The Project of Lorca-themed Giant Figures

For now, it remains unclear whether Federico García Lorca came to Tarragona with Salvador Dalí. Lorca stated that he came ‘without telling anyone,’ and in the interview given to him by journalist Lluis de Salvador, he did not mention coming with Dalí. Cipriano Rivas Cherif, the theatre director who had already premiered works by Don Ramón del Valle Inclán and Lorca’s “Yerma,” as well as Lope de Vega’s “La Dama boba,” which Lorca had adapted, informed the journalists and public awaiting the poet, who were gathered to pay tribute to him at Casa Marshall in Barcelona, that Lorca would not be attending because he had gone to Tarragona with Salvador Dalí. However, Lorca does not state in the interview that he was accompanied by anyone. Conversely, Salvador Dalí, in his last interview with historian Ian Gibson, stated that he came to Tarragona with Lorca in 1935, for Santa Tecla.

Joking among friends, with historian and journalist Jordi Rovira, we discussed the idea of creating giant figures to represent the two artists. And since ideas, if not grounded in reality, are of little use, I created prototypes of Lorca’s and Dalí’s heads, so that these works could serve as the basis for the giant figures. They are in black and white because I based them on photographs from that era.

Not long ago, replicas of the city’s giant figures, which I found highly amusing, were paraded through Tarragona during festivities. They possessed a touch of ingenuity that brought them closer to ‘Naïf’ works, and, though unrelated, Niki de Saint Phalle’s delightful “Nanas” came to mind. They were the giant figures of the Tarragona Gypsy Association. I inquired who had made them, and I was introduced to the creators, two young members of the association: Miquel Ximenis and Joan Gutiérrez. I then stated that if the giant figures were ever to be made, I wished for them to be created by these two.

When I had to dismantle my workshop three years ago, Jordi Rovira agreed to become the custodian of the prototypes of the artists’ heads, and they found their resting place at the Royal Archaeological Society of Tarragona, of which he was the President. Last Saturday, as part of the commemorative events for the 80th anniversary of the poet’s visit/visits to Tarragona, “LORCATS TGN 80,” the noble doors of the Archaeological Society (RSAT) were opened to inaugurate an exhibition dedicated to Jordi Rovira’s publications, and to two projects that, due to lack of funding, remain shelved: “The Giant Figures of Lorca and Dalí,” and the “Commemorative Medal of Augustus’s Bimillenary.” Despite the Archaeological Society being located on a main floor of Carrer Major, public attendance was constant during the three hours the institution was open to the public; it will be open again for the “Lorca Route.” Friends and adversaries alike paraded through the premises, reliving anecdotes and memories surrounding a character as courageous as he was controversial, such as Jordi Rovira.