tenerife ENG In May 1935, the Ateneo de Santa Cruz de Tenerife hosted one of the most important artistic events of the first half of the century in Europe. A group of international intellectuals linked to the Surrealist movement - the French poet André Breton, his wife the painter Jacqueline Lamba and the writer Benjamin Péret, among others - travelled to the island to inaugurate the 2nd International Exhibition of Surrealism, comprising 76 works by names such as Picasso, Miró, Dalí, Max Ernst, Giacometti, Hans Arp, Man Ray, René Magritte and Marcel Duchamp. One of the driving forces behind such a procession crossing the Atlantic was the Canary Islands painter Óscar Domínguez (1906-1957), who was living in Paris at the time and whom Breton himself called le dragonnier des Canarias (dragon tree of the Canaries). The exhibition was a flop and hardly any of the works sold – despite their 1,000-peseta price tag - but it did lead to the sign-ing of the first Spanish Surrealist Manifesto and to the figure of Óscar Domínguez acquiring a key role throughout the world in this artistic wave. “Along with Miró and Dalí, he forms part of the constellation of names that Spanish painting contributed to the international surrealist movement”, explains Isidro Hernández Gutiérrez, curator of the Óscar Domínguez Collection - TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes Collection. Loving (and depicting) your island Óscar Domínguez was an artist who was committed to his home-land, taking his Canarian identity with him wherever he exhibit-ed. Born in La Laguna, Tenerife, his youth was spent in the munic-ipality of Tacoronte. Here, he lived in a house built by his father on a volcanic stone watchtower at the edge of a cliff, the Guayonge Castle, a setting that would be key to his painting. “Childhood was to have a decisive influence on the painter’s entire career. From his visions in the natural environment of the island, an irration-al and overabundant conception of colour and the enigmatic processes of metamorphosis that would characterise his work throughout his career would emerge”, explains Hernández. The exhibition Óscar Domínguez: dos que se cruzan (two that cross paths), at the TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (until the 24th of November), recalls his work not only because it is essen-tial for understanding contemporary Spanish art in the last century, but also because it portrays a surrealist vision of the archipelago. “His work reminds us of the magical quality of the islands, in an almost untouched state of grace which, when transformed by his painting become authentic symbols [...]. Precisely because his painting is nourished by the experiences of a childhood spent in complete freedom in the ravines of the north of the island of Tenerife, Domínguez, in speaking of him-self, speaks of us all”, adds the expert. Obsessive, visionary and impulsive The work of Óscar Domínguez, found in numerous internation-al art collections, from the Georges Pompidou Art Centre in Paris to the National Gallery in Prague, the MoMA in New York and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid to name but a few, illustrates the painter’s importance in the experimen-tal process of the 20th century. “If, in Surrealism, the image is a free creation of the spirit or an invention outside of any tie to the apparent world, then the painting of Óscar Domínguez is one of the most original versions of that openness of thought,’ explains the curator of the exhibition. The painter was visceral, obsessive, a creator of surreal-ist objects and inventor of “Decalcomania of Desire”, a picto-rial technique whereby he applied blobs of paint to a sheet of paper that was then folded in half. The Surrealist scholar Patrick Waldberg, referred to him as “the hero of immoderation”. Welcome, then, to his creative impulses. © Hans-Peter Merten Vista general de Tacoronte, con el Teide al fondo. // General view of Tacoronte, with Mount Teide in the background. tenerife Vuelos // Flights: La isla canaria es un buen plan a lo largo de todo el año, por eso Air Europa programa tres vuelos a la semana con Bilbao y cuatro al día con Madrid. // This Canary Island is a good plan whatever the time of year, which is why Air Europa schedules three flights a week with Bilbao and four a day with Madrid. www.aireuropa.com