Christine Spengler, famous for her war reporting, is presenting her oneiric photomontages of virgins and bullfighters at Anne Clergue Galerie from April 15 through June 24, 2017.
As a child, I escaped from the Lycée Français of Madrid to roam around the Las Ventas Bullring, without knowing that these arenas of my youth would later lead me to bloody, Sabra and Chatila. More than the corrida itself, I was fascinated by the entrails of the plaza. I loved the sculpture dedicated to the deceased bullfighters, the cushion and cigar vendors, bustling around the “Sol y Sombra” kiosk, the posters of women with naked backs, hair done up, smiling at passers-by.
While gravitating towards the stables, I was welcomed by my friends, the famous picadors Pimpi and Enrique who opened the arena doors. Winter and summer alike, I loved to see them go round and round in circles in the middle of the dust. Their vests sparkled intermittently as they advanced from shadow to light. Their chiseled faces covered by a madroño (a white felt hat decorated with a black rose) unexpectedly reminded me of a painting by a major Spanish painter Solena, exhibited at my uncle Louis and my aunt Marcelle’s house, which was also illuminated around noon when the sun broke through the apartment from the Calle de Velázquez.
My uncle Louis being a great aficionado, I was raised from a very young age in a bullfighting atmosphere. To attend the corrida, he forced my aunt Marcelle, who was from Alsace, to don each Sunday for forty-three years (their entire marriage) a Manila shawl and a black fan that made her look like a Menina. Not knowing how to speak Spanish, when I came to Madrid at the age of seven following the divorce of my parents, I began to speak to the portraits of bullfighters, haughty and pompous, magnificent in their luminous costumes that hung in my new home. To tell the truth, they interested me much more than my little school friends, and I ceaselessly asked my uncle if they really existed and when I could see them. Next to our place, in the Salamanca quarter, was the Church of La Concepción where I took refuge to pray in the shadows of statues of virgins and Christ, sumptuously covered with jewels and flowers. When Easter came, I loved to run in the streets, disappearing into the crowd at the Puerta del Sol in the middle of penitents dragging heavy chains at their feet and women in black, mother-of-pearl rosaries and prayer books in hand, decked out in Goya-esque mantillas. Apart from the virgins adorned with brocades and gold who would cry for the world’s grief, what I loved the most was the Jesus of Medinaceli, rocked around by masked men,he was dressed in a purple tunic, forehead bleeding under his crown of thorns, and crossed the city thru the cheering crowd.I put these images away, one by one, in my memory.Not knowing how, I knew that one day I would pay tribute to the virgins and bullfighters of my childhood.
Christine Spengler
Christine Spengler, Ex-votos
Anne Clergue Galerie
From April 15 through June 24, 2017
12 Plan de la Cour, 13200 Arles, France
www.anneclergue.fr
Conference-Slideshow with Christine Spengler Ombre et lumière (Shadow and light) April 14th at 6 PM at the ENSP Auditorium, Arles.
Projection of Eric Bergère’s film L’Art et la manière Sunday, April 16th at the Fondation Rivera Ortiz.
