Museo Carmen Thyssen

Lecture by Eugenio Carmona

On Friday, 13 March Eugenio Carmona will deliver the lecture "María Blanchard: a Cubist woman in wartime Europe”. As well as a leading specialist in Picasso and twentieth-century art, the speaker is professor of Art History at Malaga University, an art critic, exhibition curator, essayist and member of the board of trustees of the Museo Reina Sofía.
 

"Against historiographic misogyny
Vindication of María Blanchard

A recent retrospective exhibition brought María Blanchard back to us. Today’s audiences judge her work and personal life with criteria different from those of the past, and historical assessments are based on more up-to-date stances that are kindlier and more understanding.

But even so, is the approach to María Blanchard not still riddled with tacitly discriminatory clichés? Do not critics, without much thought or analysis, tend to regard María Blanchard automatically as a secondary creator?

Can a work of art be judged on the basis of its creator’s physical appearance? Why has this been the case with María Blanchard?

Was María Blanchard really just a minion of Diego Rivera or did she explore unforeseen possibilities of the Cubist experience with him? Was she an elementary “pupil” of Juan Gris or did she – previously and on her own impulse – consider the possibilities of a new Cubism? And was the painter’s transition from Cubism to realism not misinterpreted by critics as a surrender?

We appreciate María Blanchard’s oeuvre today, but it is precisely this appreciation that should spur us to change the paradigms and narratives of Modern Art.”

Speaker:
Eugenio Carmona

Venue:
Auditorium of the Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga

Information:
952 217 511