Actividad realizada con la ayuda del Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte

CARMEN LAFFÓN

Presencia (Presence)

All kinds of things, almost everything, has been written about Carmen Laffón. With a long and extensive career, her presence in the Spanish art scene has been constant since she began her career in the late 1950s.
Since 1981, the year in which we started working with Carmen, we have held three solo exhibitions of this great artist’s work in our gallery. Her creations have also been present in many group and thematic exhibitions. Now, one year after her passing away, we present a new exhibition with a very special character: each work exhibited here has a great value, but not necessarily a material one, but one that emerges from their place in the artist’s vital and artistic journey.
It is not, therefore, a thematic exhibition as such, but rather a succession of memories of the years we spent with her, of our friendship, admiration, and complicity.
The trips we made together —whether to mount exhibitions of her works in other spaces or to enjoy the exhibitions of other artists who were mutual friends—, the visits to her studios in Seville and La Jara, in Sanlúcar de Barrameda —always followed by long talks, both in her garden and in her vineyard—, her doubts and her certainties, speak to us of her disposition and generosity.
With the presence of these works here, we want state our devotion to a universal artist who took on the challenge of always moving forward and committed to it throughout her entire life and career. Until she left us.
Thank you, Carmen.

Rafael Ortiz & Rosalía Benítez
Seville, November 2022

CARMEN LAFFÓN. Seville (Spain), 1934 – Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz, Spain), 2021.

The work of this artist from Seville, but closely linked to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, approaches in its essence and fullness the landscapes that are closest to her and faces them with an indisputable originality. Discoverer of beauty in the most unsuspected and with a personal and unmistakable discourse, Carmen Laffón is capable of moving us through color and the suggestions of matter. Color transcends form and speaks only of the substance of things.

In the work of this artist, silence reaches such prominence with the motif, which derives from the fact that she paints “interior and exterior emotions, not declared, but suggested”. In this sense, her works are the recreation of a space that has been previously inhabited, crossed or manipulated by someone (who places the objects and fruits of her still lifes, who looks out the window, or who leaves a letter in a closet after reading it) and who has impregnated it emotionally with his presence. She received the Spanish National Prize of Plastic Arts in 1982, the Medal of Merit in Fine Arts in 1999 and in 2000 she entered the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando.

Her works are part of the most important institutional collections, such as MNCARS (Madrid), British Museum, Gabinete de Dibujos (London), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Museo de Arte Abstracto de Cuenca…

The exhibition will be open until February 11, 2023.

Hours: Mon-Fri: 10.00 – 13.30 / 18.00 – 21.00 h.

S: 10.00 – 13.30 h.

Actividad realizada con la ayuda del Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte