The cultural work of the Universidad Europea del Atlántico (European University of the Atlantic, UNEATLANTICO) and FUNIBER celebrated on 12 February at the Cervantes Institute in Lisbon and the Autonomous University of Lisbon (UAL) the opening of the exhibition “The three bullfights: art and tragedy” which collects the works of three renowned artists: Francisco de Goya, Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso.
This exhibition is also carried out with the support of the Autonomous University of Lisbon (UAL), the Grupo Autónoma and the Instituto Cervantes. Open until 2 May, from Monday to Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and on Fridays from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
The event began with a welcome from representatives of the organizing institutions: Dr. Richard Bueno, director of the Instituto Cervantes de Lisboa; Professor Fernando Martins, administrator of CEU-UAL; and Nancy Ferreira Gomes, executive director of FUNIBER in Portugal. Next, a round table discussion took place with the participation of professors Raquel Henriques da Silva, from the Institute of Art History of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and Miguel Figueira de Faria, from the Department of History, Arts and Humanities of the UAL. The moderators were professors Raquel Cabeça, of Autonomous Culture, and João Francisco Fialho, of the History, Arts and Humanities department of the UAL.
Under the title “Las tres tauromaquias: arte y tragedia”, the exhibition brings together three collections of the most important Spanish painters, Francisco de Goya, Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso, integrated into the Cultural Work of the Fundación Universitaria Iberoamericana (FUNIBER) and the European Atlantic University (UNEATLANTICO), of Santander. This is the second cycle of the exhibition project Art beyond the Palace towards Cervantes: an exhibition, two places.
The exhibition includes forty engravings by Goya, five lithographs by Dalí and twenty-eight engravings by Picasso. Goya’s work is structured in three parts: a story or chronicle of bullfighting in Spain since antiquity, the translation of the chores with the main bullfighters of the moment and tragic episodes of the fight. For the director of the Cultural Work of FUNIBER and UNEATLANTICO, Federico Fernández Diez, Goya’s engravings reflect the raw and dramatic reality of bullfighting, but also describe and represent it graphically, masterfully, the various arts and the more festive aspect of bullfighting. Dalí’s bullfighting also shows extreme, provocative and impactful violence. Picasso, for his part, blurs the contours of tragedy and bets on the rhythm, grace and dance of the corrida. For Fernández Diez, “the exhibition is not an exaltation of the bullfighting festival, but aims to show art and tragedy from the perspective of three Spanish painters, Goya, Dalí and Picasso”, that is, in a comprehensive way and without anachronisms.