At the end of 2017, and with a view to the Bicentennial celebrations, the Friends of the Prado Museum Foundation commissioned 12 photographers for their personal reinterpretation of the treasures of the art gallery.
Each of them had to make and deliver two images.
But Alberto García-Alix (León, 66 years old) was left hungry for more.
So he asked permission from the museum management to continue the work.
Until May 2021 he intermittently entered the Prado rooms.
Sometimes months passed between visits.
Sometimes I went two days a week.
Once the project was finished, he showed it to those responsible for La Fábrica, who now publish this artist's notebook,
Fantasies in the Prado,
as part of a new issue of
Matador magazine.
.
In addition, from June 1 to August 28, the National Photography Award will show this fruit of its fascination with the great masters in an exhibition that will be hosted by the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid within the framework of the PHotoEspaña 2022 festival, under the auspices of the Enaire Foundation.
García-Alix's love story with the museum is old: “When I was 13 years old, my mother took my four brothers and me to the Prado.
She took the opportunity to give us a history lesson.
I remember the silence that enveloped the rooms, the wooden floors... The paintings that most caught our attention were then those by Goya,
The Fight with the Mamelukes
and
The Executions,
and also
The Naked Maja
, the first representation I saw of a nude female".
The photographer acknowledges this: "There is a before and after of this work... Today El Prado is for me a space of intimate communion."
The adventure was not easy.
“Sometimes I felt
horror vacui.
It also had moments tinged with emotion and even a certain mystical spirit”, remembers García-Alix, who explains: “Looking through the camera and timelessly talking with the
Dead Christ supported by an angel,
by Antonello da Messina, was one of those experiences intense and emotional.
For his shaky reinterpretation of the Prado, he used the multiple exposure technique on analog film.
“There are two or three shots fused into one and all under the same light as in the room.
The results are always somewhat random.
Of the two takes, which will prevail?
How to accentuate the second?
And how much should the diaphragm close in the first and how much should it open in the second?… And in the third?”
Chance, as highlighted by Manuela Mena in her text of
Fantasies in El Prado
, he played his part.
“They are large paintings, they are very high and I was not allowed to use more than a platform of less than one meter.
The struggle with the shine of varnishes and oils and with the crackling of some works was constant.
It is a complex photographic exercise and I did it somewhat blind to the result”, says the photographer, who speaks of “endless resonances and phantasmagorias”.
“I have looked in communication with history, politics and art, seeking to appropriate time, light and brushstrokes”.
'Dead Christ Supported by an Angel' (1475-1476), by Antonello da Messina.
' “Looking through the camera and dialoguing without time with the work was a communion” ', explains García-Alix.Alberto García-Alix
'Isabel de Borbón, wife of Felipe IV' (around 1620), by Rodrigo de Villandrando, and 'La infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia' (1579), by Alonso Sánchez Coello.
Alberto Garcia-Alix
'Half-sunken dog' and 'The Fates' (Atropos) (1820-1823), by Goya.
The most famous dog in the history of art is no longer alone. Alberto García-Alix
Rogier van der Weyden's master hand: 'The Descent' (before 1443), blurred by García-Alix.
Alberto Garcia-Alix
This is how the photographer reinterpreted the popular 'Gioconda' del Prado.
Alberto Garcia-Alix
A particular approach to 'The Triumph of Death' (1562- 1563), a masterpiece by Bruegel the Elder.
Alberto Garcia-Alix
'Félix Máximo López, first organist of the Royal Chapel' (1820), by Vicente López Portaña.
Pure trembling painting by the work and grace of García-Alix.
Alberto Garcia-Alix
'The Snowfall or The Winter' (1786), by Francisco de Goya.
Alberto Garcia-Alix
The photographer's camera increases, if possible, the transfiguring power of El Greco: 'Christ embracing the cross' (circa 1602).
Alberto Garcia-Alix
This is how the author of 'Fantasías en el Prado' contemplated, thought and transformed the work The Deification of 'Aeneas' (around 1820), by Merry-Joseph Blondel.
Alberto Garcia-Alix
'Isabel II, Veiled' (1855), a sculpture by Camillo Torreggiani, and 'The Painter Carlos Luis de Ribera' (1839) by Federico Madrazo y Kuntz.
Alberto Garcia-Alix
'Crystal Vase' (1668), by Juan de Arellano.
Alberto Garcia-Alix
'Santa Bárbara' (circa 1522), by Parmigianino, and 'García de' Medici' (circa 1550), by Bronzino.
Alberto Garcia-Alix
'The Family of Philip V' (1743), by Louis-Michel van Loo, and 'Holy Family with Saint Catherine' (1617-1619), by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi.
Alberto Garcia-Alix
'Young orator' (first quarter of the 1st century), sculpture, Roman workshop.Alberto García-Alix
This is how the photographer Alberto García-Alix 'self-embedded' himself in his phantasmagorical gallery of interpretations and reinterpretations at the Prado Museum: 'Self-portrait and Bull Rendered by Dogs' (1636-1638), by Paul de Vos.Alberto García-Alix
The
Fantasias en El Prado
project makes up the Matador
X
artist's notebook , published by La Fábrica.
In addition, this work can be seen in an exhibition at the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid from June 1, by PHotoEspaña 2022 and Fundación Enaire.
Exclusive content for subscribers
read without limits
subscribe
I'm already a subscriber