Gernika/Guernica
June 14, 2007 – July 12, 2007
A Public Art Project by Anita Glesta
The Council presents “Gernika/Guernica,” a multimedia site-specific public art project by Anita Glesta in Lower Manhattan. Glesta’s work commemorates the 70th anniversary of the tragic bombing of the Basque town Gernika by Nazi Germany at the behest of General Franco. Glesta’s eight bronze sound-sculptures in the shape of antique radios will be installed on planters on the western side of Chase Manhattan Plaza, which is bordered by Nassau and Liberty Streets. Each of Glesta’s sculptures features an element of Pablo Picasso’s iconic “Guernica” painting, and also contains a motion sensor that when activated plays an audio recording of testimony from a survivor of the Gernika bombing.
This installation was part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s 18-month exploration on the theme of Amnesia: The Spectral Life of Cities that looks at aspects of urban life that are forgotten, invisible or obscured in the present. In downtown New York, the questions of historical trauma, memory and memorialization are at the forefront of any discussion of rebuilding. Through projects such as this installation, LMCC wants to connect the individual testimony and memory to the more monumental projects of memorialization.
Background/History
Seventy years after the bombing of Gernika, artist Anita Glesta transforms a public space in historic Lower Manhattan by combining the poignant, disembodied voices of survivors of the Basque village with the searing abstraction of Picasso’s “Guernica,” the renowned painting that indicts this tragic attack. Glesta’s motion-activated sound-sculptures create a dialogue between individual memories and the iconic anti-war representation, incorporating elements of “Guernica” — a bull’s horn, a foot, a heart — into the eight bronze “radios.” (Jean Dubuffet’s monumental sculpture “Group of Four Trees” towers over the site, and Isamu Noguchi’s “Sunken Garden” water sculpture is also located within the plaza.)
On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, German warplanes, acting on General Franco’s behalf, carpet bombed the small Basque village of Gernika. This massacre of civilians inspired Picasso to paint his masterpiece, “Guernica,” as a symbol of outrage, which today stands as one of the most profound anti-violence statements of the 20th century.
The devastation and loss of life of the Gernika attack marked a transformative moment for the Basque people, much as 9/11 did for New Yorkers. The connections between loss, survival, and memory and their relationship to artistic representation are at the heart of Glesta’s work. Its location in Lower Manhattan and Glesta’s personal history reinforce the link between New York City and Gernika/Guernica.
About Anita Glesta
Anita Glesta has been recording oral memories of the now elderly survivors of the Guernica bombings since 2005. She lived in Northern Spain as a teenager in the 1970s. Four months after 9/11, which she witnessed as a resident of Gateway Towers in Battery Park City, she moved to go to Spain to rekindle her connection to the Basque country.
Anita Glesta’s work has been exhibited extensively in New York City, beginning in 1984 with a solo show at White Columns Gallery. Her work was shown at the Sculpture Center, the Queens Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and many New York galleries before she moved to Sydney in 1994. Since her return to New York in 2000, Glesta has created site-specific works in New York, Europe, and Australia. She is currently commissioned to create a permanent outdoor integrated landscape sculpture for the Federal Census Bureau Building in Washington, DC, through the General Services Administration’s Excellence in Art and Architecture program.
Support
The project Gernika/Guernica (Desde El Cielo Hasta El Fondo) has received fiscal sponsorship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and grants from the New York State Council for the Arts and the Puffin Foundation. This project is made possible by the kind permission of JP Morgan Chase Bank, National Association.
