The sonority of matter: the musical Chirino

The Gran Canarian palms,

In 2021, the Martín Chirino Art and Thought Foundation of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria began an exhibition and editorial project that has led it to dedicate three shows and as many monographs – by Alfonso de la Torre, Antonio Manuel González and Fernando Castro Flórez – to various chapters of that artist’s production: the series Black Queens, Afrocan and WindsA fourth episode of the cycle awaits us at the centre this summer, until next September, and focuses on the links between his work and music; almost twenty sculptures, medals and drawings have been brought together and are completed here with pieces by other international authors equally related to this discipline and corresponding to various stages, from cubism to neo-avant-garde.

“Martín Chirino: Tribute to music. The sonority of matter” has been curated by David Cortés Santamarta, professor of Aesthetics and Art Theory at the University of La Laguna and music critic, and Jesús M. Castaño, director of this institution, and is therefore an invitation to delve deeper into the links between plastic and sound creation based on the works of Chirino, mainly the eight pieces belonging to his collection Tribute to music (1995-2019), but also those of other 20th century masters who did not escape the imprint of that art, such as Picasso, whose etching we will see Guitar on the table; Juan Gris, represented with The guitar in front of the sea arrival of the Reina Sofia; or Dalí, with his Spanish guitarsWithout studying the representation possibilities of this instrument it would be almost impossible to approach the evolution of cubism.

We will also contemplate drawings and sculptures by Lipchitz; works on paper that Ángel Ferrant, a very influential figure in Chirino, dedicated to string instruments; the corporal Ingres’ Violin by Man Ray; Violin and colt’s head by surrealist Óscar Domínguez; various photographic portraits of the cellist Charlotte Moorman, some in collaboration with John Cage, by Peter Moore; a trompe l’oeil by the eighteenth-century painter Pedro de Acosta or the bronze sculpture by Pablo Serrano Guitar No. 2.

Sticking to Chirino’s works in the exhibition, and to the series mentioned above Tribute to musicthis is clearly related to cubism and its treatment of those string instruments. The first of his compositions, Labyrinth of music (1995), has obvious references to the still lifes of Picasso, Braque and Gris (hence the very timely presence of some of them in Las Palmas); the second, Tribute to music IIis a decade later and shows the artist’s desire to hybridize instruments: it is possible to see the sound hole of a guitar and a scroll that could correspond to a cello or violin. The third work in the series, Tribute to Rostropovich (2006), is a game of shapes in which he offers us a cello that has become a light silhouette, without support, while in the fourth piece, designed in polished bronze for the Cante de las Minas Festival in 2010, we observe new declinations of his basic vocabulary, that is, ovals, ellipses and spirals.

Martin Chirino. Labyrinth of Music, 1995.

Martín Chirino. Tribute to Music III, Tribute to Rostropovich, 2006. Photography: Alday

In wrought iron carried out Tribute to music V (2015), in which sinuous and curved shapes predominate and some new aspects are present: black tones and shiny reflections that contrast, through textures and color, with the rusty patina of the plane. Tribute to Pau Casalsthe sixth work, also made in 2015, offers a wooden base and stands out for a very complex volute divided into four, which is related to the cello strings, while Guitar. Dream of music (2018) is almost a study of volumetry. The last sculpture of the set, Cello. Dream of musicits expressiveness is reinforced by a large clear stain on its wood and by the two parallel lines on the opposite side, which refer to the bow, in addition to the strings themselves.

His medals were made approximately in the same period, between 1994 and 2019, most of them in bronze and designed for award ceremonies or commemorations; the drawings are dated 2005 and some preparatory ones for the Pérez Galdós Theatre logo, in 2007. In any case, especially the sculptures, and not only for their motifs, constitute, as we said, his creations closest to cubism, of which Chirino always considered himself a son, as well as an evident manifestation of his love for music, which he described as the most beautiful and essential earthly breath.

This cubist reference coexists with certain notes of surrealist inspiration, fundamentally in the works called Dream of music -hence the arrival at the Ray and Dalí Foundation- and with the careful rhythm that can be seen in the metal pieces; the artist explained: Burnt iron is energy; that is, matter becomes energy. It participates in other arts and especially in music: the tool dances in your hand like a musical instrument on the score of the drawing; you are there making the hammer shaft sound very intensely… When it slides, the music becomes more hermetic; it suddenly becomes atonal music.