VAL DEL OMAR. THE MECHA-MYSTICS OF CINEMA
The work of José Val del Omar (Granada, 1904- Madrid, 1982) displays his facets as inventor, visual poet and cinemist. With this neologism, Val del Omar’s intention was to combine the activity of the alchemist with that of the film-maker, and as such define his original approach to cinema: via technological research and his own experimental aesthetics.
Val del Omar began his film-making in the 1920s, when he made his first technical inventions public, but it was in the 1930s, beginning with his participation in the Pedagogical Missions –the most important cultural democratisation project carried out under the Second Republic –, as a documentary-maker and film projectionist, when he discovered his fascination with cinema which would remain with him throughout his life. After the Civil War, Val del Omar continued his research in the field of audiovisual techniques, especially sound, going on to take up once more his work as a cinema-maker in the 1950s.
The exhibition is an exploration of Val del Omar’s work based on a concept which transcends his entire career: mecha-mystics. Another neologism (mechanics + mystics), with which the Granada-born artist referred to the universe of machines, which he approached in the same way as reality, with a mystical attitude, trying to see beyond the immediacy of technology.
Exhibition organised by the Museo Reina Sofía and produced by La Caixa Foundation.
Photo: José Val del Omar, Laboratorio PLAT (1975-1982), view of its original location. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Photo: Raúl Lorenzo Cano. © Archivo María José Val del Omar & Gonzalo Sáenz de Buruaga.
Organized by: Produced by:
