The work of Helios Gomez (1905-1956), an important representative of the European artistic avant-garde of the early 20th century, is little known in this country, although there are important connections to Berlin. Born into a Roma family in Seville in 1905, Gomez devoted himself to art and political activism at an early age: as an anarchist and later as a communist, he fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939); in his newspaper illustrations and revolutionary prints, he criticised the political conditions of the time. At the same time, his life and work open up a pan-European perspective on the art movement of the time: persecuted by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, Gomez goes into exile in 1927 – from Paris via Brussels, Amsterdam, Vienna and Moscow to Berlin – where he comes into contact with Symbolism, the Dada Constructivists and Soviet Productivism. In all these places, he worked with groups associated with the internationalism of the workers’ movement, and of all these stations, Berlin was undoubtedly special for Gomez. His “German Drawings” were printed in the national and international press. And “Ira”, Irene Weber, his friend and companion on his adventures, was also German.
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1930 In 1930, the International Workers’ Association (IIA) in Berlin published his first masterpiece, the album “Días de Ira (Days of Rage)”. In it, Gomez explicitly presents himself as Roma (Gitano) and, following the ideas of Frans Masereel, develops his graphics as a means of expression of revolutionary movements.
A project by Moritz Pankok and Álvaro Garreaud in collaboration with collaboration with the Kai Dikhas Foundation, the ERIAC European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture, the Documentation Centre of German Sinti and Roma and the Instituto Cervantes. Supported by the HKF Hauptstadtkulturfonds, IMPACT and the Kai Dikhas Foundation.