Mexico City. On Leonora Carrington‘s 104th birthday anniversary, which was celebrated on April 6, the Economic Culture Fund presented a book by her with her complete stories that includes three unpublished texts.
In his virtual presentation, Eduardo Matías, on behalf of the publishing house, reported that the book brings together the stories published in The House of Fear and The Seventh Horse. All the stories in the book were translated from English to Spanish. A short introductory text by Katherine Davis is included.
The activity was attended by Daniel Weisz Argomedo, grandson of Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) and secretary of the foundation that bears her name, and the art historian Laura Martínez Terrazas, who spoke about the different facets of the artist .
For Weisz Argomedo, the difference between Carrington’s pictorial work and her literature has to do with the interaction of the reader or viewer: “With stories, the visual is in charge of us; however, when it comes to paintings, Leonora wants us to tell a story with these images. They are different worlds.
She “She understood that there were different ways to create a story, be it in a painting, a sculpture or a story. Through the works they transcend Leonora’s messages such as respect for animals, and make fun of certain conventions, especially religious or monarchical ones. “
In addition, “that we are not afraid of our imagination, that we learn to play with it and enjoy it. That one has to be more open in life and that both a vegetable and an animal are worth ”. Weisz Argomedo also referred to the black humor that his grandmother builds on the terrain of the fantastic. In her stories “she somehow manages to process traumas and things that happened to her in life, to seize a situation in which perhaps at the time she did not have much power.”
Many of Carrington’s tales have a biographical edge; however, they take another course, unknown to the author, although one of discovery. According to Martínez Terrazas, they are like fragments of dreams: “You think something is going to happen, and no, the story ends. That’s a great trick from Leonora. Her stories produce the same sensation as when one wakes up from a dream. There is not always going to be an end because it leaves it open ”.
The art historian pointed out that in almost all the stories her main character is female and is very similar to the author, or has a lot to do with her. They are “the engine and the center of the action.” According to Eduardo Matías, the stories speak of “a woman’s relationship and a question of sisterhood and, inevitably, feminism.”
