Aesthetic Magnitude and Contemporary Universe
Góngora. The Never-Fading Star was shown in Madrid (Biblioteca Nacional de España) and Cordoba (Sala de Exposiciones Vimcorsa and Centro de Arte Pepe Espaliú) in 2012 to mark the commemoration of the 450th anniversary of the birth of Luis de Góngora y Argote. Organised by Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) with the collaboration of the Biblioteca Nacional de España (BNE) and Cordoba council, the exhibition examined the figure of the great Cordovan poet and analysed more than four centuries of influence of Góngora’s universe on universal literature through two hundred pieces including paintings, manuscripts, prints, drawings, letters, sculptures, musical instruments, tapestries, music scores, posters, books and magazines.
In order for it to travel to other venues in 2013, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) has adapted the original exhibition to a graphic format with a design that sets the author’s texts in a thought-provoking contemporary context.
The exhibition is divided into five sections: the poet’s biography; the literary, historical and social contexts that determined his life; the manuscripts and printed works containing his writings and other seventeenth-century documents that show his fertile influence; pastoral, hunting and musical topics from which his poetry drew and which establish a constant dialogue between his great works (Polyphemus and Galatea, the Solitudes, Pyramus and Thisbe); and other artistic expressions. It ends by looking at how his star is projected into the twentieth century, where his poetry gave rise to a Gongorine galaxy that highlights his radical importance in contemporary creation.
The oeuvre of Luis de Góngora (1561–1627) is one of the most valuable poetic legacies of Spanish tradition and an unavoidable reference in the history of literature. Its outstanding aesthetic magnitude, never-fading interest, spirit of renewal and relevance to our time make Góngora’s poetry comparable to the contributions of Shakespeare to the theatre and of Cervantes to the novel.
