The Granell Foundation presents the exhibition Santiago de Compostela in the Granell Foundation, the city where Eugenio Granell spent his childhood and adolescence and which hosts his Foundation.
Throughout his life, Eugenio Granell always had Santiago in his heart. This is made clear in his poetical autobiography Memorias de Compostela, visión orlada por estrellas, isles, árboles y antorchas, edited by Natalia Fernández, Director of the Granell Foundation, in 2006. In this literary work, Granell reconstructs by way of poetical fantasy full of both tenderness and irony, his experiences in the city.
Memory of the city and of its mythical creation centred on the figure of the Apostle James, was always of interest to Granell. During his exile in America, he encountered the myth of St. James the Moor-slayer reinterpreted by different indigenous cultures. Whenever he had the opportunity, the artist acquired representations of religious popular art featuring the Apostle, which he added to his collection of ethnic art.
With this in mind, the Granell Foundation presents the exhibition Santiago de Compostela in the Granell Foundation, the city where Eugenio Granell spent his childhood and adolescence and which hosts his Foundation.
The exhibition mainly consists of artworks belonging to the Granell Foundation, some from the legacy of Amparo Segarra, Eugenio Granells wife, as well as recent donations by surrealist artists to the institution. The exhibition presents the figure of the Apostle James and the City of Santiago de Compostela in very different ways, based on a selection from the institutions ethnic art collection and works by a variety of surrealist artists centred on the city or the Apostle.
Following in the artists footsteps, Natalia Fernández has programmed exhibitions in which the Apostle James and his city are the main theme, or appear transversally therein. Some examples are the exhibitions Religious Popular Art or Voodoo, the Black Way of St. James (by the photographer Luis López Gabú) held during 2006, or the exhibition Santiago in the Granell Foundation, held in 2007. In the exhibition about Eugenio Granell, curated by the art critic Mercedes Rozas, Images of the Memory, the city features prominently.
