Ciudá y abismos 1946

Editor: Here we have "Ciudad y Abismos" - "City and Abyss" - a 1946 charcoal drawing on paper by Xul Solar. It strikes me as both futuristic and ancient, like a civilization built on geological anomalies. What do you see in it? Curator: I see a yearning, an attempt to reconcile the heavens and the earth. Xul Solar was always trying to build bridges – between languages, cultures, realities. He created his own visual language in many respects. These towering, almost uterine, forms—are they mountains or buildings? The "abysms" are not just spatial voids but existential chasms, no? What is humanity's place here? Are these figures ascending, or simply existing precariously? He doesn’t provide a solid answer, only a potent question mark. Editor: So, the unsettling feeling comes from that ambiguity? I thought it felt like a dreamscape. Curator: Absolutely! Dreams operate on symbolic logic. Xul was deeply interested in theosophy, astrology – belief systems aimed at decoding cosmic patterns. He offers the "city" as a mirror for inner landscapes. Do you feel that sense of the artist's deep interiority as well? The lines between rationality and intuitive knowing are erased for me in it. Editor: I think I do see that. So, it's not just a depiction of a strange city, but also a portrait of the artist’s inner world? Curator: Precisely! Xul Solar invites us into a visionary space where reality bends, and perception becomes an act of imaginative exploration. He challenges our conventional ideas about urban spaces and reminds us of their potential to reflect the multifaceted layers of our inner selves. Editor: I definitely see the potential for deeper interpretations now. Thanks for the insights! Curator: My pleasure. Sometimes art just needs the right question to reveal itself, doesn’t it?