Paintings with “taste” at the Mérida Olimpo Cultural Center.
The taste to enjoy art, both for its taste and its aesthetics, is constant in those who stopped to see the collection Between Sight and Taste, which the Soumaya Museum and the Carlos Slim Foundation share in the Cultural Center of Merida Olympus.
One month after the start of its temporary stay in the city, the collection was visited by more than four thousand people, both local, national and foreign tourists, who had the opportunity to reflect on one of the genres that revolutionized art, such as “still life” and where each work invites the viewer to celebrate one of life’s great pleasures, reports the Directorate of Culture of the Mérida City Council.
The exhibition is organized in a chronological thematic order and brings together the work of more than 20 artists based on a tribute to Flemish painting and later focuses on the plastic challenges of the avant-garde with the work of Maurice de Vlaminck, André Derain, Georges Braque and Giorgio de Chirico, by the way.
What makes this art experience different is that it is a collection of 41 unpublished works that have not been exhibited in other cultural spaces in the country, not even in the Sumaya Museum itself. In accordance with the aesthetic trend and the historical scene, artists turned to still lifes to reflect a more intimate nuance of their own being, beyond the mastery of brushes, they manifested their own culture and thought.
Passing through the first room, the visitor will see scenes of everyday life, religious symbols, costumed scenes of the time, the “still life” genre, still lifes with fruits, vegetables and even animals. The works feature baroque elements from the 16th century, with dark tones where the contrast stands out and aspects that take us back to see and compare what markets were like in ancient times, without caring about both elements , as cleanliness – for they even put an end to the animals on the floor to supply the freshest meat – in an allegory that would make us think of the great diseases that plagued that time. The abundance of food in the privileged sectors of society is also appreciated and at the same time the reference to the lifestyle of others in different planes and color contrasts. Other architectural elements such as columns and fabrics are added to the “still life” works that complement the still life images.
Among the variants of the exhibition, we can also see the globe, which evokes the figure of the World Theater, which recalls the insignificance of the human being in the face of divine designs. Shells, crustaceans and butterflies express maturation and hint, despite their beauty, at the decay of nature due to the passage of time.
The tour of the second room takes us into Modernity, where artists began to experiment more with painting, the border becoming more and more blurred in the new plastic games. Another of the options in this room are the brushes of three exceptional women, such as Eva Gonzalez, who was a student of Manet, whose works are considered the initiators of Impressionism, who contributed work on desserts.
A touch of dream and fantasy in pastel colors that are not often found in still life stands out in the work of Marie Laurentsen. She plays with perspective and ways of applying strokes, like patches of color. By the Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka, the subtlety of the use of colors stands out, only pink, red and white, the latter also seen in other works in the exhibition.
The exhibition also includes the work of the Italian Giorgio de Chirico, known as one of the greatest exponents of metaphysical painting, in whose work “Still Life with Fruit” (c. 1964) fruits caught in blossom appear on top of each other, in another way of exhibiting art.
Platform
The works have an augmented reality through the free download platform RA Infinitum, with which the audience can learn more about the lives of the artists and other cultural and historical references.
Those who have taken the tours can complete the experience with the workshop “Taste is born from sight”, in which participants will create a still life of three of their favorite foods or drinks using acrylic paints, from different avant-garde styles. such as Neo-Impressionism or Fauvism. This activity seeks to reflect on the variation of food over time.
