Manolo Gómez Romero: “the freedom and creative balance of a 5000-year-old child”

Almost two decades have passed since the first exhibition of contemporary Roma art was held at the Venice Biennale in 2007. In these years, Roma representation has been discontinuous, although the periodicity and the demand for their own pavilion continues to be a struggle for institutions and agents such as the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC), the Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma, and the Kai Dikhas Foundation. Until now, with the exception of Malgorzata Mirga-Tas in 2022, the appearance of Roma artists in this event has been on the margins. It is true that we appear at the most relevant event in contemporary art, but we continue to be secondary subjects whose scattered works are exhibited on the outskirts of the epicentre. The peripheral presences move us towards the anecdote, a note of colour in the multiculturalism of Eurocentric modernity that leaves little space or intention to promote intercultural recognition and intersubjective co-participation. Even so, the dispersion of the works, their dissemination in different places, and their spatial marginality with respect to the pavilions of the nation-states, have never undermined the motivations and intentions of the promoters and the Roma artists to be present at this event of global projection. The presence in these environments where we speak of ourselves without ourselves is no small matter; it has a direct relationship with one of the possibilities that locates the “Romani aiesthesis: the possibility of self-representation in full consciousness alongside our vernacular places of enunciation”.[1] That in these colonial frameworks we emerge from the interstices of historical and present dominations, signals the emergence of “narratives of recuperation, reparation and justice”,[2] at least cognitively. There remains to be done, alongside the above, real and effective social justice for the Roma, the Sinti and the Domaris.

Reflecting and asking ourselves to what extent in these environments of knowledge/power, presence is representation, or presence is over-representation, in order to act on dis-representation, is in line with the need for hard, sincere, collaborative and interconnected work. To have one’s own pavilion would imply, among other things, to arrange for detachment without accompaniment, without tutelage that represents us as minors. Having one’s own pavilion, here and in other places of aesthetic-artistic knowledge/power, can facilitate the detachment from naturalisations, from gadjes projections about the Romanipen, about what we Roma are and feel in our intracultural plurality. Being in a place felt as a common home would allow us to self-represent ourselves to the world, with the world and its plural worlds; it would situate us as ontological subjects and subjects of knowledge. Therefore, hegemonic spaces remain fields in which to continue the claim, because there we are treated as objects, as exceptionality, or as an exotic point of reference. Therefore, the contents and dispositions we make with regard to (dis-)representation must constitute the strongest support if we want to act the decolonisation of these places and “socio-spatial epistemologies of whiteness”,[3] if we want to detach ourselves from the histories and projections of Eurocentric modernity, if we want to tell our own micro-stories and not have them told by others.

Perhaps a good starting point would be to detach ourselves from the centrality of Europeanness when referring to the plurality of identities that make up Romanipen.[4] The tension between space and “ontological-cultural identity”,[5] between representation and de-representation should not go unnoticed in a field (that of art and aesthetics) that is above all, geopolitical. As beautiful as the Venetian palazzos where the works of Roma artists are located may seem, their visual charms should not mislead our present memories and discourses about who their owners were and how they became rich. Their lights and glitter can hardly hide the fact that the Republic of Venice, among others, was part of the Holy League that confronted the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.[6] Their supposed museum, historical or patrimonial importance is not a refuge or a value for Romanipen; on the contrary, they are dimensions that procure our ontological-cultural erasure. Why else the continued reluctance, the limits and the barriers that are presented to us to have a pavilion of our own? There are few coincidences here, in these decisions. That is why the place chosen, Palazzo Bembo (surname of the commander who led the army of the Holy League), is intentional. Even so, we cannot but exclaim: What a loss for present Roma memories that only the names of the heroes of those who enslaved our ancestors are preserved and displayed!

With these previous reflections, it is possible to locate part of the interest in bringing together the works exhibited around a common theme: Rroma Lepanto has been the expression chosen for the Venice Biennale 2024. The use of the word “Rroma” in front of “Lepanto” marks the emergence of the memories of those Spanish and Italian Roma slaves who rowed in the galleys that took part in the Battle of Lepanto (1571). A first approximation agrees with the accuracy of the term applied to criticism and denunciation, although we miss the need to extend both dimensions to the field of alternatives beyond colonial histories, their heroes and monuments. That is, to locate them in our own plural histories without falling into, compromising or associating our cultural ontology with the homogenising conception of Europeanness, of the nation-state, and of state histories and identities. To reiterate: can we think that there were Roma on the Ottoman ships? If this is so, there is something missing to tell, to emerge, to complete in resistance, to attend to in order to forge alternative strategies of representation and de-representation, to rethink in order to enunciate, express and act “narratives of recovery, reparation and justice”.[7] Rroma Lepanto has to overcome hegemonic localisms in order not to leave behind the plurality of identities, spiritualities and micro-histories that make up the Romanipen: are there Ottoman ships among the works on display that represent and localise the Romani presence in its entirety? This expanded attention would allow us to situate the Battle of Lepanto as a historical continuity of multi-localised anti-Gypsyism. This re-localisation, which is epistemic, aiesthetic, decolonising, is alert not to give pre-eminence to battles and national heroes. This detachment implies the secondary character of “territorialised identities”, as opposed to the anchors and supports that define “deterritorialised identities”.[8] The difference in content and representations between the two can be explained by their disposition. In other words, “ontological-cultural” belonging subsumes belonging to the nation-state or other territorial entity. Roma are Roma, regardless of the place where they are born. It is the family that brings us together, that confers personal and intergenerational belonging, together with the recognition of the group; it is not the nation-state that confers on us being, feeling and being Roma.

The above reflections find part of their possible answers in the work presented by the Roma artist, Manolo Gómez Romero, Lepanto, at the current Venice Biennale 2024. In conversation with the author,[9] we recognised the secrets, and the strength of the decolonising elements intentionally sought and arranged. However, before we dwell on the detachments posed by this specific work, we consider it necessary to situate part of his trajectory, influences and motivations, in order to recognise some of the qualities of his compositions. To recognise his creativities and specific languages, requires bringing to mind his childhood between Morón and El Coronil, towns in the province of Seville (Spain), with his extended family. The family, as a Romani ontological-cultural element, is vital in Manolo Gómez’s proposal. Everyday activities, represented in the mother figure, reflect his earliest concerns. His first artistic games had to do with the reinterpretation of forms, as the author himself points out: “When I was a child, I used to play at painting on the lime walls the shadows made by the clothes my mother used to hang out to dry”. These recreations bring a sweet taste to the author’s memory, which turns to a more bitter tone when he talks about his beginnings: “It’s complicated, and even more so when I stop to think that at the beginning, I had to collect wooden boards from waste containers, to have a surface to paint on. As I had no money, I recycled in my own way. Those were hard times, difficult times, living badly. This also makes you think that success can go very quickly. For me, success means having continuity in your career, which allows me and my family to live with dignity”. After these beginnings, Manolo had an encounter that would be fundamental in his artistic career: he met his wife, Joana, granddaughter of the famous ceramist, Josep Llorens i Artigas: “In the world of art, my wife’s family have an important role to play, they have a strong criteria. They would never let me present just anything. They have taught me a lot; I have learned and continue to learn a lot. I have not studied fine arts, but through my wife’s family, I have met some of the best artists and I have been with them in their workshops, in exhibitions and other meetings. I have talked a lot with them, and in this way I have received a very broad education. After thirty years, I have a personal style, and that is very difficult. I consider that I have found a language, although I still have a lot of research to do; I’m still a child who wants to learn. Octavio Paz said that Miró painted like a five-thousand-year-old child. For example, the painting I did for 8 April (International Romani Day): I didn’t want to represent the typical wagon, or the wheel, so I made an interpretation, a reworking of these symbols”.

 

Manolo Gómez Romero, 8 de abril, Día Internacional del Pueblo Gitano, 2024, acrylic on canvas © Santo Spinelli, private collection 

 

Iván Periáñez Bolaño: According to what you say, I’m surprised by the way in which your works deconstruct and re-elaborate the interpretative superficiality of the still photo, of the passive observer, in how they detach themselves from the limits and corsets of Kantian aesthetics, of sublime contemplation and figurative art. Enunciating yourself on the margins of these sensitive, cognitive, methodological and epistemic frontiers implies a total turnaround. There is here a re-elaborated and complex sense of creativity, other senses of freedom that do not correspond to the meanings of neoliberal freedom. Accordingly, in the conversations we have had, I’ve been very struck by the relationship you establish between freedom, creativity and abstraction. Can you expand a little more on the concurrences between them? Why is it relevant in your work?

Manolo Gómez Romero: It’s not easy to answer this. When I create, I am happy and I feel that freedom. For me, the abstract work has that consideration of greater freedom, both for the one who creates it, and for the one who sees it, feels it, analyses it or reflects on it. Abstraction seems to me to be more interpretative than realism or figurative art. Here, you can interpret. In my case, I have the freedom to express and interpret when I create, and those who look at it have the freedom to interpret what they see, what they perceive, what they feel. Freedom is fundamental. When artists are restricted from saying or doing certain things, then we are not creating with total freedom. When sometimes figurative art or realism is valued more than abstract art, I think that the first human representations in caves were abstract, very symbolic. This is why I don’t want to be pigeonholed into any movement, because this is the freedom of an artist. Freedom is related to learning. You can have the intention since you are very young, but freedom is constructed, elaborated, worked through. There is a common thread connecting my freedom as a child and my creative freedom now as an adult. The common thread is the freedom to be able to create, whether I like it more or less. It is a freedom that keeps transforming. The common thread of freedom is what keeps me firm like bamboo and allows me to move like the wind. Another aspect of freedom that interests me is the possibility for the people who interact with my work to interpret, that it doesn’t come to them all chewed up or ready-made.

IPB: This intercultural and intersubjective dimension that you highlight is interesting, although I understand that it doesn’t start from nothing. That is to say, with respect to the implications you point out for freedom, are they in direct relation to that ontological value of the Romanipen that is the Mestipen?

MGR: I will answer you briefly. When I talk about freedom, it has to do with two aspects: with personal creativity, and with the values of the Romani People, where freedom is a fundamental concept. It also has a sense of humanity, beyond ethnicity or a uniquely Roma issue. I know what I want, to be free to interpret and express. That is the freedom of the Roma. I also understand that freedom for everyone. What I do is Roma in that I am Roma, but it is not that I do it specifically for Roma: I think as a Roma, and I also think as a human being. You have to be receptive to the things that happen in the world, because we are part of the world; you have to have that sensitivity. I am a Roma, and my creations are Roma, but they are made for everyone, for anyone who can use them, who can be helped by them, who can be moved by them, who can feel them. This is not an abstract question: it is valid for Roma and non-Roma. Being a Roma should not function as an armour; I understand it to be the opposite. There are many people, many people in the world who live day by day. We have to have this sensitivity regardless of what identity they have or what culture they belong to.

IPB: Articulating these dimensions and motivations every time you face a painting must be an arduous and complex process. This is part of the uniqueness of your work when it comes to content and ethical orientation. In order to have a broader perspective, it would be interesting for readers to recognise some of the formal characteristics that help you to fit in, to arrange these creative interests.

MGR: I have already mentioned some of these that you call content and ethics: being Roma, my family, creative and interpretative freedom, sensitivity as a human being, training and continuous learning, respect for what others do and what I do, among others. In addition to these, movement and balance are fundamental for the formal questions and for the communication of messages. Freedom, movement and balance are three characteristics of my work: they appear together, they are not separate. They are a constant search. These qualities are configured through abstraction. I consider that they have more freedom here than in figurative art. Another element I want to highlight is the black colour. I play a lot with colours: blues, whites, blacks, reds, sometimes gold to signify details. Both in the process and in the result, colours are very important. In my case, they are related to the many times I think, each time I am going to draw a line and the colour it needs so that, together with the shapes, they produce meanings. They are relevant in my work because they are concerned with how and where I am going to arrange the forms, the volumes, the perspectives, the central theme, and the secondary ones in the space. My interpretation of colours opens up ways for me to think of other possible conjunctions between them, forms and freedom, so that they attend to the particularity of the whole and to the whole itself. If I have to highlight a colour, the use of black is explicit: it is the guiding thread of my work. Black is the representation of the Roma: it represents strength and freedom.

IPB: With these locations, which allow us to learn a little more about your career and your creative interests, I have to ask you about your participation in the Venice Biennale, where your work, Lepanto, is currently on view. Before you tell us about the painting, it might be interesting for readers to know some of the aspects involved in the process: who proposed it to you, how you felt to learn you would be in Venice, how you approach the work, or other aspects you consider important.

MGR: Moritz Pankok, who is the director of the Kai Dikhas Foundation, proposed that I take part in the Biennale. He came to my house because he wanted to do something about Tío Helios Gómez, and we talked about the possibility. Then he told me he wanted to take me to the Venice Biennale, and that we had to give a good, different image. When I told my wife Joana about it, we were very happy, although you also feel the responsibility of wanting to do things well at the most important art event in the world. I was asked at first to make a 4-metre painting, although in the end, the one on display is 2 metres. As for the process, from the moment Moritz confirmed my participation in Venice, I had a period of six months to finish it. He did not set any conditions, I had total freedom; the only thing he asked of me was that it be related to the Battle of Lepanto. Two months before the deadline, he told me that it had to be finished by the end of February or the beginning of March of this year. I had gone ahead of schedule. As soon as I found out I would be at the Biennale, I started to work tirelessly: I researched the historical context and the particular details of the Battle, I reflected on what was there, what was not there, and what I would like to be there. As well as thinking about the dimensions, from the beginning, I thought about what colours and shapes, and what I wanted to tell. I made four paintings in the process. Day and night, I was thinking about colours and composition. I was also thinking about the strong messages I wanted to get across.

IPB: This last thing you say about “what is and what isn’t”, about “the strong messages”, is what struck me most about Lepanto. The previous reflections that appear at the beginning of this text are the product of knowing you and your work, although in this specific case I was surprised by the strength of the content, the reflection and previous work that the composition denotes, its singularities with respect to those exhibited in the Palazzo Bembo and, above all, the decolonising emergencies that can be appreciated if one looks closely at some more significant details. I know, moreover, that these appearances are conscious, premeditated after the process of instruction. Without limiting the possibility for interpretation, what can you tell us about the representations and detachments that appear in Lepanto?

MGR: Exhibiting at the Biennale is special, so from the beginning I thought I wanted to do something different. I did a lot of research on the event. At first, I thought of painting a battle, but I saw that this was not right, it was not what I was looking for or what I wanted to convey. Representing the battle would be the most common thing to do, and I wanted to get away from that. The whole process has been complex. When I thought I had finished it, I asked for a couple of opinions, and after that I spent two whole days thinking about it without drawing anything; this happened with the first and second attempts. I made a third painting; I looked at it from afar, I approached it, and it didn’t convince me; it was missing something. On the fourth attempt, I found what I was looking for. I thought that representing a two-sided battle was no different, so I decided to represent just one ship. This is not a Spanish ship, nor a Holy League or Ottoman ship; this is a Roma ship! And if you look inside, the Roma flag appears on the mast of the ship, a bit faded, above, green and blue. The boat is Roma, the rowers, not the slaves, are Roma, the people who operate the boat are Roma.

IPB: This is ground-breaking! To step outside the frameworks of the nation-state, of national histories and hegemonic representations of them is a decolonising proposal in these spaces, for these environments, in these logics, in this field of production. Romanipen emerges without the need to recount or represent Europeanness.

MGR: Yes, that’s right: I only indicate one boat, and it’s a Roma boat. This is the whole intention. As a symbol, I put the Roma flag on the boat; I don’t put any of the flags of the contenders, neither Spanish nor Turkish. It is almost explicit if one stops to look at the painting in detail: the flag is there. I wanted to highlight other aspects, not the typical ones that have been done for naval battles. I thought of making a ship and having the flag indicate that it was a Roma ship as a way of denouncing two things: one, that Roma were on the ships of both sides, not just those of the Holy League; and two, to denounce that the other part of the story was missing, but the stories of the non-European Roma who were certainly on the Ottoman ships. And I can tell you another detail that seems almost imperceptible, which would be the third element: I wanted a Roma woman to appear. If you look at the front of the ship, it looks like it is ruled by a witch. Well, she is a Roma woman, and I also did this with intention. There are several meanings that can be interpreted: one of them is that in the 16th century, there was the Holy Inquisition in Europe, and Roma women were persecuted as witches. Other aspects that I find interesting have to do with the choice of colours. When I researched the Battle of Lepanto, it was clear to me that black, blue and red would take centre stage over the other colours. For three days, the sea was stained red, which is why it appears everywhere in the painting, because of the blood that was spilt. Red represents the spilt blood of human beings, not only Roma. I also tried various blues, as I read in my research that the sea was rough that day, so it had to be a strong blue. Black is the common thread and can be seen in the composition and in the lines of Lepanto; the boat is black, the Romani woman wears black, the Roma are in black, black is transversal; it is in the sea, and it is in the sky. As I mentioned earlier, black represents creative and interpretative freedom, and the freedom of the Roma.

IPB: Leaving open all the possibilities for reflection that you have offered us in this conversation, I would not like to close without asking you about the research, the projects or the motivations that you have proposed to yourself following your participation in this year’s Biennale.

MGR: As I said, I am constantly training myself. For example, I have been experimenting for some time now with different materials on various supports. I am experimenting with colours, with volumes and shapes, with texture, with perspective, balance and depth, with movement and other aspects that are relevant when it comes to elaborating and arranging the composition. It helps to do these exploratory exercises: one path leads you to other paths, to other possibilities when one investigates. Because after following one trajectory, you think you have achieved something, but you haven’t. You start to create something that seems to be something that you don’t want; you see that you don’t like it, you try again, you transform it, you discard it. Creativity is a very hard path, although it takes you away from pigeonholing. For example, in addition to engravings, I am now drawing on the surface of glasses, on the faces of fans, on other objects that are small, rather than large canvas. This allows me to play, to reflect, to get to know other possibilities in order to continue improving my language. Expressing in small formats is very difficult because you have to communicate, to give a lot of information in a small space. For me, it is part of the creative exercise. That is to say, I keep training and learning continuously, I don’t think that when I make a line, I’m Picasso or Miró. To make a line, you have to think about it thirty times. It’s what we’ve talked about many times: without work, there is no creativity possible, nor possibilities of continuing to improve so that your work is of high quality. As for projects and motivations, being in the Biennale means for me having achieved one of my objectives, although I have other challenges that attract and motivate me. In a more immediate way, one of them would be to make the poster for the Seville Flamenco Biennial. I also hope to be able to put on a good exhibition to commemorate the six hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the Roma people in Spain.

 

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[1] Periáñez Bolaño, Iván: Cosmosonoridades: cante-gitano y canción-gyu. Epistemologías del Sentir, Ediciones Akal, Madrid, 2023, p.360.

[2] Ibid., pp.44-45.

[3] Dwyer, O. J., and J.P. Jones III: “White socio-spatial epistemology”, in: Social and Cultural Geography, 1(2), 2000, pp.209-222.

[4] Marsh, Adrian: “No Promised Land”: History, Historiography and the Origins of the Gypsies, (PhD dissertation), University of Greenwich, London, 2008, p.295.

[5] Periáñez-Bolaño 2023, Op.cit., p.11.

[6] Military coalition formed by Spain, the Republic of Venice, the Papal States, the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Savoy, and the Order of Malta.

[7] Periáñez-Bolaño 2023, Op.cit., pp.44-45.

[8] Ibid., p.335.

[9] For this text, discussions with the author took place in June and July 2024.

 

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Iván Periáñez Bolaño holds a PhD with International Mention in Economics, Business and Social Sciences (Anthropology) from the University of Seville (2019). He is currently a lecturer at the University of Seville. He is also a lecturer in the International Doctoral Programme in History, Art and Languages at the Pablo de Olavide University (Seville). He is coordinator of Romani Critical Studies in the Master’s degree programme in Anthropology at the University of Seville. He has received the Extraordinary Doctorate Award (2021), the Andalusian Roma Award for Research Excellence (2023), and the Award for Merit in Social Science Research (2022), among others. He has been coordinator and chief researcher in the European project, “Bernó_Strategies” (2018-2020), for the defence and representation of the Roma People and Culture. He is researcher in the project, “Multiculturality through Art” (2014), and also in the project, “The semantics of tolerance and (anti-)racism: public bodies and civil society in comparative perspective (TOLERACE)” (2010-2013), of the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union for Research Excellence. He has been awarded several grants for international stays in the Netherlands, Portugal and Morocco. He has been a member of the Advisory Board of the XXII Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla (2021, 2022). He is a member of the advisory committee of several academic conferences, as well as a reviewer of several national and international scientific journals. He has published articles, book chapters and books, the most recent entitled, Cosmosonoridades: cante-gitano y canción-gyu. Epistemologías del Sentir (2023, Ediciones Akal).