From Ethnographic to Camp Orientalism: Gabriel Morcillo Raya

Description

The fourteenth anniversary David Vilaseca Memorial Lecture entitled “From Ethnographic to Camp Orientalism: Gabriel Morcillo Raya" was delivered by Claudia Hopkins, Professor of Art History at Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. She was introduced by Sarah Wright, Professor of Hispanic Studies in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Royal Holloway. The Vote of Thanks was given by Dr Naomi Lebens, Head of Royal Holloway Cultural Services and College Curator.

In this lecture Prof Hopkins shows how Gabriel Morcillo Raya (1887-1973), inspired by the multicultural history of his native Granada, created extraordinary"‘camp" images featuring semi-nude, predominantly male models posing theatrically with oriental or classical accessories, flaunting their queerness to the viewer. A contemporary of Federico
García Lorca, Manuel de Falla, and Pablo Picasso, Morcillo exists outside the modernist canon and is little known today. Nevertheless, he enjoyed a successful career. His homoerotic paintings were even shown in official exhibitions at the Venice Biennale in the 1920s and later in Nazi Germany. Rather than viewing Morcillo as an isolated figure or merely as a precursor to postmodern luminaries such as Robert Mapplethorpe, this lecture situates his work within the context of his own era and Spanish Orientalism. Prof Hopkins examines his social and artistic networks, his patrons and audiences, drawing comparisons with other figures whose work also created new spaces for male subjectivity. She asks what were the underlying impulses and meanings of Morcillo’s iconographies, considering, on the one hand, the societal attitudes to homosexuality at the time, and, on the other, the self-orientalising notion of a Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood that prevailed in colonial rhetoric and Andalucismo.

Period	19 Nov 2024
Event title	The David Vilaseca Memorial Lecture 2024
Event type	Other
Location	Egham, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International