Many painters, along with Granell, have enjoyed a close relatesationship with celluloid, particularly in the experimental field, to the extent that the majority of the innovators of the avant-garde movements of the past, almost all of whom were Dadaists and Surrealists, came originally from the world of painting: Man Ray, Viking Eggeling, Walter Ruttmann, Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger or Jean Cocteau, amongst others.
It comes as no surprise that a creative artist, whose output was directly influenced by his life, should have been attracted and fascinated by images. There can be no doubt that the environment, seen not only as the set of places one inhabits, but also as a ‘global’ situation arising from a period of major cracks and fissures in the sphere of thought and creative activity, helps to break down the barriers between disciplines.
The keys to understanding Granell’s work in the medium of film appear in a series of writings that little by little examine references and contexts in an inescapable relationship with some of the artist’s other work, particularly in the fields of painting and literature.
This seminar explores the terrain of experimental and surrealist cinema, taking Granell’s production as a pretext to analyse the Galician, Spanish and international context from the appearance of these materials.
PROGRAMME
4:30 p.m. Alberte Pagán. Cinematographic Archaeologies
5:15 p.m. Fernando Castro Flórez. Granell: Insular Writer, Surreal Host
6.00 p.m. Coffee break
6:15 p.m. Perfecto Cuadrado Fernández. You Are Welcome to Elsinore
7:00 p.m. Round table discussion with Fernando Castro Flórez, Perfecto Cuadrado Fernández and Alberte Pagán. Moderated by Miguel von Hafe Pérez
Perfecto Cuadrado Fernández. Researcher, critic and translator. He is Professor of Galician and Portuguese at the University of the Balearic Islands and Coordinator of the Centro de Estudos do Surrealismo of the Fundação Cupertino de Miranda. Some of his most important works include Modernidad y vanguardia en la poesía portuguesa contemporánea: perspectiva histórica del surrealismo portugués (doctoral thesis), Fernando Pessoa: máscaras y paradojas, You Are Welcome to Elsinore: antologia da poesia surrealista portuguesa (second edition titled A única real tradição viva), Poesia portuguesa do século xviii: estudo e antologia ou Mário Cesariny. He curated and edited the catalogues for various exhibitions, including Surrealismo em Portugal 1934-1952 (with María Jesús Ávila) and Cartografía surrealista: território Eugenio Granell (with António Gonçalves).
Alberte Pagán. Writer and filmmaker. He has published books about Granell’s films and those of Andy Warhol, and about Finnegans Wake, James Joyce’s latest novel, of which he translated the first two chapters to Galician. As a filmmaker, his films have won prizes at the Play-Doc Festival and at the Roman Gubern Essay-Film Award. He also curated various exhibitions about experimental cinema and is the author of the book Introducción a los clásicos del cine experimental, 1945-1990, published by the CGAC, in collaboration with the Centro Galego de Artes da Imaxe, in 1999.
Fernando Castro Flórez. Head Lecturer of Aesthetics and Theory of the Arts at the Autonomous University of Madrid. He has written literary and art reviews for various newspapers. He is Director of the magazine Cuadernos del IVAM and a columnist in Descubrir el arte. He has curated more than a hundred exhibitions, including the Chile Triennial, the Curitiba Biennial, the Chile Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2011) or the Cuenca Biennial (Ecuador). He has published monographs on artists like Nacho Criado, Pablo Palazuelo, Imi Knoebel, Andy Warhol, Eugenio Fernández Granell, etc. Some of his most important works include Elogio de la pereza: notas para una estética del cansancio, El texto íntimo: Kafka, Rilke, Pessoa, Escaramuzas: el arte en el tiempo de la demolición, Una “verdad” pública: consideraciones críticas sobre el arte contemporáneo, Fasten Seat Belt. Cuaderno de campo de un crítico de arte, Pablo Picasso: el rey de los burdeles and Joan Miró: el asesino de la pintura.
DIRECTED by Eduardo Valiña
COORDINATED by Gema Baños
Aimed at students and professionals from the areas of artistic creation, history of art and fine arts, and people interested in the figure of Eugenio Granell, experimental cinema and surrealism.
Requests to attend the seminar can be presented at the CGAC’s reception desk, by calling the Activities and Educational Projects Service (981 546 631/623) or by email: cgac.pedagogia@xunta.es, indicating the following information: name, postal and e-mail address, contact phone number and area of study or work.
Free registration until full capacity is reached.