The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporany Arts, San Francisco, Federico García Lorca Foundation and the Federico García Lorca Center present a group exhibition Viaje a la luna (A trip to the moon) inspired by the only film script written by the renowned Spanish poet, playwright, and artist Federico García Lorca. Featuring both national and international artists, the exhibition builds upon themes explored in the script, as well as the social and political context of its creation in the late 1920s. The exhibition draws a parallel to the present, the 2020s, with politically far-right nationalist movements and fascist ideologies once again on the rise, causing the world to become more insular and uncertain.

Lorca wrote the script in New York in 1929 after a series of conversations with the Mexican artist Emilio Amero. Production began in Mexico City in 1932, with a crew that included notable Mexican artists of the time, such as Lola Álvarez Bravo and her husband, Manuel Álvarez Bravo. However, filming was halted after Lorca’s murder by the Spanish Nationalist Army in 1936. The project faded into obscurity, becoming yet another unfinished work and enigma in history.

The exhibition speculates on what the film might have been, establishing a dialogue between a group of contemporary artists and the fragments of Lorca’s life and screenplay. For Lorca, art was both a refuge and a means to forge an identity, expressing his politics and his deeply personal, often distressed search for love—an indirect reflection of his homosexuality. Through historical and contemporary artworks, the exhibition revolves around the question: What would the film have been like?

Viaje a la Luna, for the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporany Arts, San Francisco, was possible thanks to the invaluable support of Lisa Bransten an also The Jenni Grain Fountain.