ROSARIO, ARGENTINA.- The Museo Histórico Provincial Doctor Julio Marc presents A tour of Spanish Avant-garde. A snapshot of Ramón Gómez de la Serna, through February 20, 2005. Ramón Gómez de la Serna (Madrid, 1888-Buenos Aires, 1963), a novelist, inventor of the greguería, a circus critic (this being the profession that appeared on his business cards) and an unclassifiable writer, was the central figure of Spanish avant-garde.

He was also the writer who showed most interest in the visual arts and was one of the first to try to encourage Spanish cultural circles to accept the modern proposals being made at the time in Europe. He translated Marinetti in his magazine, Prometeo, and, at a very difficult time when lack of information was the norm, he stressed the need in his writings and in his life for cultural and lifestyle formulae in line with those of the incipient 20th century.

Between 1909 and 1910 he lived in Paris, where he became familiar with Cubism – which was to exert a decisive influence on him – and other ‘isms’. Five years later, in 1915, he organised the Exhibition of Integral Painters, the first Cubist exhibition to be held in Madrid. One of the participants, Diego Rivera, painted his portrait. That year he also founded the famous cultural gathering which met regularly in the Café del Pombo and was immortalised by José Gutiérrez Solana in 1920 in his famous oil painting, today on display in the Reina Sofía National Art Gallery. Many of the protagonists of the Spanish and international cultural renovation participated in this gathering. His contacts with important literary figures of the time enabled him to write in prestigious journals such as Littérature, Broom and Bifur, and some of his books such as Senos (1924) and El Circo were translated. The French edition of the former was illustrated by Pierre Bonnard, and that of the latter was warmly praised in a review by Walter Benjamin. The Dadaist Yvan Goll included him in Les cinq continents (1922), and Guillermo de Torre dedicated one of the poems in Hélices to him, as did Gerardo Diego in his Manual de espumas.

In 1931, he published Ismos, an essential book for understanding modern art in Spain, in which he summarised in masterly fashion his own personal explanation of the modernist movements.

After he became an exile in Buenos Aires, he acted as a bridge between Spain and Latin America, exerting an enormous influence in countries such as Argentina, Uruguay and Chile.

The exhibition aims to illustrate the many facets of Ramón Gómez de la Serna creating what his Argentinian friend, Oliverio Girondo, described as “a snapshot of his brain”, showing his passion for literature and for such varied, though sometimes converging, interests as Gutiérrez Solana, Barradas and Picasso; also, his fascination with circus, and the unusual surroundings in which he worked in Madrid and Buenos Aires with objects, photographs and drawings forming a great collage that invaded the furniture and walls and complemented, together with his distinctive drawings, the emphatic tone of his writing.

A tour of Spanish Avant-garde. A snapshot of Ramón Gómez de la Serna aims to reflect the writer’s vibrant, interesting universe which, on both the literary and personal planes, had close ties with Argentinian culture. The curators, Juan Manuel Bonet and Carlos Pérez, have tried to give the exhibition a Pombian feel, focusing in their selection on the man himself, with books, photographs and both his own drawings and the works of artists from within his circles. Also on display are some objects from his Buenos Aires office, as well as a selection of circus posters similar to those he possessed.

Under the auspices of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, the Instituto Cervantes, the Real Academia Española de la Lengua and the Argentinian Federal and Provincial authorities, the exhibition features works by Gómez de la Serna himself as both writer and artist, Rafael Barradas, José Gutiérrez Solana, Maruja Mallo, María Blanchard and Alfonso Sánchez Portela, as well as a selection of items from the office of Gómez de la Serna in Buenos Aires. The works on display come from Spanish museums and from private collections.