The Lanzarote artist Carmela García reinvents the current world through female creation and the dreams of women belonging to numerous and varied disciplines who were ignored throughout history. She does so in 'Cabinet of Dreams', the individual exhibition that will be hosted until May 29 by the International Museum of Contemporary Art of Lanzarote (MIAC) and which was presented this Friday at a press conference. In this act, García was accompanied by the Minister of Culture of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Alberto Aguiar; the CEO of the Art, Culture and Tourism Centers of Lanzarote, Benjamín Perdomo; and the curator of the exhibition, Yolanda Peralta.
'Cabinet of Dreams' is composed of a selection of works made by the artist between 2007 and 2022 and has the particularity of offering a very broad vision of Carmela García's work because they are made in different media, disciplines and languages, from video to photography, through installations, models and drawings. These are nine artistic projects that have as a common thread a theme present in García's career since the beginning of her professional career, in the 90s: the construction of female genealogies.
The artist explained that the curatorial proposal of the exhibition allows her to talk about her work “from very diverse places”. Thus, Yolanda Peralta proposes a structure that is based on three pillars. On the one hand, Carmela García's work on female genealogies, which is an important part of the project; on the other hand, the different artistic languages she uses, in addition to photography; and, finally, the time frame of the chosen works, which allows to give “a unitary perspective”. The author assures that this approach has given her the opportunity to “reflect on my own processes because there are works that are immediate, functional, and others that are longer, that are done more slowly, and this is beautiful.”
Carmela García explains the difficulties presented by the assembly, as it is located in a protected space within the Castle of San José -the temporary exhibition hall-, which presents many limitations. However, “it has been possible to create a space within the MIAC that I invite you to go and see because a great job has truly been done.” If the exhibition is called 'Cabinet of Dreams' it is because of the idea of a collection of special things and that is the concept of the assembly, “to go seeing the works and verify that each one of them is a small world, a small project, all explained in labels”, explains the photographer from Lanzarote, who encourages the general public to visit the exhibition “because I think it may be interesting and I would also like it to be inspiring.”
The common thread of Cabinet of Dreams has to do with the recovery of the memory of what the history of women leaves in the margins: “It is up to us now to take up that history and value it. We are going to see women who have done great work in their time, who are not unknown. However, they seem wrapped in a wind of oblivion that eliminates them with a stroke of the pen. Fortunately, the different fields of knowledge, academia, art, science, are recovering those works by women that were done, but are not remembered, not to say that they have been consciously forgotten.”
For the construction of these female genealogies, García moves in the territory of fiction arising from real stories. Using documentary and audiovisual materials from the past, the artist brings to the present a new way of thinking and understanding the world, building a subjective and symbolic story with which she reflects on hegemonic history and questions the prevailing and manipulated stories, recovers lost stories and completes biased narratives.
Among the women who star in this reinvention of the current world, are the three creators of the Sun House, the first building powered by solar energy: the engineer Mária Telkes, the architect Eleanor Raymond and the sculptor Amelia Peabody. In addition, García transmits with her photographs the mysticism of the Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), a woman ahead of her time who was a poet, philosopher, artist, naturalist, doctor, scientist, theologian and composer. She also discovers Marcia Celagra, a Catalan artist, visionary and medium, who symbolizes the history of many invisible and unknown women artists, whose works remain hidden, in an unknown location, forgotten by history.
The Minister of Culture of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Alberto Aguiar, broke down the career “of an artist, in capital letters, who from her watchtower shows her feelings through the lens of a camera. Carmela García traces, analyzes and makes visible the life of women through images loaded with symbolism and freedom. She, Carmela, is today a reference in the fight for equality thanks to a work that builds feminism and builds a modern society in which women are freed from archaic stereotypes to show what they are, what they want”. Aguiar encouraged the population of the island “to visit and enjoy the exhibition of a Lanzarote native who returns to her land to show all her talent.”
In the same vein, the CEO of the Tourist Centers, Benjamín Perdomo, invited citizens to share Carmela García's “premiere” at the International Museum of Contemporary Art, MIAC-Castillo de San José. “Surprising as it may seem, this will be the first time that a Lanzarote artist of her stature has exhibited in this emblematic space, although we are convinced that it will not be the last,” said Perdomo. The counselor also highlighted the work carried out during these last years to recover the essence of César Manrique's work and turn “the Tourist Centers into centers from which to project to the world the talent and work of the creators of Lanzarote.”
“The lives of these women are intertwined and woven together, offering the possibility of a better world based on affections, female alliance and respect for the environment, with sorority and ecofeminism very present,” explained the curator of the exhibition, Doctor of Art History from the University of La Laguna Yolanda Peralta.
Peralta clarified that the title of the exhibition, 'Cabinet of Dreams', refers to “those women who have been made invisible throughout history, who dreamed of a better world through different disciplines such as medicine, poetry, architecture, art or engineering, among many others”. Peralta detailed that the selection of works made by Carmela Gracia involves gathering a kind of “cabinet of curiosities, preciousness and dreams of these women that serve as inspiration in the present to not only imagine a better world, but also to be able to see the beauty of the world that surrounds us.”
The exhibition will open this Friday, March 3 at 7:00 p.m. and will remain at the MIAC until Monday, May 29.
Brief curriculum of Carmela García
Carmela García studied photography in Madrid and Barcelona and began showing her works to the public in 1998. In 2001 she was awarded the Revelation Award at PhotoEspaña. In 2004 she received the PhotoEspaña Award for Best Publication for her photo-book 'Women, love and lies'. In 2005, the artist was included in the list of the 100 best Spanish photographers prepared by Exit magazine. In 2010, Televisión Española dedicated a monographic to her in the Metropolis program. In 2019, she received the Photography Award from the Community of Madrid.
Her work has been shown in museums in Spain (Reina Sofía, CAAM, MUSAC, IVAM, etc.), the United States (MOMA PS1), Japan (MOT, Kanazawa Museum), France, Holland or Denmark, among other places. She has participated in national and international fairs such as Art Basel, Arco Madrid, Paris Photo, Frieze, etc. She has work in the collections of national and international museums such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Spain), Kanazawa 21st Century Museum (Japan), Centre National de la Photographie (France) LIMAC-Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Peru), CAAM Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (Gran Canaria), MIAC Museo Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo (Lanzarote), CAAC Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (Spain), MUSAC (Spain) and ARTIUM (Spain), among others.
Brief curriculum of Yolanda Peralta
University professor, researcher and exhibition curator. Doctor of Art History from the University of La Laguna (2006). She was the founder and director of the murNó art gallery (2004-2007) in La Laguna (Tenerife). For 10 years (2008-2018) she was chief curator of the Department of Temporary Exhibitions of TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes. Currently, she is a professor in the Department of Art History and Philosophy at the University of La Laguna.
