Painting produced in Madrid in the late 1970s and much of the 1980s marked a return to figuration. The works brought together in Modern Mythologies: Ouka Leele & Co., an exhibition curated by Julio Pérez Manzanares at Sala Alcalá 31 in Madrid, came about as a result of Ouka Leele’s and her generation’s newfound interest in mythology as they turned away from abstraction. That being said, they now reinterpreted it through an aesthetic culled from subcultures, pop imagery and youth trends.
Through the work of Ouka Leele and other key artists of the moment, the exhibition takes a fresh look at the role classical mythology played in the Madrid art scene during the 1980s. The walkthrough begins with Rappelle-toi, Bárbara! (Remember, Bárbara!), Ouka Leele’s legendary intervention in the Cibeles fountain in 1987. Conceived as a reflection on the intersection of photography, painting and contemporary visual culture, it also examines the revival of mythological narratives at a pivotal moment of cultural transformation.
The BBVA Collection is contributing to the exhibition with the loan of Narciso I (Narcissus I, 1986) by Alfonso Albacete. In this painting, the only point of calm is the temple, whose solid presence is about to be engulfed by a swirling maelstrom. The story told by Ovid was a recurring source of inspiration for Albacete, who, apart from this particular work, also made several prints with the same subject matter. In this interpretation, birth and death are both associated with water, harking back to the original myth in which this element is a dynamic force that signifies a desire to merge with water and dissolve ourselves in it.