Iluminaciones

A cardinal title of modernity, Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud names itself as a nod to medieval illuminated manuscripts: pages where text was accompanied—and at times overwhelmed—by miniatures and borders of light.

In the medieval tradition, illumination added an epigraphic radiance to meaning: image and gold made the sacredness of the word visible. In this book of poems, Rimbaud reverses the trajectory: his poetic prose illuminates experience and produces visions that verge on the pictorial.

The technical premise of the project is simple: to work with identical canvas formats for each artist and invite them, individually, to respond to a poem included in Illuminations.

From this point on, the exhibition is in fact an invitation to take part in that double movement: from text to image, using the canvas as a uniform field in which metaphors can breathe, condense, or contradict one another.

And from image to text: inhabiting the painting as a place where the poem becomes matter and light—not a servile illustration, but a critical counterpoint.

Thus, in this back-and-forth, the question is not “What does the poem represent?” Rather, the doubt arises as to what light the text casts upon the painting… and what the painting—this painting, and painting as a whole—illuminates within poetry.

— Bartolomé Delmar

Artists: Alicia Ayanegui, Andrea Villalón, Blasto, Christian Camacho, Diego Zelaya, Gabriel Pérez, Julián Madero, Lucía Vidales, Mariana Paniagua, Michelle Sitton, Rafael Uriegas, Victoria Núñez Estrada.