The return of the imaginary. Realism Between XIX and XXI

(A tribute to Juan Antonio Ramírez)

The return of the imaginary.
Realism between XIX and XXI, 2010

Date: May 20 - September 27, 2010 
Place: Sabatini Building, Floor 3
Curator: Juan Luis Moraza 

Despite the enormous technical and stylistic differences, the art of the 21st century can be seen as unexpectedly similar to that of the end of the 19th century. In the era of simulation, of augmented reality, of the omnipresence of photography, of the hyper-real transparency of the culture of advanced capitalism, our glimpses of art at the start of the 21st century do not indicate a return to “the real” (which would have been crushed by the avant-garde anti-naturalism and its abstract, conceptual developments of adaptation and revelation, by the intense crisis of all systems and conventions of representation or by aestheticism, etc.), but rather the persistence of the imaginary, in new forms of realism that retroactively allow the reinterpretation of 20th century art as the institutional unfolding of new modes of confidence in its representation.

Taking as an exhibition model the long tradition of the polyptych (from the altarpiece –arranged using geometric principles-, to the multi-coloured modern cabinets -surrealists, constructivists, minimalists, etc., through the first large public collections, the “collection pieces”, and the salons of the 19th century), we have a chromatic mosaic in which it is the relationships between the works which evoke the contents of the exhibition. It is not about producing what would nowadays be considered an unusual exhibiting style, but rather, deliberately sacrificing the isolation that would allow the clean contemplation of each work separately. This would increase the relationships between the works and in this way, offer the image of a constellation, of a system that is ordered yet open, constructed from the links between the pieces. It does not claim to be exhaustive, but rather to transmit in a sensitive manner the systemic condition of art. The exhibition breaks down the notion of a history of art made up of clear stylistic differences to recognise that each style is nothing other than a prevention of simplification, given that each work of art combines, in a proportional manner, the entire spectrum of its constituent factors: perception, emotion, information, organisation, materiality and context.

In this way the exhibition is a diagram organised both temporally and representationally. In chronological terms, the walls are organised in three time bands: : (1) the upper band corresponds to works from the 19th century, between 1881 and 1907; (2) the central band to works from the 20th century, between 1900 and 1980; and (3), the lower band to works from the 21st century, from 1980 to the present day. In representational terms, the exhibition is organised into three zones, based on three main types of realism and corresponding to three semiotic modalities.

II. Iconic Realism. Refers to evidence of what is felt, what is perceived, according to similarity: represent the object as perceived in relation to its similarity to other objects, independent of its essential qualities:

II.a. SENSORY REALISM. The naturalism of the 19th century, based on the sensory immediacy developed in the 20th century in the form of figurative art and photorealism, and in the 21st century, on a documentalism based on the supposed neutrality of technical methods of audio-visual recording.
II.b. EMOTIONAL REALISM. The caricaturism of the 19th century, based on the exaggeration of experience, would develop in the 20th century into all the forms of expressionism and surrealism that are based on evidence coming from the senses. In the 21st century, this sensitivity would translate into different modes of fictionalism, parody, identifications and intensified realities.

III. Symbolic Realism. Refers to evidence of what is known, what is thought, according to a representative character of conventionality: establish a shared correspondence

III.a. . STRUCTURAL REALISM. The academic formalism of the 19th century, preoccupied with formalisation and organisation, would develop in the 20th century as a focus on revealing underlying forms, which would convert organization into theme and the form into figure. It would ultimately, in the medialism of the 21st century, convert the mediums of expression into the work of art’s fundamental and perhaps even unique content.
III.b. CONCEPTUAL REALISM. The conventionalism of the 19th century, as seen in the search for the representative and the modes of symbolic formalisation, would develop in the 20th century as emblematic naturalism, based on the adoption of diverse kinds of symbolic classifications and reaching a kind of static and diffuse form represented by simulationism in the 21st century

I. Indicative Realism. Refers to the evidence of what it is, in accordance with a corresponding representative character: it points to the confluence between two experiences.

I.a. MATERIAL REALISM. The realism of the 19th century, conceived as an effort of objectivity which minimises subjectivity and style, would develop in the 20th century as a focus on literality and adaptation to the “true” material, even attempting to surpass representation by “presenting” the objects themselves in a kind of primitive declaration. This literalism would, in the 21st century, lead to a contextualism in which reality itself is subsumed in representation and the borders between reality and representation become blurred.
I.b. CONTEXTUAL REALISM. The realism of the 19th century, conceived as a radical mode of contemporaneity by which the context is understood through the work, would in the 20th century develop into the contextual subject matter of all forms of political art, including situationism, and in the 21st century, into the treatment of representation as a social agent, as has happened in relational aesthetics.

Juan Luis Moraza