NEW YORK, NY.- The Hispanic Society Museum & Library—the primary institution dedicated to the preservation, study, understanding, exhibition and enjoyment of the art and culture of the Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking world—is presenting The Word-Shimmering Sea: Diego Velázquez / Enrique Martínez Celaya, an exhibition of works by contemporary Cuban-born artist Enrique Martínez Celaya, in dialogue with Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of a Little Girl (ca. 1638–42). The exhibit is curated by Martínez Celaya and Hispanic Society Director and CEO Guillaume Kientz and opened in the museum’s Main Court from April 18 - July 7, 2024. The exhibition is the first of a new, recurring series at the Hispanic Society titled “A Collection in Question”, which engages in meaningful dialogues with one or more artists whose works resonates with the Hispanic Society’s collection and mission.
Enrique Martínez Celaya is an artist, author and former physicist whose work has been exhibited and collected by major international institutions. An experienced painter, having practiced formal artistic training since the age of 12, Martínez Celaya currently has work held in 58 public collections internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He has also written nine books and lectured at venues around the world.
“The impetus for this immersive installation was the interaction between Velázquez's "Portrait of a Little Girl," my first-grade notebook wrapped with an image of that painting, and a charged historical period in Cuba and Spain,” says Enrique Martínez Celaya. “The installation creates a dialogue, both physical and conceptual, between the conditions and imagination of childhood, exile, the promised land, time, the refuge offered by language, the unreliability of memory, and the nature of painting. The opportunity to explore this territory, to collaborate with my younger self as well as with the children in the Cuban town of my childhood, to incorporate into my project a painting of one of the artists I most admire, and to be able to install it at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in New York makes this exhibition a dream come true.”
In 1971, thirteen years after the Revolution in Cuba, Martínez Celaya received an important gift from his mother: a notebook with a cover featuring Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of a Little Girl. He was six years old – the same age as the girl in Velázquez's painting. Their closeness in age and her constant company led him to form an intimate connection with her, long before he realized that her portrait was painted by one of the most important artists of all time. Years later, while living in Madrid, Martínez Celaya discovered Velázquez through the Museo Nacional del Prado’s collection. The Spanish artist strongly influenced Martínez Celaya’s artistic journey.
The Word-Shimmering Sea is an immersion into Martínez Celaya’s childhood notebook. The setting facilitates a dialogue about the conditions and imaginations of childhood, exile, the promised land, the flow of time, the refuge offered by language and the nature of painting. Contemporary with the notebook are handwritten letters from Martínez Celaya to his father, who was living in Spain at the time, before Enrique and the rest of his family in Cuba joined him. The overlapping paintings symbolize a point of departure from the writing; the sea between the artist and his father serve as a vast barrier as well as the only path forward, and toward each other.
The exhibition features enlarged renditions of Martínez Celaya’s childhood letters on canvas drop cloths layered with the history of work and paint, which is superimposed with painted fragments of the sea. Exhibited works include these seven large-scale paintings of childhood letters partially concealed by the sea, four small paintings based on Velázquez’s Little Girl, a wooden sculpture of a boy holding Martínez Celaya’s first grade notebook, projections of elements from the notebook onto the ceiling and strings of paper boats made by schoolchildren in his childhood town of Nueva Paz, Cuba. To complete the installation, illuminated words and drawings taken from the notebook are projected onto the ceiling, creating a celestial vault and suggesting that the installation is both a product of childhood imagination as well as a liturgical environment.
"As we unveil this exhibition, we recognize its resonance with contemporary struggles. Enrique's narrative emerges as a poignant reflection, mirroring the tumultuous experiences of countless families and children living in a world beset by political upheavals,” says Guillaume Kientz, CEO and Director of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library. “By focusing on the journey of a young boy and his imaginary friend, we not only present a captivating and relatable narrative, but also position younger audiences at the core of the exhibition, encouraging them to perceive museums as spaces uniquely their own, inviting exploration and experience.”
