I hope my interlocutor forgives me for not keeping ‘the secret’, but the story deserves to be known: The new thesis collective at the Reina Sofía Museum, the one titled ‘Esperpento. Popular art and aesthetic revolution’, includes a particular altar in one of its rooms. These are the ‘sculptures’ from different periods of the so-called and popularly known as ‘Tía Sandalia’. La Tía Sandalia, or Sandalia Simón (1940-1987), a resident of Villacañas, in Toledo, who had to suffer the suicide of one of his five children, spent a good part of his life, through his devotion, his self-taughtness and his illiteracy, focused on explaining a circumstance like this, or what the destruction of religious images was like in the Civil War. Thus, a whole corpus of work was generated, small devotional sculptures, with an appearance between naive and expressionist, first repudiated by ‘critics’, now preserved in their own museum in the town. Related News standard No ‘Luces de bohemia’ sets foot for the first time time the stage of the Julio Bravo Spanish Theater standard Yes The esperpento de Valle-Inclán, a legacy that is still valid Natividad PulidoThe case – and this would be the anecdote – on the day of the opening of the exhibition managed to drag half the town from La Mancha, which They paid little or no attention to the rest of the works on display and only had eyes for those of their neighbor. Even two parish priests, the previous one and the current one, were in charge of blessing their small votive offerings. Surreal scene if there ever was one. ‘Sperpentica’. Adjective that comes to mind, integrated into a quote that aims to ‘make visible’, ’embody’, the different aesthetic strategies that have given rise to the well-known literary concept illuminated by Ramón María del Valle-Inclán.Jump from the booksIt is not the for the first time that literature shapes the character of what is Spanish: from the picaresque of Lazarillo to ‘the quixotic’ that Cervantes masterfully described. However, perhaps we had paid little attention to the distorting and tragicomic element of the proposal that the Galician author established in the 1920s; a literary expression that ended up becoming a genre and even an adjective already fully incardinated in our language. It will be the chronological period between the birth and death of the writer that temporarily frames this case study, and Valle’s emblematic titles, which serve to name each of its eight sections. Thus, as its curators explain, a specific period in the History of Spain is ‘illustrated’ in which the popular exercised a decisive influence, with replicas in other international contexts and with reflections in today’s society. And ‘reflection’ will be a basic concept in a phenomenon that, as well explained in ‘Luces de Bohemia’, is born from the deformation in the reflective surfaces of the mirrors located in Madrid’s Callejón del Gato. And this is what Max, the protagonist of the play, says: «[Latino]”Let us deform the expression in the same mirror that deforms our faces and all the miserable life of Spain.” Spain as “grotesque deformation of European civilization.” “‘Esperpentismo'” as an invention of Goya”…The show begins. From top to bottom, ‘Shootings in the Badajoz bullring’, by Joaquim Martí-Bas; ‘The Tyrant’, by Clemente Orozco; and ‘The Drunkard’, by María Blanchard ABC Curiously, the curators, a choral team, avoid including Fuendetodos in the event, but use the first three sections to anchor the origins of the concept, which will be found in many creative and popular manifestations of the era (from the satirical press – with its metamorphoses and changes of scale – to the blind man’s romances, the hallelujahs or the zarzuela), and those that the air of the times will impose, from the first pre-cinematic devices (the magic lantern , the phantascope…) or new forms of perception of reality that move away from rectitude or morality and that draw on spiritualism, drug consumption (let’s not forget ‘La pipa de Kif’, with the signature of Valle, his most ‘futuristic’ work) or even the new way of understanding war from the air with the IGM (something that the Galician experienced as a correspondent in France for ‘El impartial’). Works by Lucas Velázquez, Grosz or the fantastic loans of Boccioni from MoMA transfer these ideas to canvas. Also the theatre, obviously, and the ‘re-theatricalization’ of it (greater emphasis on the scenography than on the text. Ramón Pérez de Ayala), with a special space for puppets (characters moved by strings) and the Teatro dei Piccoli by Vittorio Podrecca (of which originals from the 40s are brought). Once the background has been established, all that remains is to ‘unpack’ the grotesque. ‘Martes de Carnaval’ and ‘Los hornes de don Friolera’ give the clue, that popular culture that distorts reality behind the mask and ridicules it, or that confronts establishments such as the military (we are in the middle of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, its colonial policy in Africa…). Solana, Laxeiro, Neville’s cinema could not be missing, or successful more contemporary works such as Raquel Manchado’s ‘Misogyny Archive’. As it could not be otherwise, the ‘Bohemian Lights’ section (which for the first time, and coinciding with this expo, he takes to the stage of the Spanish Theater in Madrid) becomes a Gordian knot. And the Madrid bohemia – and the social instability – of the moment is represented by that drunk who sees life deformed through the bottom of María Blanchard’s glass, the engravings of Xosé Conde Corbal, the film ‘La juerga’, by Javier Vilar, with mirrors that dialogue with those of Chaplin’s ‘The Circus’. .. In the ‘Altarpieces’ area, the international connection is established by the sets by Brecht and Caspar Neher, which share space with Tía Sandalia. Without a doubt, a moment of advance of fascism, it will be the last stage of Valle, which they illuminate ‘ Tirano Banderas’ (and Clemente Orozco’s ‘Tyrant’ eats everything; and Victorina Durán or Rivas Cherif hurt us) and ‘Ruedo Ibérico’, a metaphor for many injustices that the war would bring and that the writer did not get to experience.’ Grotesque. Popular art and aesthetic revolution’ Collective. Reina Sofia Museum. Madrid. C/ Santa Isabel, 52. Commissioners: P. Allepuz, R. García, G. Labrador, B. Martínez-Hijazo, JA Sánchez and T. Velázquez. Until March 10, 2025. Four stars That’s why ‘Shootings in the Badajoz Bullring’ (1937) by Joaquim Martí-Bas is a dramatic finishing touch in ‘expo-definition’, which takes us to a final ‘ plaza’: that of the sound piece by Maricel Álvarez and Marcelo Martínez with extracts from this now legendary text by Valle. Like life itself. Like our idea of Spain. At times, a horror.
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