(This article was published in La Vanguardia on Wednesday, May 28, 1980)
There are prizes and prizes, of course, and those awarded by the Fundació Jaume I have for us —from Salses to Guardamar, from Fraga to Maó— a special emotional meaning: they are destined for a person and an institution “that deserve the thanks of our village". The statement may seem vague, difficult to specify. In practice, and until now, nobody would know how to dispute the verdicts of the jury: the names of Dr. Trueta, the poet Gassol and the publisher Casacuberta, such as the "Institut" and the "Obra Cultural Balear", constitute firm references of a lucid criterion and at the same time pragmatic. Will there be someone who risks putting them into discussion? Of course, they remain in the air of a possible debate
Other “thanks”. It would be a bad sign if not. But the orientation is fair. This year, the "Jaume I" awards have gone to the Montserrat Abbey. Even the most recalcitrant indigenous anticlericals — like me, for example — we have to recognize the “merits” of the Monastery during the long Francoist period: refuge, trench, platform, its balance is eminently positive. It will not be possible to understand historically the timid "Catalan resistance", cultural and non-cultural, without mentioning Montserrat. There will be no shortage of those who say the opposite: he will be a “défroqué” monk from the same house. It doesn't matter... And Alfaro?
I am not in the habit of deceiving anyone, and I immediately confess my unconditional friendship with Andreu Alfaro. I write this paper as “interested party”. I have already lost the memory of when we became friends: time, for me, is a nebula. And furthermore, we are “countrymen”: with a countrymanship that goes beyond the geographical, to connect with identifications of collective consciousness, which have ended up being as resounding as they are simple. You cannot always agree with Alfaro, because Alfaro is a man of expeditious conclusions and drastic arguments, and one tends more to scruples and nuances. But that is secondary. And I hope, with everything, the unanimous opinion that Alfaro is a great "plastic artist". I don't go into comparisons.
In art, as in literature, as in other levels of creation, everything is "incommensurable." In principle, at least. There are no objective scales —they do exist, although on a different scale— to decide who is “better” than who. What is easily intuited is the "greatness" of some and the "mediocrity" of others. Andreu Alfaro belongs to the family of the “greats”. His work is already scattered around the world: in museums, on facades, on streets and in squares. Alfaro is still young.
And this is not the praise—the only praise—that proceeds here. Alfaro is a "militant" artist. I am afraid that he will reproach me for the adjective, Alfaro proclaims himself a “beautician”, and he does it with absolute self-confidence: he has been doing it since the time when all progressives considered themselves obliged to be “éngagé”. And as “engaged” as Andreu Alfaro has been and is! The only thing is that he has understood that his "militancy" —very personal, but nationally clear— did not contradict merely "aesthetic" calculation or adventure. I do not know how to handle the vocabulary of art critics in use, and I refrain from qualifying Alfaro's work on this side. Perhaps there are those who call it formalist: his sculptures, in any case, are not “figurative” in the usual meaning of the term. His geometric manipulations, however, resist "abstraction." There is, in them, a vibrant symbolic content, and through it, explicit designations to concrete reality. The literary addition of the titles makes unequivocal what could pass for a simple technical lucubration. At the end of the day, plastic arts, like music, need the word to exclude ambiguity. And the “four bars” give so much of themselves!
Because, if I remember correctly, one of Andreu Alfaro's first "activist" participations was, on dates already remote, that I don't know how to specify, but in the sullen clandestinity of Francoism, when he outlined a circle crossed by four vertical lines. Throughout the Valencian Country, this drawing was multiplied in some graffiti that affirmed "Parlem valenciàl". "Parlem valencià!", then, was equivalent to "Parlem catalá!". And the graffiti was done with brushes and tar: the colored aerosol was not on the market. Then more things came. I doubt that anyone, like Alfaro, has known how to get so much plastic party to the "four bars": the "Catalan power", the trophies of the Premis October, the four parallel and staggered sickles that the ephemeral first Consell of the Valencian pseudo pre-autonomy assumed... And more. And without the " four bars" but with a thoughtful sense of adherence to the "claims" in process. For him, those claims are clear: they jump the false border of the river of La Sènia and jump the sea. They cover what, in a harassed nomenclature, we call “Països Catalans”. Enough.
Alfaro is much more than the sculptor who, in his work, has assumed that "militancy". He is a normal sculptor: valid in places where nobody knows what the “Països Catalans” could be. His sculpture —a set of plates, or rods, eloquent volumes— is inserted into a universal line of creation. But what the "Jaume I" award wanted to underline today is that dedication of the artist to a —called— national vocation, and in which he never failed. Above the Ebro they know it. Not as much as would be convenient, perhaps. Banyoles, the Fundació Miró, Tárrega? It is still little. Here in the south, in the Valencian Country, Andreu Alfaro has given his best as an “artist”: here, without giving up his inclement domicile, without abdicating his convictions, without being silent. Alfaro is a glorious charlatan, and his “independence from him” allows him to be. He does not have a party card, and it is an advantage that I share. Those of us without a party can give ourselves the pleasure —or the luxury— of being impertinent. And what is "freedom" if not the affirmation of "impertinence"? Perhaps in the Abbey of Montserrat they think otherwise. The Church is the Church... In short: I am happy with a "grateful" Alfaro. He deserved it.
