Museu Europeu d’Art Modern: Faces and Hyperrealism

This particular Barcelona art museum doesn’t get nearly the traffic it deserves. Instead, the hordes tend to descend primarily on the Picasso Museum, then the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), the Erotic Museum, the Hash, Marihuana and Hemp Museum, the Chocolate Museum, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), and so on.

Currently (through April 29), the Museu Europeu d’Art Modern (MEAM), has a floor dedicated to “Women Artists Today”–young, very talented, and up-and-coming women artists who quite often have women themselves as their subject matter.

What will likely attracted your eye among this wonderful women’s show as well as throughout MEAM’s permanent collection is the modern trend toward super-duper-hyperrealism. The detail work in some of these large paintings and drawings is astounding and, from a few steps back, indistinguishable from a large format photograph.

Which, of course, naturally brings up an interesting discussion topic…

Hyperrealism–Is it art?

If an artist, using paints or pencils, faithfully recreates a figure, down to the individual pores, scars, hairs, wrinkles, measles vaccination, tatoos, pimples, basal cell carcinomas, even their own reflection in an eyeball, is the artist making a statement, or simply blindly (if expertly) copying reality? Is there really any kind of serious interpretation going on? Is the artist creating an alternative reality that has real value…that makes a statement?

Or, is hyperrealism simply a way for the artist to show off his or her technical ability and skills of observation? (As in this quote I recently read: “Impressive, but not engaging”.)

For more, here is an interesting article that discusses this very issue: Hyperrealism in Art–Ultimately, is it art or skill? (Widewalls, December 9, 2015)

Like everything in art, there are no easy, clear, answers. 

For me, I find that I can’t help but like the look of many of these paintings/drawings. (Maybe because I am a photographer???) But, I also recognize that an artist of this genre might find it very easy to get caught up in the technicality of it, forgetting about the essentials of storytelling, composition, and depth of emotion–important factors that, in my mind, would elevate the work to something more than a very impressive reproduction. I see a parallel in many of today’s Hollywood action films that get so caught up in the digital “EFX” that they forget to develop the characters, create decent dialogue, or even tell a good story.

Art. Always a reflection of the times, I suppose.

As I stalked my way through MEAM, I spent a lot of time examining, then photographing, the faces and eyes of the subjects. The two MEAM poster-collages that follow are just some of what I saw.

Faces:

Faces, Collage Poster. MEAM, Barcelona, 2018

The artists (left to right, by row)…

First row: Antonio Castelló Avilleira, Toledo (Models #1, 2011); Rosa Diaz, Madrid (Nesrate); Rajnikanta Laitonjam, India (Mesmerizing Beauty, 2017); Rosa Diaz, Madrid (Mirada)

Second row: Miriam Escofet, Barcelona (Gillian); David Kassan, USA (Carmen, 2010); Soledad Fernández, Madrid (Boceto); Leonor Solans, Sevilla (All you need)

Third row: Miriam Escofet, Barcelona (Estudio en pastel para un ángel en mi mesa); Dino Valls, Zaragoza (Dissectio, 2002); Niamh Butler, USA (Devin, 2017); Laura Cameo, Zaragoza (Jugando con papá)

Fourth row: Natalia Nombela, Madrid (Desperdicio); María José Cortes, Badajoz (Encarnita); Lita Cabellut, Huesca (Disturbance 23); Josefa Medina, Córdoba (Estela)

Fifth row: Olga Esther, Valencia (Crónicas de un “ser para otros”: la belleza); Edgar Noé Mendoza Mancillas, Mexico (Fenotipo, 2014); Xiaoxue Wang, China (Pearl, 2017); María José Cortes, Badajoz (Generación@)

Sixth row: Marta Zapirain, Perú (I see you); Carlos Muro Aguado, Madrid (Composición 805 Paula I, 2007); Almudena Mahiques, Valenca (La mirada de Júlia); Marta Zapirain, Perú (Educar para la paz)

Eyes:

Eyes, Collage Poster. MEAM, Barcelona, 2018

The artists (left to right, by row)…

First row: Miriam Escofet, Barcelona (Gillian); Rosa Diaz, Madrid (Mirada); Carmen Alquezar Valero, Huesca (Ariadna); Dino Valls, Zaragoza (In Memoriam, 1993)

Second row: Olga Esther, Valencia (Crónicas de un “ser para otros”: la belleza); Jesús María Sáez de Vicuña, Vitoria (A ella no le gusta su pelo); Carlos Marijuan, Madrid (Ciro, 2009); Josefa Medina, Córdoba (Estela)

Third row: Roberto Carillo Prieto, Madrid (Alex, 2015); Claus Word, Palermo (Paint it black, 2016); George Marinciu, Romania (Iulian, 2013); Roberto Carrillo Prieto, Corvero de Asturias (Luis, 2017)