The Cabildo of Lanzarote, through the Data Center and the Publications Service, and the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands presented this Wednesday, January 26, the book 'Javier Reyes. The artisan look'.
The publication has been co-edited by both institutions, and is a journey to the past of Lanzarote and La Graciosa through the images of this veteran photographer and documentalist born in Haría in 1926. The presentation took place in the assembly hall of the Insular Library and included the interventions of the Councilor of the Data Center and Publications of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Myriam Barros, the general director of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands, Nona Perera, and the photographer and documentalist Javier Reyes.
“This book aims to give permanence to the work of Javier Reyes, who since the 40s of the last century has been building an extensive visual document about the people who have inhabited the territory of Lanzarote, from an artisanal conception of the photographer's trade, without artistic boasts or stylistic artifice, but which has resulted in incredibly beautiful photographs that tell us about our own humanity”, stressed the Councilor of the Data Center and Publications of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Myriam Barros.
“The photographs of Javier Reyes show us a peasant and seafaring society that changed radically with the arrival of tourism, but until then had to deal with terribly harsh living conditions”, added Barros, who thanked Javier Reyes for having ceded to the Digital Memory of Lanzarote “more than 16,000 negatives from his archive”.
Likewise, the councilor of the first island corporation expressed her gratitude to the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands for their collaboration in making this project possible, remarking “the importance of institutions cooperating to carry out initiatives that benefit everyone”.
The town photographer
“Javier Reyes has taken care of the memory by portraying and preserving hundreds of photos. We know that what is taken care of is eternal and therefore I thank him”, said the general director of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands, Nona Perera, who highlighted the heritage value of Reyes' legacy.
“He has created a sanctuary of the memory of La Graciosa and the north of Lanzarote where there are faces, gestures, clothing, scenography and decorations of things too important that we forget too often”, said Nona Perera. “His archive, his book and his memory are places where we find answers to our identity questions”, she added.
Javier Reyes, who was accompanied by his family, recalled how he began in the professional practice of photography at the request of the people “They forced me. The town itself wanted me to take pictures of them because then it was impossible to go to Arrecife to take a picture”, he said during the event.
In this way, Javier Reyes became in the mid-twentieth century the photographer of the residents of the northern part of Lanzarote. A profession that he carried out “with much sacrifice”, since he alternated it with various trades.
Nearly 4,000 visits to the exhibition at La Casa Amarilla
The book 'Javier Reyes. The artisan look' includes a careful selection of the work of this photographer, who captured rural images of Lanzarote and La Graciosa between 1940 and 1970. The publication, which is a recognition of his figure and work, has been designed by Rubén Acosta and includes texts by Mario Ferrer, Carmelo Vega and Carlos A. Schwartz, experts in historical photography of the Canary Islands.
The presentation of this book has been the culmination of the exhibition that, under the same name, has been exhibited since last September in La Casa Amarilla of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, located in Arrecife.
From the Cabildo they point out that the exhibition, which has received the visit of almost 4,000 people since its inauguration, can be seen until January 31, from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. In addition, it can also be visited virtually on the website of Memoria Digital de Lanzarote.
Subsequently, the exhibition ‘Javier Reyes. The artisan look’ will tour the rest of the municipalities of Lanzarote and then move to other enclaves of the Canary Islands, with the aim that his work transcends the limits of our island.
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