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Abstract
This essay takes José Ortega y Gasset’s famous comment ‘yo soy yo y mi circunstancia’ and Kaja Silverman’s view that perception is always ‘propped’ on things we have seen before and retraces the ‘circunstancias’ of the development of visual studies within British Hispanism, then considers the making of the ‘parque escultórico’ in the Canary Island of Fuerteventura. Linking the development of the this sculpture park to Unamuno’s exile on the island, when he took to walking around the capital, then known as Puerto de Cabras, this essay takes a contemporary viaje al azar around the public art that is now located in the present-day capital, now known as Puerto del Rosario. It argues that the creation of the ‘parque escultórico’ is an attractive contemporary visual case study: as an example of how far the discipline has developed since the time when writers like Unamuno and Ortega y Gasset were the mainstay of the Hispanic Studies literary curriculum; as an example of what can be achieved when the ‘circunstancias’ of local government, artist and viewer are embraced from the start; and as a model for sustainable cultural development in times of economic recession.
Notes
* I should like to thank Julia Biggane, Julián Daniel Gutiérrez-Albilla, Deborah Martin, Núria Triana-Toribio and Rob Stone for comments on an earlier draft of this paper; thanks are also due to University College London for funding a research trip to Fuerteventura in Autumn 2013, and Polly Briggs for the original invitation to El Cotillo.
1 Kaja Silverman, ‘Girl Love’, October, 104 (Spring 2003), 4–27 (p. 25).
2 José Ortega y Gasset, Obras completas, 10 vols (Madrid: Taurus/Fundación José Ortega y Gasset, 2004–2008), I (2004), 757.
3 Giuliana Bruno, Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film (London/New York: Verso, 2002); Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking (London/New York: Verso, 2002 [1st ed. 2001]); Kathleen Jamie, Findings (London: Sort Of Books, 2005).
4 Unamuno's passion for the island can be seen in the letter to don Ramón Castañeyra that forms the preface to the collection of poems he wrote there. The equally passionate views that got him sent there are also explicit. See, for example, his note to sonnet XXX conceding he may have exaggerated when he said that the ‘Ganso Real’ (his nickname for Primo de Rivera) ‘tenía menos seso que un grillo’, as he now thinks the dictator ‘no pasa de ser un tonto medio, un tonto sin mezcla de otra cosa’ (‘De Fuerteventura a Paris’ [1925], in Miguel de Unamuno, Poesía completa, pról. Ana Suárez Miramón, 4 vols [Madrid: Alianza, 1987], II, 259–355 [p. 289]). The frequent and scurrilous references to the dictator suggest, as Julia Biggane has noted elsewhere, that Unamuno may not have expected the work he wrote at this stage to be publishable (see ‘Yet Another Other: Unamuno's El otro and the Anxiety for Influence’, BHS [Glasgow], LXXVII:5 [2000], 479–91 [p. 488]). I am grateful to Julián Daniel Gutiérrez-Albilla for pointing out the implications of the term flâneur for questions of economic status, gender and ethnicity. Rebecca Solnit provides a detailed account of the origins of the term in Wanderlust, 198–201, where she draws attention to the fact that the erotic attraction of Paris was associated, for the surrealists and others, with the literal attraction of female ‘streetwalkers’, and Merlin Coverley reminds us that the walks of the most famous of the surrealists (Breton, Soupault, Aragon), although ostensibly propelled by the unconscious, ‘revolve unerringly around the pursuit of beautiful women’ (Merlin Coverley, Psychogeography [Harpenden: Pocket Essentials, 2010], 21).
5 See Antonio Candau's excellent discussion of Unamuno and walking in ‘The City of Niebla: From Urban Setting to Urban Itinerary in Unamuno's “Nivola” ’, BSS, XCI:4 (2014), 525–48.
6 All images reproduced in this article are photographs taken by Jo Evans.
7 This was when Professor Bryson was at Cambridge, but for more information on his many subsequent teaching positions, see <http://visarts.ucsd.edu/faculty/norman-bryson> (accessed 26 November 2014).
8 For an explanation of anamorphosis and the gaze, see Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Penguin, 1979) (first published as Le Séminaire de Jacques Lacan, Livre XI, ‘Les Quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse’ [Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1973]), 79–90.
9 Clifford T. Manlove provides a succinct introduction to ‘gaze studies’ in ‘Visual “Drive” and Cinematic Narrative: Reading Gaze Theory in Lacan, Hitchcock, and Mulvey’, Cinema Journal, 46:3 (2007), 83–108. For more extensive discussion of the Lacanian ‘gaze’, see Todd McGowan, The Real Gaze: Film Theory after Lacan (Albany: State Univ. of New York, 2007).
10 Edward C. Riley, ‘The Story of Ana in El espíritu de la colmena’, BHS, LXI:4 (1984), 491–97.
11 Peter Besas, Behind the Spanish Lens: Spanish Cinema under Fascism and Democracy (Denver: Arden Press, 1985). For a more detailed overview of the development of British Hispanism, see Núria Triana-Toribio, ‘Miradas distintas: el estudio del cine español en Gran Bretaña’, Secuencias: Revista de Historia de Cine, 28 (2008), 46–60.
12 Marsha Kinder, Blood Cinema: The Reconstruction of National Identity in Spain (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1993); Núria Triana-Toribio, Spanish National Cinema (London/New York: Routledge, 2003); Rob Stone, Spanish Cinema (Harlow: Longman, 2002); A Companion to Spanish Cinema, ed. Jo Labanyi & Tatiana Pavlović (Malden/Oxford/Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013); Marvin D’Lugo, The Films of Carlos Saura: The Practice of Seeing (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1991) and Pedro Almodóvar (Urbana/Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2006); Julián Daniel Gutiérrez-Albilla Queering Buñuel: Sexual Dissidence and Psychoanalysis in His Mexican and Spanish Cinema (London/New York: I. B. Tauris, 2008); Peter W. Evans, The Films of Luis Buñuel: Subjectivity and Desire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Paul Julian Smith, Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar (London/New York: Verso, 1994); Sally Faulkner, Literary Adaptations in Spanish Cinema (London: Tamesis, 2004); Isabel Santaolalla, Los ‘Otros’: etnicidad y ‘raza’ en el cine español contemporáneo (Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza/Madrid: Ocho y Medio, 2005); Sarah Wright, The Child in Spanish Cinema (Manchester: Manchester U. P., 2013); Anny Brooksbank-Jones, Visual Culture in Spain and Mexico (Manchester: Manchester U. P., 2007).
13 See Bruno, Atlas of Emotion; Solnit, Wanderlust. A History of Walking; Jamie, Findings. I should also like to thank Deborah Martin for comments on the ‘haptic’ and on Laura Marks, who re-defines the interrelationship between haptic perception (the body's internal and external response to touch) and optical perception as ‘haptic visuality’, in Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media (Minneapolis: Univ of Minnesota Press, 2002), 2–3.
14 For more on the time Unamuno spent looking out for this boat, see sonnet XXI and related notes in his Poesía completa, pról. Suárez Miramón, II, 282–83.
15 Juan Cruz Ruiz makes this claim in his personal memoir/cultural history of the islands, Viaje a las islas Canarias (Madrid: El País/Aguilar, 2013), 59. It is based on Unamuno's notes to the opening lines of sonnet XV in his Poesía completa, pról. Suárez Miramón, II, 278, and anyone who has struggled with Galdós may also like to note that Unamuno also claims it was this particular reading position that finally made him appreciate the famous Canary Islander's work (see n. 17, Poesía completa, pról. Suárez Miramón, II, 353–54).
16 See <http://www.historiaviva.org/canarias/canarii_ing.shtml> (accessed 29 August 2014).
17 Florence Du Cane, The Canary Islands (London: A& D Black, 1911), 152.
18 Nagore Fuldaín and others are working on introducing cycle paths and increasing efforts to develop ecological tourism on the island. The ‘Gran Recorrido’ is a network of footpaths crossing the island from the north to the south. For more on the potential benefits of the recession, see Nick Haslam's account of the opening of the ‘Gran Recorrido at <http://www.geographical.co.uk/Magazine/Fuerteventura_-_May_11.html> (accessed 16 June 2014). For more Quality Coast-approved destinations, see <http://www.qualitycoast.info/?page_id=14> (accessed 16 June 2014), and for information on Spanish UNESCO sites, see <http://marcaespana.es/en/educacion-cultura-sociedad/patrimonio/destacados/93/biosphere-reserves> (accessed 30 July 2014).
19 I am grateful to Julián Daniel Gutiérrez-Albilla for pointing out the connection between public art on Lanzarote and Pedro Almodóvar. Almodóvar has described Los abrazos rotos as a homage to Manrique's work on Lanzarote, although he was apparently unaware that he set the car crash in his own film at the same location—the roundabout next to Taro de Tahiche that showcases one of Manrique's famous wind sculptures—where Manrique himself was killed in a car accident in 1992.
20 See S. R. Macklin, P. Varlery, P. Verona & C. Merino, ‘The Investigation and Design for a Unique Architectural Space—the Chillida Cavern, Mount Tindaya, Fuerteventura’, Tunelling and Underground Space Technology, 31 (2012), 9–19.
21 See <http://www.lisbetfernandez.com/en/obras> (accessed 16 June 2014). A short film on the making of ‘Caminos’ is posted at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyQ_DjKgcp4> (accessed 16 June 2014).
22 My thanks to Cristina Alonso and Gonzalo Durán for the food, and to Eva Mendizábal and Merche for assistance with sculptural contacts in the capital. For more information about the jewellery workshop, see <http://artesaniasuryafuerteventura.blogspot.co.uk> (accessed 29 August 2014)
23 For more detail on the protest, see <http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2014/06/07/actualidad/1402152538_616568.html> (accessed 16 June 2014).
24 See <https://www.google.es/search?q=escultura+fuerteventura&client=firefox-a&hs=eRu&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=0ddjUu3wF_PX7Ab214HwCA&ved=0CDUQsAQ&biw=1263&bih=592> (accessed 16 June 2014).
25 See <http://www2.rtvc.es/noticias/los-ni%C3%B1os-de-la-rotonda-86461.aspx> and <http://viajarafuerteventura.blogspot.com.es/2005/09/escultura-pblica.html> (accessed 16 June 2014).
26 Cruz Ruiz mentions the apocryphal eighth Canary island of San Borondón in his discussion of the island mists and their link to what he regards as the native melancholy of the Canary Islanders (Viaje a las islas Canarias, 57).
27 Candau sources Unamuno's definition of the perfect city to his Obras completas, I, 1040, in ‘The City of Niebla’, 527.
28 These dancing figures are on the roundabout of León y Castillo and Avenida de la Constitución. For more on their inauguration, see Juan Luis Calbarro's article in Canarias7, 25 de septiembre de 2001, p. 33.
29 See <http://edgardojunco.blogspot.co.uk/> (accessed 29 August 2014).
30 See <http://centrodeartecanario.com/?artista=edgardo-junco&lang=en> (accessed 29 August 2014).
31 Celestino Celso Hernández, Puerto del Rosario, Fuerteventura: una ciudad de esculturas (Puerto del Rosario: Ayuntamiento de Puerto del Rosario, 2007).
32 Curbelo's wry comment on funding the first symposium was: ‘Estamos trabajando de sol a sol, y eso por dinero no se hace’, Canarias7, 25 de septiembre de 2001, p. 33.
33 For more information on Yoshin see <http://www.yoshinogata.com/> (accessed 29 August 2014).
34 For more information on González Andrés see <http://www.amancio.eu/> (accessed 29 August 2014).
35 For more on Fleissig, see <http://www.nicolaefleissig.com/igalerie/?q=page/1-biographie> (accessed 29 August 2014).
36 See Celso Hernández, Puerto del Rosario, Fuerteventura: una ciudad de esculturas, 15. For more on Patallo's election and his intention to produce ‘zonas verdes coronadas con esculturas’, see La Provincia, 6 de julio de 1999, p. 25.
37 The aim was to introduce ‘no sólo el arte canario, sino también el internacional porque Canarias se caracteriza por ser un archipiélago abierto al mundo’ (La Provincia, 6 de julio de 1999, p. 25). For reference to the combination of old and new ‘señas de identidad’, see Ana F. San Miguel on the inauguration of El aguador in La Provincia, 27 de julio de 2001, p. 30. For information of the success of the event with tourists see the special edition where the same journalist notes that ‘Puerto del Rosario cada día luce mejor cara […] más contemporánea y amable’ (La Provincia, 6 de octubre de 2001, Especial, p. xxii).
38 Patallo explains this pragmatic decision in La Provincia, 5 de octubre de 2002, Especial, p. 19.
39 For this comment and other details on local government support which is referred to as an ‘aula abierta a la curiosidad’, see the special supplement on the symposium in La Provincia 5 de octubre de 2002, p. 16. Úrculo was born in Santurtzi, Spain, 1938 and died two years after producing this work, in 2003. Puerto del Rosario is one of six Spanish locations that now display examples of his work on the theme of travel and loneliness.
40 See La Provincia de Fuerteventura: Diario de Las Palmas, 7 de octubre, 2000 for a photograph of the artist sitting on the work (p. 1) and for sculptor Emiliano Hernández's comments on the status of this work for the island and his quip that the umbrella is ‘poco común en la Isla, pero vital para el viajero’ (p. 33).
41 Other works inaugurated prior to the symposia (and also reproduced in the catalogue for the ‘parque escultórico’) include: Caracola (I, II, III and IV) (1999) by Juan Bordes; La Cruz de la Española (1992) by Loren Castañeira; Alcalá (2001) by Carlos García Muela; Máximo Riol Cimas’ grand homage to the tiny local bird, the Tarabilla (2001); Ernesto Knorr's homage (with partner Carmen Castillo) to the Fuerteventura wind, Siroco (2001); Rinaldo Palluzzi's stunning Homenaje a la luna (2001); and Francisco Curbelo's Monumento a la concordia (1999).
42 See Manuel Paz (another contributor to this event) interviewed in Canarias7, 17 de octubre de 2001, p. 30. His untitled contribution to this year, which looks like four monumental chairs and a table, is now placed next to a popular restaurant on the ‘paseo marítimo’.
43 See La Provincia, 13 de enero de 2001, p.1 and p. 26.
44 See Cruz Ruiz on the ‘totemic’ quality of the goat for Fuerteventura and El Hierro in Viaje a las islas Canarias, 28. Ilan Gelber and Varda Ghivoly made the rocking Garfield the cat, and Bien Velds and Petra Koonstrad made the goats. The appeal of the symposium to families is highlighted in an editorial in Canarias7, 17 de octubre de 2001, p. 30.
45 For more on this see La Provincia, 13 de enero de 2001, p. 1 and p. 26. See also in Canarias7, 25 de septiembre de 2001, p. 33 for comments from the sculptor, Francisco Curbelo, on economic viability of the symposia as a model for other local governments and from Juan Luis Calbarro, who notes in the same article that ‘sus honorarios (medio millón de pesetas más gastos) suponen en todos los casos una minúscula parte del valor que sus obras alcanzarían en el mercado artístico’. Patallo responds similarly to a query about complaints in relation to the cost of the 2002 event in interview with Itziar Fernández (La Provincia, 5 de octubre de 2002, Especial, p. 19).
46 Patallo's views on the symposium can be read in the catalogue, Celso Hernández, Puerto del Rosario, Fuerteventura: una ciudad de esculturas, 15. For more on Bañuelos, see <http://www.banuelos-fournier.com/en/> (accessed 29 August 2014).
47 As he returned each year and produced additional commissioned works, Fleissig's small squares could be regarded as a synecdoche for or ‘signature’ of the ‘parque’, and his Puerta de la ciudad (2004) consolidates this position, providing a symbolic ‘gateway to the city’ on one of the arterial roundabouts.
48 Canarias7, 24 de mayo de 2003, p. 27.
49 For more on El aguador see La Provincia, 27 de julio de 2001, p. 30 and on the inauguration of El marinero, see Canarias7, 13 de mayo de 2003, p. 29.
50 A.M.V. in La Provincia, 7 de enero de 2004, p.1. The Centro Juan Ismael is built on the site of a former cinema on Almirante Lallermand.
51 <http://www.pacocurbelo.com/curriculum/general.asp?idioma=es> (accessed 26 November 2014).
52 The eclecticism of the event is also praised by Carlos Calderón Yruegas, who notes range of ‘obras vanguardistas [..] de corte clásico, de estilo retro […] que no hace sino conrimar lo plural de nuestra sociedad en general y de Fuerteventura en particular’ (Canarias7, 2 de febrero de 2002, p.4).
53 Interview with González, in Crónica de Fuerteventura, 1–5 de octubre de 2002, p. 23.
54 Equally memorable pieces from this symposium include the less dangerous, but also complex, intricate, untitled, abstract inside-out, cut-out, by Johni Gogabereshvili and five gently deceptive pieces by Nesrin Karacan that look like (but are not) alphabetical letters that also look as if they are (but are not) made out of three difference kinds of stone.
55 I am grateful to Iria Candela for directing me towards the work of Deutsche. Candela is the author of Art in Latin America (London: Tate, 2013) and Curator of Latin American Art at the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
56 Rosalyn Deutsche, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics (London/Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998 [1st ed. 1996]), 273.
57 Miguel de Unamuno, Niebla, ed. & intro. by Juan Hererro-Senés (Doral: Stockcero, 2010), 25.
58 For the book based on the TV series, see John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin, 1972).
59 Jo Evans, ‘Imanol Uribe's La muerte de Mikel: Policing the Gaze/Mind the Gap’, in Sound on Vision: Studies on Spanish Cinema, ed. Robin Fiddian & Ian Michael, BHS, LXXVI:1 (1999), 101–09; ‘Vacas/Cows (dir. Julio Medem): From Goya's Dining Room via Apocalypse Now’, in Spanish Cinema 1973–2010: Auteurism, Politics, Landscape and Memory, ed. Maria Delgado & Robin Fiddian (Manchester: Manchester U. P., 2013), 133–52.
60 Chow's essay ‘Where Have All the Natives Gone?’ is still one of the most lucid reiterations of the fact that what we see depends what we are looking at, from what position, and at what point in time, Rey Chow, ‘Where Have All the Natives Gone?’ originally in Displacements: Cultural Identities in Question, ed. Angelika Bammer (Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1994), 125–51.
61 Deutsche, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics, 273.
62 <https://sites.google.com/site/tpatallo/nueva> (accessed 15 September 2014).
63 Pamela Stewart & Andrew Strathern, ‘Introduction’, in Landscape, Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Pamela Stewart & Andrew Strathern (London: Pluto, 2003), 1–15 (p. 8).
64 Cher Krause Knight, Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), x (italics in the original).
65 For more on the link Unamuno makes between small towns and the experience of ‘a very real, almost physical sensation, described as a deep experience of “existencia histórica” ’, see Candau, ‘The City of Niebla’, 535.