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Jorge Camacho. Doñana: Refuge of myths

January 16 / April 28
Individual exhibition by a key member of the contemporary surrealist movement, the veteran Cuban artist Jorge Camacho.

The exhibition project is curated by Juan Bautista Cáceres Rodríguez, Rocío del Pilar Galindo Faraco and Manuel Jesús Galindo Faraco, who work at Huelva’s Pinacoteca de Almonte, the institution that houses most of the works making up this exhibition.
The exhibition Doñana, Refuge of Myths explores a territory that has made a deep impression on the artist, marking the latest development of his iconography. Jorge Camacho’s work, in contact with Doñana, has become more intimate and personal, more luminous and coloristic, defining a turning point in his career as a plastic artist.
Apart from natural sites with the force enjoyed by Doñana, many other elements motivated our artist’s creative desires, such as his essential contact with surrealism (in the 1950s) thanks to André Breton himself, his interest in alchemy and his profound admiration for and knowledge of Mexico’s pre-Columbine cultures; there are also significant matters of a personal nature, such as his break with Castro’s regime. It is worth highlighting the great knowledge the artist acquired of Mexico’s Maya culture, which he became acquainted with in 1953 during a visit to the Yucatan peninsula. Ancestral cultures are an endless source of inspiration for the artist, since they are fully integrated into their respective natural sites. In their habitats, man undertakes an honest fight for survival, and by means of the myth, is capable of explaining his own existence. The myth is of essential importance to Camacho as a formalisation of the link between man and nature, in an existence that does not separate the physical world from the spiritual world. In the case of Camacho, Doñana is one of those last refuges where it is possible to construct a genuine environment that nourishes us with new myths, which are so necessary in our present world.
The exhibition is mainly made up of a selection of large and medium oils, work on paper (using different techniques) and photography, made from the early 1980s to the present, in which the poetical perception of the Doñana region acquires special prominence. Along with work that is clearly inspired by Doñana’s natural and human environment, there is a selection of work that is significantly influenced by the artist’s contact with and profound knowledge of Mexico’s ancestral cultures.
It is also worth highlighting a section of graphic work dedicated to the late Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, who was a great friend of the artist’s.

JORGE CAMACHO •
Born in 1934 in Havana (Cuba).
• From 1950-1952, by means of friends such as Carlos M. Luis, he becomes acquainted with the work of writers such as Breton, Péret or Lautréamont, and the painting of Miró, De Chirico… he stops studying Law to devote himself entirely to painting.
• 1953-1956, he discovers Mexico’s Maya culture accompanied by the painter José Luis Cuevas.
• 1959-1962, he travels to Paris, visits André Breton in his studio and is invited to join the surrealist group’s activities.
• 1967, he participates in the Salón de Mayo exhibition organised in Havana by Wifredo Lam and Carlos Franqui.
• 1973-1975, he participates with Klee, Max Ernst, Wifredo Lam… in the Philippe Soupault-Collection Fontône exhibition (Paris, Seine gallery).
• 1983-1985, more trips to Peru and Venezuela, where he photographs birds in the archipelago of Los Roques.
• 1988, along with the writer Reinaldo Arenas, exiled in New York, he writes a well-known open letter to Fidel Castro, requesting the organising of a referendum and the preparation of free elections in Cuba.
• 1991, he publishes in Le Hibou Philosophe (La Pierre d’Alun, Brussels) a compilation of 18th-century emblems, commented by Camacho and with an introduction by Bernard Roger. He travels again to Mexico and visits Oaxaca, Chiapas, Yucatán and Veracruz. In Paris, he participates in the exhibition organised by the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, as a tribute to André Breton.
• 1993, he makes his first paintings for his exhibition project Les Demeures Souterraines, which includes the last text written by Reinaldo Arenas.
• 1994-1995, he publishes his book of photographs Cruces de Doñana.
• 1996-1997, he exhibits in Paris, in the Thressa Herold gallery.
• 1998, Huelva’s Juan Ramón Jiménez Foundation publishes his book of photographs El Lobito.
• 2000, exhibition in Valencia, in the Muro gallery.
• 2002, exhibition in Almonte (Huelva), in the CIECEMA gallery.
• 2005, opening in Huelva of the Pinacoteca de Almonte’s Sala Camacho.
• 2007, exhibitions in Almonte (Huelva), in the Pinacoteca de Arte Contemporáneo, and in Seville.