"Mythological": Alfredo Sábat's exhibition invites you to delve into the secrets of legends

Some artists create such a strong visual identity and imprint that, over time, their work becomes part of the collective imagination. Alfredo Sábat has an extensive career as an illustrator and cartoonist, and is also part of a family lineage linked to the craft, a passion he shared not only with his father, the legendary Hermenegildo Sábat , but that also dates back to his great-grandfather and the work he did for the magazine Caras y Caretas.

For his part, Alfredo Sábat has become a representative of today's popular culture , especially when he transforms news, icons and characters into images.

However, the works gathered in Mitológicas , recently inaugurated at the Casa Nacional del Bicentenario , are an opportunity to discover another facet, where fantasy merges with realism and the talents of Pre-Raphaelitism or the metaphysical painting of the early 20th century , which left its mark on history thanks to artists such as Carlo Carrà and Giorgio de Chiricoo.

These flashes are reflected in paintings like "Hippolyta," where the deep green of the sky is related to "Piazza," an enigmatic painting by the Greek-born artist and part of the National Museum of Fine Arts. But unlike the works of the former, in Sábat's works, the human presence is direct and absolute in every scene.

Hippolyta was queen of the Amazons, and standing on the throne of history, rather than telling it, she decided to rewrite it. These warriors lived beyond the rules established for women and were accountable to no one. This is why, erected on the bust of a man , this heroine seems to tell the world that she is not willing to obey or yield.

In this version, Sábat "inverts the signs of power" and shows the character "ready for battle but dominated by an attitude of calm." The ancient world surrenders at her feet, while she contemplates the future.

It's important to highlight that since each of the works in the exhibition contains so much information, there are posters with images and QR codes in the room that lead anyone interested to delve into the myths and legends behind them.

Another dazzling figure is that of Selene, who, as curator Cristina Santa Cruz 's text details, is the goddess of the moon, and every night she crosses the sky mounted on her white steed, watching over dreams, secrets and silences.

"In her figure , the passage of time and the promise of eternity are intertwined . Her light, shifting and incidental, has been a mirror of the human soul for as long as language has existed," a description that accompanies the hypnotic figure of a woman close to the great figures of cinema from Hollywood's golden age.

Seductive and seemingly "feminine" (pointed toes, crossed legs, impeccable hairdo) , she is the owner of her own imprint and an equestrian representation to which we are accustomed even today, where men are the protagonists of the scenes, an antiquated vision of the hero.

Alfredo also introduces Circe, Ulysses and the Sirens, Pandora, the Sibyl, and Oedipus and the Sphinx, a tale revisited time and again by artists throughout history, such as Gustave Moreau in 1864, who portrayed the duo – both condemned to their irrevocable destiny no matter how hard they tried to avoid it – and which in Sábat's version is immersed in a mountainous landscape with a much more human-like Sphinx except for its wings and tail.

In Mythologies, a gathering of goddesses, heroes, sorceresses, and beings is created, sharing their stories, subject to fantasy and narrative . As the text states, "As in every myth, what is narrated here never happened... but it always happens."

It is the repetition of the story that is passed on from mouth to mouth and from generation to generation, captivating regardless of time or territory.

The tragic endings that so often appear in these myths as a lesson or warning are not directly present in the paintings, since Sabat gives the characters another vision , where tension barely appears, as for example the case of Diana and Actaeon, whose eventful encounter (Actaeon discovers the goddess taking a bath and, ashamed of the fact, decides to punish the hunter and transform him into a deer, being later devoured by her dogs) is not the focus of attention, but Alfredo chooses to portray them as a couple from the 18th or 19th century, outlining signs of the outcome through details such as the horns on Actaeon's helmet, while Diana poses behind, with a hand on his shoulder, dressed in black. Perhaps a woman in mourning.

Unlike the ephemeral element that Sábat finds in his illustrations for different media, something he humorously argued in a Ted Talk ten years ago, where what counts is what you see the day the paper comes out and then on to something else, here he exalts the immortality of history.

If with illustration his task is to read a text, interpret it, and translate it graphically, here he doubles the setting and devours the great myths to expel them into the 21st century, allowing himself to be carried away by their gaze and their whims.

Mythological works by Alfredo Sábat at the Casa Nacional del Bicentenario (Riobamba 985), Wednesdays through Sundays from 3 to 8 pm, free until August 3.