CultureZohn

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Melding Fantasy into the Everyday

I love this image from the series La Divina, 1968, by Cecila Porras and Enrique Grau, discoveries for me in the Met's comprehensive Surrealism Without Borders.

This pair grazed in film and experimental photography only to eventually retreat separately back into painting and sculpture. But while they were together, they put a Columbian version of Surrealism on the map.

Porras was an outlier--a female among the very macho scene in Cartagena in the 50s. She too began in self-portraiture like Maya Deren and Claude Cahun. She was daring, wearing wigs and dressing up, melding "fantasy with the everyday". The film stills on view are like Godard's Le Mepris, sophisticated, but alienated, as women in white climb a set of ancient stairs.

Porras as La Divina reminds me of Ana Mendieta, scooped up in dirt and leaves and driftwood on the beach, grounded but soaring. Porras doesn’t even have a hashtag so to see the mansplaining spread of surrealism turned on its head is welcome.