Photo: @InstCervantes
The Diplomat. 08/07/2018
The headquarters of the Cervantes Institute in Madrid hosted this Thursday the summer course El Guernica as a cultural bridge between Spain and the US, organized by the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC) and the Fundación Consejo España-EEUU.
«Guernica is not a political or ideological symbol, it is a universal myth that represents the suffering of the victims» and that «it can be used in all scenarios», said the director of the course, Jorge Latorre, of the Rey Juan Carlos University.
The course is part of the commemorative events for the 80th anniversary of the creation of Guernica, which are being developed in Spain and the United States. The Museum of Modern Art in New York guarded Pablo Picasso’s mural for 45 years and can still be seen in the New York headquarters of the UN an exact size reproduction of a work that, according to the organizers of the course, «symbolizes, by its own expressive force and by appealing to the universal language of emotions, to the innocent victims of all wars «.
«Picasso did not plan to do Guernica when he was commissioned for the Paris expo in 1937, but because of the war he ended up doing this work in only four weeks», Latorre continued. «Picasso thought of the universal, not the local», and what Guernica reflects «is atrocious, but always gives a breath of hope» because «it carries implicit catharsis and does not invite retaliation”, he added.
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The Cervantes, the Fundación Consejo España-EEUU and the URJC celebrate a course on the work of Picasso
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For his part, the director of the Cervantes Institute, Juan Manuel Bonet, stressed that the return of the work was one of the things that were done «well» during the Transition. «The arrival of Guernica in Spain is one of the most iconic photos of the Transition”, he said.
During the course the role of Picasso’s mural as a «bridge» between the two shores of the Atlantic was highlighted. «Like Guernica, the foundation wants to be a bridge not only between Spain and the United States, but also a tool that fosters mutual knowledge through art”, the secretary general of the Fundación Consejo España-EEUU, Manuel María Lejarreta, declared during the closing ceremony.
The day ended with a guided tour of the Reina Sofía Museum, with explanations about Guernica and the Spanish pavilion that housed the mural at the 1937 Paris Expo.
