are courtesy
surrealism in Puerto Rico. There was no bibliography and the paintings did not appear, either. For this reason, Correa decided to research the subject and assumed the responsibility to highlight artists committed to a new contemporaneity. “My attention was drawn to the artistic activity that took place in San Juan with the arrival of Spanish exile Eugenio Fernández Granell in 1950 when he developed a surrealist and modernist school at the University of Puerto Rico and with the ‘Mirador Azul’ workshop off-campus. The subject of surrealism in Puerto Rico was practically a memory in the historiography of national art and had not been studied. However, Granell stands out as a traveling artist, who took the genius of surrealism to different places,” the researcher said. “The theme dedicated to Puerto Rico in the Sacred Heart gallery caught D’Alessandro and Gale’s attention, so they decided to integrate it into the exhibition. We started working on my writing and it took a long time to write, edit and finish,” he said. Puerto Rico will have a space in the international exhibition, which recognizes the importance of Puerto Rican surrealist artists and the artistic collective “El Mirador Azul.” Four Puerto Rican artists will exhibit their works together with Eugenio Fernández Granell, Luis Maisonet Crespo, Frances del Valle, Rafael Ferrer and Cossette Zeno. Throughout this journey, Correa found other local surrealists, such as Roberto Alberti “El Boquio,” José María Lima, Myrna Espada, Juan Cossio, Nydiana Font, Gustavo López, Jorge “Lopito” López, Octavia “Tavin” Maldonado, Miguel Ángel Ríos, Julio Rosado Del Valle, Ernesto Ruiz de la Mata and Víctor Sánchez - candidates to study. “The New York and London exhibitions will go beyond a surrealist-centric narrative created in
“Ciertas vagas criaturas” by Rafael Ferrer
“Los limones voladores” by Eugenio Fernández Granell
Paris, to shed light on the importance and legacy of international surrealism. In doing so, it will offer new perspectives on how surrealism was useful for the free expression of artists in various countries. Puerto Rico will occupy an important place among the countries that are part of this exhibition such as Colombia, Iran, Egypt, Japan, Mexico, Romania, Syria, Thailand and Turkey,” Correa said.
