Intervention by María Baleato at the conference on Galician art in exile.
The Deputy Director of the Coordination of Administrative, Economic and Social Programs of the General Secretariat of Emigration, María Baleato, participated on 25 October at the inauguration of the conference on the importance of preserving the art of exile organized by the Consello da Cultura Galega, which it was chaired by the organization’s president, Rosario Álvarez.
Castelao, Luis Seoane, Arturo and Uxío Souto, Eugenio Granell … all have in common that they are important creators of the contemporary Galician art scene. But they also developed an important part of cultural production in exile. Several professionals and experts spoke about his legacy and the importance of preserving and contextualizing it at the conference of the Galizian Culture Council (CCG) Musealize the art of Galician exile.
At the inauguration, the president of the GCC, Rosario Álvarez, highlighted the institution’s concern for the study of exile and the situation of the cultural centers responsible for the preservation of memory. The appointment has the support of the Xeral Secretariat of Emigration, whose Deputy Director of the Administrative Coordination, María Baleato, stressed that “the struggle of Galician culture outside our borders must not be forgotten”.
Inmaculada Real López, coordinator of the day, opened the morning session with the conference Return, museum and store. In it he made a comparative reading between the great works of Picasso and Castelao to prove that “if Guernica the figure of Castelao and, concretely, of the work was fundamental for the Spanish republican exile The master’s last lesson, it was for the Galician exile ”. Real López also underlined the different impact that both works had after his return in 1981 and expressed that “there are still many rereadings to be formulated in artistic historiography, there are many questions to be addressed, many figures to be evaluated”.
He stressed that Galicia’s museum landscape is “very exceptional compared to the rest of the peninsula” and stressed that “Galicia was the beginning of a museum project completely different from the rest of Spain” and that the Carlos Maside Museum was “The starting point of this whole process and of that interest in recovering the memory of exile”.
The round table followed. Monographic museums for artists in exile, which was attended by several representatives of this type of institution. Thus, Silvia Longueira spoke of the work they carry out from the foundation she directs and in which they try to “give the necessary relevance to the character and work of Luis Seoane”. For his part, Javier Pérez Buján delved into the origins of the Laxeiro Foundation and the process of giving the institution its own activity to transform it into “something dynamic”, following the expressed desire of Laxeiro himself, and “which should have the eyes focus on new creators and emerging artists. ”Subsequently, Natalia Fernández, daughter of Eugenio Granell and director of the foundation that bears his name, intervened in videoconference.
In the last of the interventions, the historian and cultural manager María América Díaz Pampín explored the role of art galleries and, specifically, of the Sargadelos Gallery.
Already in the afternoon session, Carlos L Bernárdez approached the work of the exiled artists in the Abanca collection. For his part, Ángeles Pena Truque, of the Museum of Fine Arts of A Coruña, recognized that the presence of Luis Seoane is practically non-existent in the various state museums and took the opportunity to claim the importance of this type of events to evaluate our and our artists. “Luis Seoane was a man committed to the culture of his time and the presence of his work served to enrich the collection of the center,” she said. He explained the process of transferring the works of Seoane’s widow to the center and which served to enrich the exhibition discourse, to provoke a renewal of the museum’s action plan, to reconsider the museological plan, and was an aid to the modification of the contents of the same. Luis Seoane is a versatile creator and a representative of the historical avant-gardes who facilitated the incorporation of a language of modernity at the center. “The Seoane Collection allows us to establish a direct link with an important part of our history,” said Ángeles Pena.
For their part, Ángeles Tilve and Aurelia Balseiro explained the case of two smaller centers such as the Pontevedra Museum and the Lugo Provincial Museum. Tilve pointed out that the center of Pontevedra recently created a new section dedicated to war, repression and exile. It contains works by Castelao, Federico Rivas (Argentina), Arturo and Uxío Souto (Mexico), Colmeiro… which “show the impact of war on cultural production and are dramatic visions”.
