THE IMAGE OF POWER

Marcelino Domingo, prisoner in the destructor
Sánchez Barcaiztegui, with Manuel Azaña.
1935. Photo: Alfonso (AGA)

versión en español

The Image of Power

Portraits of Spanish Political Leaders from 1898 to 1998

The main objective of this exhibition is to recover the lost memories of Spain's recent history along with the names and faces that make up its past and present. Sagasta, Cánovas, Alfonso XIII, Ferrer I Guardia, Fernando de los Ríos, Negrín, Companys, Weyler, Pablo Iglesias, Azaña, Margarita Nelken, José Antonio Aguirre... are just a few of the 140 names, some known and others unknown, of men and women whose lives have filled the last 100 years of Spanish history. Their faces have been forgotten along with their labour, their work and their lives and today, very few people know who they were and what they did. This exhibition aims to recover some of those memories.

"The Image of Power" is made up of 200 photographs from archives from all over Spain, each prepared appropriately for their exhibition. Coinciding with the show, a catalogue will be published which gathers all the exhibited photographs accompanied by texts by the curator Rosa Olivares and the historians Javier Tusell, Abdón Mateos and Felipe Hernández-Cava. Produced by a team of historians and documentarists lead by Concha Iglesias and Felipe Hernández-Cava, this catalogue with its extensive chronology of the 100 years in question and its careful "Who's who" of all the figures portrayed in the show, will undoubtedly become an indispensable historical reference book.

From February 25th to May 3rd, 1998 in the Exhibition Halls of the Art and Technology Foundation.

This exhibition brings together the portraits of 145 men and women who have wielded power in one hundred years of Spain's History: public figures with very different backgrounds coming from all over the country who exercised power in many different ways, some on a national scale and others on a strictly local one, some by direct governance through a legislative process and others from the opposition. Some were men of peace, others were men of war.
The century which this exhibition covers has been witness to a variety of important events: one hundred years that started with the monarchy and also closes with it. From the Regency of María Cristina of Habsburg-Lorena to the current reign of Juan Carlos I of Bourbon, there has been a constant struggle towards progress and democracy, although hindered by economic and social backwardness and military revolts. There have also been men of law, intellectuals and grass-roots politicians who have defended their ideas and have helped create a history in which the ideas of progress and democracy are present too.

Since the invention of photography in 1843 until today, photographic techniques and reproduction have changed dramatically. From the daguerreotype and crystal negatives we have achieved the transmission of images via satellite and the possibility of digitally manipulating images. Today, an image crosses the world in hundredths of a second and arrives at all four corners of the globe in exactly the same condition. Basically, however, photography continues to be the gaze of one person commenting on his or her surroundings and it is this gaze which determines the resulting image.

The photographic portrait of politicians and figures in power comes as a consequence of painting's depictions of history. When in the 19th century photography had become a small miracle that could make a particular image eternal in a matter of minutes, painting understood that illustrating epic victories and glorious gestures was out of sync with the reality of the times.

In "The Image of Power" official portraits are shown along with other types of portraits, many of them from anonymous photographers who captured the politicians in private, intimate moments. But one way or another, everyone from Valeriano Weyler to Adolfo Suárez, from Antonio Maura to José María Aznar and from Margarita Nelken to "la Pasionaria" are represented in this unusual, historical gallery of illustrious figures. These are men and women who have created the history that belongs to Spain and who have been immortalized not only by their actions and by history, but also by the gaze of hundreds of photographers.

The external configuration of the signs and badges of power and the public image of those who held absolute power more or less unlawfully which placed them above the rest of their country men, citizens and mortals in general, is the issue that has concerned leaders and those who surround them most profoundly, regardless of their political leaning or the period of history.

Today more than ever we have to accept that a public figure's image is more powerful than a symbol and that the sickle and hammer, the yoke and arrows, and the fist and rose all belong to a symbology of power far away in time and obscured by the physical image of the leaders of the political parties who continue to maintain these emblems in their respective iconologies. And on many occasions, this external image is more effective than a politician's words or the social or political message he is conveying.

Rosa Olivares
(excerpt from the catalog)

Pilar Primo de Rivera
presiding over the "Consejo".
1940, Photo: Torres Molina.
(Agencia Efe)

Antonio Maura, surrounded by
journalists, leaves the Royal Palace.
1915, Agencia Efe

Margarita Nelken
C.a. 1931, (AGA)

Francisco Franco unveils
the monument to Mola in
Alcocero de Mola (Burgos).
1939, Photo: Marín (AGA)

Francisco Ferrer I Guardia
gets out of the carriage
taking him to Court.
1906, (AGA)

Buenaventura Durruti, with
Ascaso and Jover, in the offices of
"Le Libertaire", a few days after
being released from prison.
1926, Fundación Anselmo Lorenzo