The editorial categories are research topics that have guided researchers during the recovery phase and continue to be the impetus behind the Documents Project’s digital archive and the Critical Documents book series. Developed by the project’s Editorial Board, each of the teams analyzed this framework and adapted it to their local contexts in developing their research objectives and work plans during the Recovery Phase. Learn more on the Editorial Framework page.
Hide
In the writer’s view, Leonora Carrington’s work expresses different parts of a whole that complement each other perfectly: life and death, wakefulness and sleep, reality and imagination. These all express an alternate side of reality; which is why García Ponce calls her a “realist painter” who, dissatisfied with appearances, seeks to proffer images that clarify her meaning. One should not look for a symbolic language because the painter provides concrete visions of reality, in which life regains its cosmic sense. The article describes Carrington’s work as a collection of local customs to which she adds seemingly trivial elements, all filtered through a mixture of amazement and surprise at seeing the truth exposed by inner contemplation.
As an art critic, Juan García Ponce (1932-2003) promoted the careers of many young artists (including his own brother Fernando) who were looking for new spaces where they could show their work and searching for the media that would promote it. García Ponce, who was deeply involved with the Ruptura generation, devoted several essays to discussing Leonora Carrington’s production. Carrington, in turn, was deeply involved in many of the writer’s literary projects, not just as an illustrator but also by contributing her poems and stories. Carrington’s work was accepted by critics of many stripes, which suggests a certain distance between the painter and the internal turmoil in Mexican art circles.