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.
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According to Max Aub, by the time Remedios Varo died she had become one of the most surprising painters of her time, whose work was distinguished by a timeless quality. In Aub’s opinion, Varo’s painting expressed a struggle between good and evil, and was diametrically different from the kind of art that was considered fun. Varo’s early training was essentially grounded in Surrealism. Nevertheless in Mexico, and according to Aub, her production was only marginally influenced by Surrealism. In fact, he believed that Varo’s work from her Mexican period actually expressed a marked reaction against it.
Remedios Varo (1908-1963) came to Mexico in 1941 with her partner, the French Surrealist artist Benjamin Péret, to get away from the totalitarian regimes in Europe. A year earlier, she had taken part in the Exposición Internacional de Surrealismo at the Galería de Arte Mexicano (GAM). Some of her Surrealist colleagues made her feel welcome in Mexico and encouraged her gradual introduction into Mexican cultural circles. The poet, playwright, and novelist Max Aub (1903-1972), who was also, like Varo, an exile, imagines a before and after in her painting, and sees her Mexican period as the dividing line. Like Carrington, however, Varo always kept a distance between her work and Mexican culture, and always behaved like a foreigner.