Davantals Vivencials
The MuVIM maintains its commitment to draw the attention to the work of woman and feminist artists. A work which has always been invisible for Art History even if it has become an essential means to raise awareness, spread and critically think about everything which happens in life and, just for this very reason, the inclusion of the women’s experience and reality is unavoidable.
This year, on the occasion of 8th March, the MuVIM Stained Glass Window invites us tothink over the figure of the working woman with the picture of Maria José Planells, “Experiential Aprons”.
The picture depicts an orange warehouse, particularly the space where the boxes are stacked up in order to be carried to the place where the oranges are prepared for sale after a previous and careful selection of each piece of fruit.
This labour was and is still done by women.
The warehouse in the picture is empty. There are no hanging boxes, just the aprons of the women who work in there: a clothing which identifies them with their role at home, that housewife “role” everybody has traditionally accepted.
The artist invites us to think about the recent past and its persistence at the present time. A past, around the end of the 19th century, when bourgeoisie and white-collars managed to obtain a large amount of lands for orange farming and took advantage of technical improvements to boost commercialisation. And a present which is barely different from that past when men and women carried out quite different tasks: Men farmed the land, reaped the fruits and took on the transport, while women, at the warehouse, carefully selected each piece of fruit, packed it and stacked the boxes.
In these warehouses, many women had worked out of their homes for the first time in their lives and they have found there the most suitable space to socialise and share secrets, uncertainties and troubles. This labour has not only meant a supplement to their home income– where they are mothers, daughters and wives – but also meant for them to feel useful, important, capable and encouraged. A new outwards beginning.
With this artistic creation María José Planells moves us to reflect about the figure of the working woman in our society, in this case, located in a very particular spot and with a very specific task.
Their aprons show it. We are aware that every work developed by women as well as the related spaces, have been used to flat the way that still today is difficult to tread for many of them.
The absence of women who have passed away – those empty aprons - which at the same time represent their presence, as they are still waiting for the women to wear them every day – are useful to highlight the work of those women who are gone but also the work of those women who take up the torch and continue the struggle to raise awareness on the more and more outstanding role of women in our society.
Cum laude PhD in Fine Arts from the Polytechnic University of Valencia.
Master’s degree in Means of Graphical Printing, Illustration and Artistic Coining from the National Coinage and Stamp Factory – Royal Mint in Madrid.
She was granted in 2001 with and scholarship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs-AECI to further her studies in the Faculty of Fine Arts in the National University of Colombia in Bogotá and, in 2002 in the Workshop of Visual Arts in the National University of the Northeast in Resistencia, Argentina.
The following years she was awarded with different artistic grants and prizes such as: the Artistic Creation Talens grant, the Visual Art grant in 2003 from the Conselleria de Cultura i Educació de la Generalitat Valenciana, winner of the Special Mention from the jury in the XI Biennal Competition of Young Painters from the Generalitat de Catalunya; prize-acquisition Fons d’Art Contemporani from the Polytechnic University of Valencia; granted in the I Campus de Verano de las Artes de Guía (Gran Canaria), grant in the International Residence of Artists of Ifitry in Essaouira (Morocco); aid for the promotion of Spanish Contemporary Art from the Spanish Ministry of Culture; Casa Velázquez grant of residence , Académie de France, Madrid; Laboratorios Comunes de Creación de Artes Visuales grant from the Tres Patios Foundation and the mayor’s office of Medellín (Colombia). Alfons Roig Aid for Plastic Arts 2014-2015 from the Diputació de Valencia; and the grant from the Joan Miró Foundation (Mallorca).
In 2014 she stands out with the first prize in the Graphical Art Competition of Young Creators from the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, National Chalcography, Madrid.
Her work has been exhibited in a great number of both collective and individual exhibitions in Spain, France, Italy, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Morocco.
