03.07.2024
Mari Chordà
... and many other things
Image, language and social action are the foundations of the work of Mari Chordà and an integral part of her life: the artist, the writer and poet, and the activist form an unbreakable bond and a basis for an attitude and convictions that make up the backbone of her work and biography. As well as being an active, attentive observer of the reality around her, she takes part in it, shaking up and subverting everything she sees, guided by a political stance that emerged as a response to the Francoist dictatorship and endured in the form of feminist struggles for the visibility and recognition of women’s work.
The aesthetic references in Mari Chordà’s work are completely alien both to the academicist, anachronistic environment of the School of Fine Arts where she studied and to the art scene at the time when she started to form her own language. Her imaginary is close to the visual sensitivity of pop art and psychedelia, but she has never considered herself a pop artist. A pioneer in her generation in terms of discussing sexual freedom, she talks about pleasure, motherhood and lesbian relationships in her paintings and poetry.
Mari Chordà investigates women’s bodies through her own, but instead of portraying her face – as we expect from conventional self-portraits – she explores and depicts herself by painting her genitals. Self-referentiality, the exploration of one’s own intimacy and the changes that take place during pregnancy are just some of the themes examined. There is no obscenity or shame of any kind when it comes to showing or talking about sex, to enjoying the body and painting it or writing poems about it. While the State, the Church, the establishment or a misunderstood morality encouraged the repression of sex and pleasure, the exacerbated sexuality in Chordà’s work represents self-affirmation and legitimises freedom and joy.
The aesthetic references in Mari Chordà’s work are completely alien both to the academicist, anachronistic environment of the School of Fine Arts where she studied and to the art scene at the time when she started to form her own language. Her imaginary is close to the visual sensitivity of pop art and psychedelia, but she has never considered herself a pop artist. A pioneer in her generation in terms of discussing sexual freedom, she talks about pleasure, motherhood and lesbian relationships in her paintings and poetry.
Mari Chordà investigates women’s bodies through her own, but instead of portraying her face – as we expect from conventional self-portraits – she explores and depicts herself by painting her genitals. Self-referentiality, the exploration of one’s own intimacy and the changes that take place during pregnancy are just some of the themes examined. There is no obscenity or shame of any kind when it comes to showing or talking about sex, to enjoying the body and painting it or writing poems about it. While the State, the Church, the establishment or a misunderstood morality encouraged the repression of sex and pleasure, the exacerbated sexuality in Chordà’s work represents self-affirmation and legitimises freedom and joy.
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Press release: “Mari Chordà… and many other things”
Press release: “Mari Chordà… and many other things”
MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona is holding a press conference on Wednesday July 3, at 11:30 am, tp announce the “Mari Chordà… and many other things” exhibition. Speakers: Mari Chordà, artist; Teresa Grandas, curator; and Elvira Dyangani Ose, director of MACBA.
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