Through projection, installation, and documentary interviews, Ms. Glesta will create an aural and visual passage, marking the 70th anniversary of the bombing of the Basque town in Spain, Gernika. In the juxtaposition of Picasso's iconic Guernica with the footage of actual accounts of the bombing of that day, Anita Glesta's work challenges the viewer to question fiction versus reality.

Ms. Glesta's work, while functioning as public art appears to be testing issues related to today's art making. With Gernika/Guernica: Desde El Cielo Hasta El Fondo, the artist shares her personal and artistic quest as to what is the meaning of political and other art making and how artists from around the world can today create images when faced with ongoing destruction and devastation images on a daily basis.

On April 26,1937, the world experienced the first airdrop bombing, which many consider to be the harbinger of World War II. Gernika, in the Basque country of Northern Spain, was hit hardest during the Civil War when Franco gave orders for the Germans to airdrop bombs on the village. Not unlike the air strike of the World Trade Center, life in the world was changed. The enormous scale of the tragedy of this event inspired Picasso to create a work that pays tribute to the catastrophe, and which we now regard as one of the most important works of 20th century political art, Guernica.

Gernika/Guernica: Desde El Cielo Hasta El Fondo focuses on the town of Gernika as a poignant and relevant place to consider in this critical time in our own history. At White Box Anita Glesta projects in a large-scale video the interviews that she conducted with the survivors of the Basque village. Creating a dialogue between the Basque spelling of the town and the more famous anti-war representation, Glesta combines the poignant ordinariness of individual memory with the searing abstraction of Picasso's indictment. With Gernika/Guernica: Desde El Cielo Hasta El Fondo Ms. Glesta has embarked in a 5-year effort to find answers questions about identity and the rebuilding of the "emotional self".

Public Art Installation of Gernika/Guernica continues this June at Chase Manhattan Plaza, presented by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

VIDEOS





TRANSCRIPTS
ingles and espanol


PRESS RELEASES
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council

White Box