Commemorative Exhibition in Honor of Remedios Varo in the 50th anniversary of her death at the MAM, Mexico

In 2000 the Museum of Modern Art of Mexico City received 38 pieces authored by Remedios Vario from the collection of Walter Gruen and Ana Alexandra Varsoviano de Gruen. After a long litigation, the pieces finally became part of the acquisition in 2007. After their arrival at the MAM, there have been several revisions of the work of this Spanish artist rooted in Mexico, who formed part of the surrealist movement outside of Europe.

Her encounter with surrealism predisposed in a way an interest of portraying dreamlike universes that characterized the artists of this movement. However, other fields of knowledge, which constituted the intellectual universe revealed by her work, also nurtured Remedios Varo. If it is said that there are still many readings to be done in relation to the avant-garde and the era of manifests, it is also important to pose a revision based to a smaller scale on those elements that derive from a movement and that are more autonomous in an aesthetic sense. Those kinds of elements are found in the artistic labor that Remedios Varo practice throughout her life as an artist.

A possible approximation of this epistemological universe can be done through a reading of certain philosophical texts that formed part of her library. Two of the most relevant, which had a huge influence within the intellectual community of her epoch, were, without a doubt, Peter D. Ouspensky and George Gurdjieff. In Remedio Varo’s work one can see not only formal elements that come from the schools of thought formed by both philosophers, but there are also hints of a particular interpretation of space and a general concept of “reality” that would later be much discussed in the philosophy of art. This interpretation of the known world and its possible existence with other worlds were not only the result of a fruitful imagination, but also of cultural baggage obtained in large part through the reading and knowledge of the thinkers that influenced her work.

Remedios Varo was born in Gerona, Spain on September 16, 1908. In 1924 she enrolled at the Academia de San Fernando and later worked as an advertisement illustrator. She supported the republican cause after the outburst of the Spanish Civil War, the reason why was exiled to Paris, and was thrown in jail after the fall of the city to the German invasion. She came to know a circle of surrealists where she met the poet Bejamín Peret, with whom she immigrated to Mexico. There she continued with her work as an illustrator and later she married the businessman and politician Walter Gruen, who convinced her to dedicate herself completely to painting. It was in Mexico that she completed most of her painted Works. She died the 8th of October 1963.