Juana la Loca (1981) invokes one of the most mythologised figures in Spanish history — the queen Joanna I of Castile, known as “the Mad” — and transforms her into a vehicle for the queer, feminist, and transgressive energies that characterised La Movida Madrileña. Costus’s recasting of historical and popular culture figures was systematic: they found in figures like Juana a resonance with their own moment, with the liberation and excess of post-Franco Spain.
Costus — Juan Carrero Galofré and Enrique Naya Igueravide — were among the defining artists of La Movida Madrileña, the social and cultural movement that transformed Spanish life after the Franco dictatorship. Working in Madrid from the late 1970s until Carrero Galofré’s death from AIDS in 1989, they produced a body of work that combined pop aesthetics, Mediterranean chromatic intensity, gay male imagery, and an irrepressible visual energy.
This work is sold and forms part of a private collection. It is presented here as part of the Imago Dei Gallery archive of significant works by Costus.
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