Il divino y los mundanos (with Anuar Maauad)

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Casa Maauad

February 3rd - May 20th 2024

Sobre la diplopia y otras formas de ver (Virgenes de las rocas), Oil on linen, 190 x 121 cm, 2024

Ephesus and the dowager empress, Inflatable and yellow calicite crystal, Variable measurements, 2024

Il Divino y los mundanos

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The exhibition emerges from Anuar Maauad's profound interest in the fascinating world of Guido Reni, from whom he has collected, over recent years, a valuable collection including artworks, engravings, and specialized bibliography.

This curatorial project unfolds through two fundamental narratives that stem from Maauad's research into a work attributed to Reni's circle. These interpretative lines constitute the conceptual framework of the exhibition.

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The exhibition critically examines artistic production mechanisms developed during the Baroque period, establishing meaningful connections with contemporary art processes. In the 17th century, prominent figures like Guido Reni and Peter Paul Rubens implemented production systems that, viewed from our current perspective, reveal surprising parallels with contemporary models of collaborative creation.

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Guido Reni, undisputedly one of Italian Baroque's most prominent exponents, directed a workshop of industrial proportions that housed over 200 collaborators, a scale only matched by Rubens among his contemporaries. However, while Rubens articulated a production model based on constantly generating new compositions, sketches, and scales later developed by his studio, Reni implemented a different strategy: he used his workshop to systematically reproduce successful compositions, responding to the growing demand of an expanding bourgeois market. This productive dynamic was partially motivated by the need to maintain a constant flow of income that allowed him to sustain his known gambling addiction.

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This systematic production paradigm appears remarkably contemporary in its approach. The exhibition presents, from this historical perspective, a set of works that establish a critical dialogue on artistic production methods, questioning canonical notions of individual authorship. Traditional historiography has privileged a conception of artistic authenticity based exclusively on the master's autograph stroke, thereby minimizing the collective dimension and systematic character that substantially defined Reni's artistic practice. From a contemporary approach, the Bolognese master's artistic corpus should be understood as an integral set that includes both his autograph works and those produced under his direction in the workshop, thus positioning him as a significant precursor of collaborative models of artistic creation that would resonate centuries later.

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The exhibition also addresses the iconography and ideological constructs related to the conception of romantic love that emerged precisely during the 17th century. This aspect is inscribed in a broader cultural context, characterized by significant transformations in the literature and thought of the time, when the foundations were established for a reconfiguration of interpersonal and affective relationships.

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The Baroque period constituted a decisive moment for the conceptualization of romantic love: contemporary with Shakespeare, this period witnessed a gradual evolution in the matrimonial institution, which began to transcend its condition as a mere economic transaction to incorporate affective and emotional components. In this cultural context, the notion of courtship and affective conquest developed as a constitutive element of interpersonal relationships.

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This dimension of the exhibition establishes direct connections with Guido Reni's recurrent preoccupation with representations of love and desire. The inaugural piece of Anuar Maauad's collection—a representation of Erato, muse of lyric poetry, love, and eroticism—offers a privileged starting point for this exploration. Although Reni had represented the nine muses on various occasions as part of broader iconographic sets, it is exceptional to find an individualized representation like the one now part of the Maauad collection. To fully comprehend the relevance of this piece within the master's production, it is essential to examine his recurrent fascination with mythological figures such as Cupid and Eros, as well as the complex symbology associated with different types of arrows—golden and leaden—which, according to classical tradition, induced different modalities of amorous and erotic experience.

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The meticulous research developed by Maauad around the acquired piece, initially without definitive attribution, led him to delve into the historical and artistic context of Renian production, revealing suggestive parallels between his own life trajectory and that of the Bolognese master, as well as evidencing persistent contemporary problems related to the notion of authorship. This conceptual confluence motivated the invitation extended to Marek Wolfryd to participate in the project from his own artistic corpus, specifically addressing the inherent complexities of the concepts of authorship and originality in art.

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A particularly relevant aspect that emerges in this double narrative is Reni's probable homosexuality, considered misogynistic by his contemporaries, partly due to his deliberate abstention from maintaining relationships with women. In his representations of the male body, not only an extraordinary anatomical mastery is manifested, but also an intensely eroticized gaze. Particularly illustrative is his interpretation of Saint Sebastian, where he manages to articulate a representation of notable homoerotic charge: the expression of martyrological pain is replaced by a gesture suggesting ecstasy and pleasure. This eroticization of the male body probably contributed to his subsequent censorship and the relative historiographical oblivion that his figure experienced during later centuries.

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It is essential to contextualize these artistic expressions within the post-Renaissance Italian sociocultural framework, where homosexuality continued to be criminalized under rigorous ecclesiastical normativity. The existence of specific police bodies, colloquially known as "Night Knights," dedicated exclusively to the persecution and punishment of sodomitic practices, evidences the repressive climate in which these artistic manifestations developed.

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This contemporary revision of Guido Reni's work invites reflection on parallels between the Baroque period and our contemporaneity: the fragility of artistic recognition mechanisms, the processes of cultural memory construction, and the persistence of conceptions inherited from the Baroque that continue to inform our current approaches to art, sexuality, and identity.

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