Editor's Note:
Wendy Guerra is a Cuban-French writer and contributor to CNN en Español. His articles have appeared in media around the world, such as El País, The New York Times, the Miami Herald, El Mundo and La Vanguardia. Among his most outstanding literary works are "Underwear" (2007), "I was never the first lady" (2008), "Posing naked in Havana" (2010) and "Todos se van" (2014). His work has been published in 23 languages. The comments expressed in this column belong exclusively to the author. See more at cnne.com/opinion
(CNN Spanish) -
The first work my mother showed me was the Mona Lisa, but not the well-known and mysterious Renaissance canvas by Leonardo da Vinci, but the curious Gioconda made in 1919, on which Marcel Duchamp drew a mustache in pencil and a knob, titled: LHOOQ
For years, I did the trip in reverse, learning everything that happened in art history between one Gioconda and the other, from postmodernity to rebirth. It was then that the taste for visuality entered my life like a hurricane and stayed there forever. I spent days looking for similarities between the Cathedral of Cienfuegos and the famous Cathedral of Rouen, by Monet, between The Absinthe Drinker, by Pablo Picasso, and the drunkard of my town. Everything that surrounded me, no matter how wild, acquired unusual colors and shapes that inspired me to fantasize and resist beyond the ruins.
Very recently, a great friend, also the daughter of a writer, told me the unique style with which her mother enchanted her for the visual arts, retracing the great museums of the West with her children, telling them the secret or apocryphal history? behind the frame. The brothers entered hand in hand into the drawn drama, and there they found a true novel concocted by maternal imagery, where the narrative ended in wars, beheadings, plagues, stormy romances and weddings. In this way he met Caravaggio, La Tour, and fantasized about a strange atmospheric phenomenon that emanated from the kaleidoscopic clouds of The Scream, by Edvard Munch, in 1892. Our sensitivity, vocation and everything that we both create today, depends on that moment intimate and sublime of personal freedom before a story that smells of oil and turpentine oil.
OPINION |
Naked woman before the mirror of the world
According to the philosopher and writer Ernst Ficher, the human being identifies with a painting, a sculpture, etc., based on wanting to be more than himself.
Looking in art to rise above its reality.
I live in a city full of museums, art galleries, private collections and foundations that offer their heritage to those who appreciate it, and although there are rooms and free days, the spaces almost always remain empty. Not all families plan a weekend visit to the museum. However, much of what we consume on a daily basis is pure art. From the design of a mobile phone to the advertisement of a fast food chain, they have their origin in the composition, morphology and colors of a masterpiece. Why not alternate video games with the fascinating world of painting, sculpture, installations or public interventions? Why not confront children with the monumentality and emotion of a live play? According to Theodor W. Adorno, art is magic freed from the lie of being true.
Are we willing this end of the year to get a ticket to ourselves, to let ourselves go, to confront our self, to try to understand ourselves before the mirror of a work of art?
OPINION |
Cuba: internal blockade vs.
external embargo
