Mari Chordà

Image, language and social action are the foundations of the work of Mari Chordà and an integral part of her life: the artist, the writer and poet, and the activist form an unbreakable bond and a basis for an attitude and convictions that make up the backbone of her work and biography. As well as being an active, attentive observer of the reality around her, she takes part in it, shaking up and subverting everything she sees, guided by a political stance that emerged as a response to the Francoist dictatorship and endured in the form of feminist struggles for the visibility and recognition of women’s work. 

The aesthetic references in Mari Chordà’s work are completely alien both to the academicist, anachronistic environment of the School of Fine Arts where she studied and to the art scene at the time when she started to form her own language. Her imaginary is close to the visual sensitivity of pop art and psychedelia, but she has never considered herself a pop artist. A pioneer in her generation in terms of discussing sexual freedom, she talks about pleasure, motherhood and lesbian relationships in her paintings and poetry. She painted her first Vagina in 1964, while she was still a student: ‘I imagined the female body on the inside, but it was an unrealistic kind of figurative art, with some recollection of its shapes.’¹ She paints bodily fluids, secretions, sex organs and sex, not from a perspective of debasement, but with sensual shapes and seductive colours, in solid tones that call for a full, complete kind of eroticism. These are artworks that give off strength and vitality, in which creation is linked to sexual identity: ‘I wanted to “paint-talk” about sexual life and sexual identity.’² Mari Chordà investigates women’s bodies through her own, but instead of portraying her face – as we expect from conventional self-portraits –  she explores and depicts herself by painting her genitals. Self-referentiality, the exploration of one’s own intimacy and the changes that take place during pregnancy are just some of the themes examined. There is no obscenity or shame of any kind when it comes to showing or talking about sex, to enjoying the body and painting it or writing poems about it. While the State, the Church, the establishment or a misunderstood morality encouraged the repression of sex and pleasure, the exacerbated sexuality in Chordà’s work represents self-affirmation and legitimises freedom and joy.  

Like other women of her generation, Mari Chordà believed that ‘the personal was political’³ and made this conviction a driving force in her life. She founded Lo Llar in Amposta: a hive of cultural activity that hosted concerts, exhibitions and endless other events. After moving to Barcelona, she and a group of other women created laSal, a collectively organised bar-library intended as a meeting place for women to talk and support each other, which gave rise to ‘laSal, edicions de les dones’, the first feminist publishing house in Spain specialising in women’s literature and essays. But laSal was also a place for having fun: ‘We devoted ourselves to generating words, generating music and, especially, generating pleasure … Pleasure is very subversive.’⁴ Indeed, everything Mari Chordà does is imbued with the need to enjoy and to play, understood as a key part of the fight for women’s rights. 

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artist

Mari Chordà

Amposta, 1942

Trained as a painter, Mari Chordà is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, feminist activist, and promoter of numerous collective social and cultural projects. Educated at the Escola Superior de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi in Barcelona, the representations of vaginas she began painting in 1964 were pioneering in the history of art. Her pictorial language was influenced by her stay in Paris between 1965 and 1967, incorporating an emphasis on colour with very vivid, flat tones and non-figurative sinuous forms, in close conversation with Nouveau Réalisme and Pop Art. As a result of her personal experience, Chordà addressed themes such as sexuality and motherhood, far ahead of the feminist avant-garde of the 1970s. From 1969, she began creating her mobile sculptures, designed to be interacted with, creating ever-changing forms. In the early 1990s, she revisited her initial artistic output, incorporating certain references to the natural world – especially the marine world – which she calls “the female cetaceans”.

As an activist and feminist, she has participated in multiple collective projects such as Lo Llar in Amposta (which she founded in 1968) or the feminist bar/library LaSal, a unique place in Spain, a meeting point where legal and health advice could be shared and received. LaSal, co-founded by Chordà in 1977 in Barcelona, led to the creation of a publishing house under the same name, active from 1978 to 1990, with the aim of making women’s writing visible. Chordà is the author of the poetry collections … i moltes altres coses (1977), Quadern del cos i l’aigua (1978), Umbilicals (2000), Locomotora infidel pel passat (1988) and No com un so (2022). In 2024, a comprehensive retrospective of her work was presented at the Museu d’Art Modern de la Diputació de Tarragona and at the MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. Chordà’s work is found in the museum collections of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya and MACBA, among others.

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curated by

Teresa Grandas

Teresa Grandas is a curator, researcher and writer who curates exhibitions at the MACBA. Her research has often focused on the artistic practices of the 1970s and particularly on the work of female artists and the countercultural scene, as well as their echoes and connections with art today.

As a curator, she has been in charge of various collective and individual shows, including The Passion According to Carol Rama (MACBA, 2014; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 2015; Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA), Espoo, Finland, 2015-2016; Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin, 2016; Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino (GAM), 2016-2017), Hard gelatin. Hidden stories from the 80s (MACBA, 2016; Hiriartea Centro de Cultura Contemporánea, Pamplona, 2018), Brossa Poetry (MACBA, 2017; Artium, Vitoria, 2018; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes y Centro Cultural Kirchner (CCK), Buenos Aires, 2019; MUAC Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, 2021-2022) and Fina Miralles: I Am All the Selves that I Have Been (MACBA, 2021; Index – Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation and Marabouparken konsthall, Stockholm, 2022; Museo d’arte contemporanea Donnaregina (MADRE), Naples, 2022-2023).

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Activities

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Behind a Fold, Softness: An Almanac of Gestures to Tenderise the Museum 

With blanca arias, Eva Fàbregas, Ariadna Guiteras and Alba Mayol

Activity

Friday January 10, 2025

Guided visits to Mari Chordà… and many other things 

Led by Albert Gironès, Eva Paià and Marina Ribot Pallicer

Activity

Every friday starting on Septembre 27 of 2024, until January 10 of 2025

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