Tue, Mar 29 2016
Pages with the story behind Plaça dels Àngels.
When giving a presentation or tour of an exhibition or project we have worked on, we are often asked how the project emerged – if there was a particular trigger or point of origin. In the case of José Antonio Hernández-Díez’s exhibition currently on view at MACBA (until June 26, 2016), our approach was a familiar one to us – we started by both delving in-depth in researching the artists previous works while at the same time looking into the history of the venue where the exhibition was going to take place.
We are very fond of a book that has been in our library for many years – 'Histories and legends of Barcelona' by Joan Amades (Edicions 62). This two-volume tome gathers some of the myths behind Barcelona place names and includes the tales behind both familiar and obscure buildings, st
reets and monuments in the city. The story that
most captivated us
concerned the chapel of the Convent dels Àngels, and
it is recounted in the essay we
wrote to accompany the exhibition
(published as the
Quaderns Portàtils #32 – pdfs available in
Spanish and
English and epub in Spanish only)
. It goes as follows:
(...) "Outside the doorway of the deconsecrated sixteenth-century church that formed part of Barcelona’s Convent dels Àngels there once stood the stone figure of a dog, standing upright on its hind legs. Two separate legends account for its existence, as recorded by ethnologist and folklorist Joan Amades in the 1950s. A boorish man would routinely interrupt the services and torment the church congregation, it is said. He was punished by being turned into a dog. The other version states that the canine figure commemorates the thwarting of a robbery. The church once displayed an image of Saint Roch, the patron saint of dogs, accompanied by a hound. It is said that the prospective thieves were frightened away as the image miraculously began to bark. (The supernatural mythology of the chapel does not cease there – in 1627 an image of Christ began to sweat blood profusely.)
Sculpture of a dog once stood in front of La Capella dels Àngels, the church of the Convent dels Àngels.
Parallel to this, we started looking at Hernández-Díez’s earliest works and investigating his pieces in MACBA’s collection. We found that the museum had his 1991 work San Guinefort on long-term loan in their collection, but it had never been exhibited. As narrated in our essay:
(...) "that
José Antonio Hernández-Díez (Caracas, Venezuela, 1964) had already
been dealing with Catholic belief and superstition in his art – and
moreover, specifically addressing canine veneration – is much more than
an uncanny coincidence for his exhibition at MACBA’s Convent dels Àngels
in 2016."
The legend behind Saint Guinefort is one of the more obscure intersections of Catholic
history and folk tradition:
(...) "Writing around 1260, the Inquisitor and
Dominican friar Étienne de Bourbon related his investigation into the veneration of Saint Guinefort in the Dombes region of France. He
discovered that this supposed Saint was, in fact, a dog. The account he
disclosed was that a knight and his wife had one day left their
greyhound Guinefort to guard their baby. When they returned to the
castle they found the cradle empty and Guinefort covered in blood.
Assuming it had murdered the baby, the knight hastily killed the dog,
only later realising his error. Guinefort had in fact fought off a snake
in order to save the child, who was found unharmed. Guinefort was
buried unceremoniously in the forest outside the castle walls. Hearing
of the martyred dog, local people began to believe in its power to
protect children and began to bring their sick infants to the grave.
Étienne de Bourbon was horrified to discover the strength of the
superstition that had taken root. Children were being left overnight by
Guinefort’s grave in the belief that he would rid them of spirits, and
several babies had died as a consequence. Defending the orthodoxy of the
church, the friar had the heretical remains of the greyhound dug up and
destroyed, razed the forest and outlawed the canine cult, yet there is
evidence of its persistence into the nineteenth century. The episode is
worth recounting in detail, as previous accounts of it in relation to
Hernández-Díez’s work have been misleading."
Coinciding
with our research period, in August 2014 we happened to be travelling near Lyon, France, and
took the opportunity to visit to the Bois de Saint Guinefort in the
Dombes region, where the story of Saint Guinefort emerged (and where the dog-saint may still be venerated every 22nd August, despite the regional tourism office assuring us the festival day was no longer celebrated).
Somewhere on the road between Villars-les-Dombes and Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne one can, with the help of a tagged flickr photo and GPS, find a sign, as seen below, which briefly narrates these peculiar events from the 13th Century.
Related Content:
- Video of the artist talking about 'San Guinefort' (1991)
- José Antonio Hernández-Díez, 'I will fear no evil’, Convent dels Àngels, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, 18 March–26 June 2016.
- Photodocumentation of the exhibition.
- Exhibition essay on José Antonio Hernández-Díez, Quaderns Portàtils #32, free-to-read pdf (Spanish & English) and epub (Spanish).
- Social media archive of tweets, Instagram, reviews.
- Exhibition of Hernández-Díez at the New Museum, New York in 2003.
- Pdf of the 1991 exhibition catalogue of Hernández-Díez's show at the Sala RG, Caracas.
- Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA)
- Works of Hernández-Díez at MACBA's collection.
21 June 2011: Unwrapping Irene Kopelman's sculptures to be exhibited as part of Uqbar's exhibition, the third chapter of Amikejo at Laboratorio 987, MUSAC.
22 June 2011: Irene Kopelman and Mariana Castillo Deball unwrapping Mariana's sculptures.
23 June 2011: Installing Uqbar, stairs going up and down...
24 June 2011: Final piece to install. Mariana and Irene Kopelman giving 'left, right, up...' instructions to Artefacto crew member. (+ images)
25 June 2011: Uqbar presents their show to the press and museum staff.
29 June 2011: Third day of 'Campus'. Participants chat outside and look at the project vinyls placed on the façade. (+ images)
4–8 July 2011, week #1 with Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson. Mapping participants to ideas, mapping ideas to participants.
4–8 July 2011, week #1 with Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson. Ólafur and Antoine see the world in 3D.
11–15 July 2011, week #2 with Renata Lucas.
18–21 July 2011, week #3 with Peter Piller.
18–22 July 2011: Mariana invited by the Mondriaan visitors programme to tour Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht's galleries, museums, art centers and artist studios. Above poster campaign signed by 'Disgruntled Dutch Artists' posted in several institutions in relation to the HUGE change Dutch arts will suffer due to unprecedented cuts. (+ images)
25–29 July 2011, week #4 with Adrià Julià.
29 July 2011, 19.30h: Display of the projects and ideas-in-the-making developed during 'Campus'. After 5 weeks of group talks, video screenings, tutorials and production, a one-month exhibition opens at Espai Cultural Caja Madrid, the same space occupied by 'Campus' during the last five weeks.