"MY LIBRARY" is a multimedia installation made in the C.P.I. Julia Becerra Malvar, a primary and secondary school in Barrantes/Ribadumia (Pontevedra) a small town, about 5,000 residents, in the northwest of Spain, in the region of Galicia, which was commissioned in 2015-2017 to Fernando Viscasillas, visual artist and secundary Art Educator in this school, to celebrate the school's 50th anniversary. The excellent collaboration of the caretaker José Martínez, without whom it would have been very difficult to complete this installation successfully, should be highlighted. The space is the hall of the library. Books hanging from the ceiling, a desk, an umbrella (Satie) and a chair hanging from the wall, large number of drawings, paintings, old photographs, all the walls written like books, artists, writers, Patrick Modiano, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Hemingway, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Candida Höfer, John Cages, Ubu, Alfred Jarry, Abramovic, Apollinaire, Arnulf Rainer...... pictures of libraries from Oxford University, Manchester, Liverpool,Yale, Clinton Fundation..... wooden boxes hanging from iron chains, two old cabinets painted with graffiti......a fusion within culture, art, entwine to offer studients, families, teachers and visitors an unspoilt and surprising artistic landscape to create a charming enviroment........” In 2018, Fernando Viscasillas presented this project to the Art Fair "ART ROOMS" in London and was selected among the 75 international artists chosen among one thousand one hundred and fifty submitted.
Professor Sebastian Díaz, YALE UNIVERSITY
Dear Professor Fernando Viscasillas: First of all, I would like to congratulate such a distinguished school on its upcoming 50th Anniversary. As the great educator Mr. Faustino Sarmiento said: "Man, people, nation, state, everything is in the humble benches of the school", or our great Cuban poet José Martí: "A school is a forge of spirits". In your words and in your purpose I can appreciate the great love that you and the other teachers and students of the school feel for your institution. What you and your student collaborators have set as your purpose is commendable. Dear Fernando, I am pleasantly surprised that you have considered me for your magnificent project as I consider myself light years away from what is considered a professional photographer, but I give you my word of honour that I will do my best to take the photographs you need of the second largest university library in the world by number of volumes in print, 15 million, spread over twenty buildings on campus and the fifth largest library collection, by size, in the United States. Considerations aside, I wish to congratulate you on your abundant and extraordinary artistic output. Your students and colleagues should be very proud to have you as one of their major contributors. Please accept my fraternal embrace and again my congratulations to the school's distinguished community of students, faculty and staff. Professor Sebastian Diaz Yale University 4 July 2015
On 23 Aug 2016 2:07, <S………………> wrote: Dear friend Fernando, First of all, my sincere apologies for not having answered your e-mails with due priority, family matters have kept me permanently busy and consequently away from the computer. Thank you for taking the time and dedication to send me photographs of the mural work with which you and your distinguished educational institution are celebrating the 50th anniversary of its foundation. I must congratulate you for such an impressive exhibition, I really think it was worth the wait to admire your beautiful and illustrative artistic creation, it would be an arduous task to say which of the 15 sections is more impressive and/or admirable than another, the whole in itself, inseparable in pieces, constitutes the expression of the message that you, its creator, projects and communicates. However, if I may be so bold and daring, I would like to make special mention of the section dedicated to the great American composer John Milton Cage, the section dedicated to the great French post-impressionist painter Pierre Bonnard is also admirable, and finally, without detracting from the merits of the whole collection, I would like to mention the work dedicated to the great French novelist and Nobel Prize for Literature 2014, Jean Patrick Modiano. In your mural professor Fernando, pictorial work and thoughts come together to communicate messages of creative rebellion, incorformity, creativity, love, tolerance, respect and understanding of the human being and his work. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to you for having considered me, without my having any merit to do so, a collaborator of your project. I must point out with great humility that my slight participation at a distance meant more than a contribution to your work, it was a great opportunity for learning that invited me to review ideas, concepts, works and masters. Thank you very much. I wish you continued personal and professional success. Sebastian Diaz Yale University
Interview with Viscasillas on RTVG, Radio Televisión of Galicia, on his return from the London exhibition. He was accompanied by his writer friend Emilio Pallarés Álvarez, a collaborator of the artist in several projects and and ex teacher at the school.
Drawings by pupils in the 2nd year of Primary School, 6 years old, with the collaboration of the teacher Betty. "The chair hanging on the wall is for a lift or to see the pictures (Iris) or for the bad kids who hit (Adriana) or for the punished (Hector) and for those who want to read on the ceiling (Samuel and Joel)".
Samuel writes: "How strange, but how nice! I don't know why they hung the books and there were a lot of things and I'm happy because of the colours. What I liked the most was the ghost cupboard and I like it because of the colours and the drawing."
Joaquín likes the ceiling because it has books on top and the pictures because they are old and the letters next to the library, but above all he likes the books because they have stories.
Andrea liked the chair with books hanging on the wall and the big wardrobe because of the colours and the cool letters
"What is the hanging desk for? For punished children to study alone (Adriana) or for children who shout (Jacobo) or for those who bring toys to school (it is forbidden)".
Viscasillas with Isaac, English bookseller of "El GRIFILM" in URUEÑA, a small village in Valladolid, Spain, which became a “Villa del Libro”, “The book village”, years ago with its 12 bookshops and 6 museums for the little more than 180 residents.