The Gernika Peace Museum hosts until September 13 the exhibition MemoriArtean. The art of memory, by Verónica Domingo Alonso. The exhibition tours and documents air-raid shelters in Bilbao, Getxo, and Gernika during the Civil War, combining sculptures, engravings, methacrylates, oils, and videos to explore these spaces as places of protection and remembrance.
Mixed techniques and contemporary media to document history 🎨
The exhibition uses a variety of techniques and materials. Sculptures with tarpaulins and sacks directly evoke the bombing of Gernika. Ink engravings and methacrylates with manipulated historical photographs offer rigorous testimony. In contrast, the large oils and video projections prioritize emotional experience, using color and spontaneity to convey drama. This duality between document and emotion structures the entire exhibition.
War shelters: when going down to the basement was a cultural plan 🏚️
Verónica Domingo Alonso has done what many of us avoid: visiting air-raid shelters of her own free will. While our grandparents went down to them out of obligation and with fear, the artist enters with an easel and brushes, turning holes in the ground into art galleries. At least now, those spaces serve for something more than reminding us that we shouldn't repeat history. That, or that any place is good for an exhibition.