By Pamela Aguirre Leonetti
Xul Solar is one of those one-of-a-kind artists: a different human being with a revolutionary world view; a restless man who did not resign himself and was always looking for something more in order to understand the world and to improve communication between men.
That’s why we didn’t want to miss the chance of visiting the retrospective that de National Museum of Fine Arts opened to celebrate the 130th anniversary of his birth; a tour through 180 artworks curated by Cecilia Rabossi that shows Xul Solar in all his sides; exploring the multiple aspects of his self: painter, artist, sculptor, musician, inventor, astrologist, writer; and analyzing his mystical, creative an utopian nature.
The opening door to Solar’s world couldn’t be other and couldn’t be better: a huge poster of his astrological chart that drafts his inner self, his energy and his potential. The symbolism and the concepts of written there –re-creator, transformer, Visionary, neo Creole, piano, astrologist, musician, architectures, graphical symbol– help to understand the genius in all his dimension, though the task can never be fully completed.
At one of the sides, the spectator finds himself in front of one of the most mythical artworks of Xul, the pan-chess, a pan-game whose creation took Xul five years and in which board gamers can create words in Xul’s pan—language, combine colors, create chords, solve math problems, and lay with their destiny by just moving the pieces according to their horoscope.
Pan-chess is also the dictionary of Xul’s pan-language, a language that, as defined by him, is: “a universal language based on numbers and astrology that will help people to get to know better”.
And these are just some of the great works of art of the retrospective. The exhibition continues with watercolors, illustrations, temperas, letters, photographs, masks, and objects such as the “death puppet” of his theatre for adults, which go deeper into his thoughts and inquiries that go always beyond tangible things.
His friend Jorge Luis Borges once wrote in an essay: “Xul Solar is one of the most unique occurrences of our time (…)… Xul knew that reality can be constantly modified and he believed that his mission was precisely that daily revolution”.
That revolutionary and transforming spirit is clear in “Xul Solar Panactivista”, an exhibition that must be seen by all who admire exceptional geniuses, that kind of geniuses that are always spreading and changing knowledge, those geniuses that see beyond and deeper.
Time
From Tuesday to Friday from 11 to 20; Saturday and Sunday from 10 to 20
Guided Tours
From Tuesday to Sunday at 16; Friday and Sunday at 18
Until?
June 18th, 2017
Where? National Museum of Fine Arts. Av del Libertador 1473