Madrid, Velázquez Palace: Vivian Sutter Exhibition

There is no doubt that part of the emotions that also enliven the knowledge of travelers is to participate and in some way, experience the cultural activities of those cities they visit.

From this point of view, today I want to invite you to participate in one of the many cultural attractions that take place in my city, Madrid: the exhibition of the artist Vivian Sutter.

For this, it is necessary that they accompany me to one of the most visited places in the city, as is the popular Retiro Park, within whose facilities, in the Palacio de Velázquez, this event takes place.

Before starting the visit, where I hope that the photographs and video provide you with sensations that do not necessarily have to coincide with my observations, I will give you some background information on the artist.

Of Swiss origin, curiously enough, Vivian Sutter was born in 'that beloved Buenos Aires', as the famous song says, in a year, 1949, in which Europe had just begun to recover from the terrible disasters unleashed by a universal tragedy, as it was, no doubt, the Second World War.

However, in her youth, she actively participated in the artistic and cultural life of Basel, until in 1982, who knows if influenced by that inner call, which pushes us to fulfill ourselves, making us look for a hole where the heart calls us, she decided to settle in the middle of the Guatemalan jungle, very close to the shores of the legendary Lake Atitlán and therefore, in full contact with Nature, whose spirit, there is no doubt, is sensed in each and every one of the strokes of his works.

Works, on the other hand, that offer a special particularity, since most of them suffered the devastating effects, in other areas, of several tropical storms, such as those called 'Stan' and 'Agatha', which flooded and muddied the canvases, leaving in them organic remains, which, far from being dismissed by the artist, contribute to give it an even more charismatic character and it could be said that it is also innovative.

Many times, I think that artistic attraction is very closely linked to that dreamlike universe to which we all give ourselves and where, as Tertullian affirmed, 'many men owe their knowledge of God to dreams', except that in this case, we could go a little further, to say, not without a certain modesty, that possibly the Swiss artist also owes to dreams, her knowledge of Nature and the way in which it has been transforming her interior.

Because just like Literature, by the hand of real dreamers, like Howard Phillips Lovecraft, he introduced us to the incomprehensible but ultimately wonderful dreamlike adventures of Randolph Carter, Sutter, through his work, introduces us to another universe, no less fantastic, where even the simple, like a puddle or a drop of water, has overtones of greatness and the ability to influence a feeling of surprise in the viewer.

The inclusion, in addition, of some animal head, which can be that of a wolf or that of a fox, also has the dimensions of recalling those examples of those geniuses, no less dreamers, such as Hieronimus Bosch, popularly known as Bosco, in some of whose best-known works - such as 'The Temptations of Saint Anthony' - he makes this animal bearer of a phylactery, which already warns us that 'everything is a hoax'.

This 'everything is a deception', is a warning, in accordance, moreover, with the eastern axiom that we live in the World of Maya, in the World of Illusion and therefore, nothing is what it seems or at least, nothing is what it seems to the naked eye and everything requires special attention.

Which comes to be, summarizing and in my opinion, the message that Vivian Sutter's work transmits, in which each viewer, as I said at the beginning of this post, has to let themselves be carried away by their own impressions, sharing or not, those that here, by way of presentation, I have just passed on to you.

Open for free until May 2, 2022.

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