The word 'vestige' appears in several of the titles of the works that make up the anthology of Albert Ràfols-Casamada (Barcelona, 1923-2009). It can be seen at the Nau Gaudí in Mataró and the Museu del Càntir d'Argentona from the Lluís Bassat collection to celebrate the centenary of the birth of one of the most outstanding Catalan artists of the 20th century. Painting as a vestige of the reality outside and also inside, or, better, painting as a window that communicates and separates them at the same time. Through this opening, the lights and images, on one side and the other, mix and, at times, are reflected.
Bernat Puigdollers, curator of Any Albert Ràfols-Casamada and Maria Girona have drawn attention to the importance of windows in these works. In the same way, the exhibition curated by Núria Poch leaves traces of how the artist, through his different stages, evolved in the tracking of these vestiges, first from a figuration clearly influenced by Picasso and Braque, to later travel other paths through the shadow of the impressionists, of constructivism or, more decidedly, of informalism. Ràfols constantly leaves a trace of a reality that he sees and, at the same time, is a sign or preview of what he envisions and imagines, creating an uncertain space turned into an abstract landscape. In the words of Puigdollers: “His language of him becomes more and more imprecisely precise”, each time it becomes more fragile “until it reaches the limits of signification”.
The anthology is a clear example of what Juan Eduardo Cirlot defined as "the poetics of matter" that would characterize a whole brilliant generation of Catalan artists, which included Tàpies, Guinovart, Modest Cuixart or Hernández Pijuan, among others. A generation that Lluís Bassat tirelessly claims against what he denounces as indifference from public institutions. The vindication that the centenary of Ràfols and Maria Girona must suppose, with a wide program of activities, is added to those that have been done lately in the Pedrera or the itinerancy of the fund of the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español de Cuenca. Along these lines, the Vila Casas Foundation will open in September an exhibition dedicated to Maria Girona curated by Victòria Combalia and Àlex Susanna.
It is not the first time that part of the hundreds of Ràfols-Casamada paintings that are part of the collection of the Carmen Foundation have been exhibited
Ràfols Casamada Works from the Bassat collection. Commissioner: Núria Poch. Gaudí ship Mataró Until September 24. Cantir Museum. Argentona Until February 26
SILENCE IS ALSO A REVOLUTION
Poet and art theorist, as well as a painter, throughout his many years of work, Pic Adrian (Moinesti, Romania, 1910-Barcelona, 2008) built a subjective alphabet, as is often the case with those who obsessively relapse into lines, symbols and signs. Thus they search for his grammar on chromatic backgrounds that also abound in the creation of a landscape, an atmosphere or a voice. A voice, in Adrian's case, that wants to be the closest thing to silence, because following Aristotle, he is convinced that in the most essential way the form that defines it already exists.
The pieces that Adrian painted in Spain, a few years after settling in Barcelona, are built on this tension between the minimal gestures that seek to represent the global – “each painting is an infinite work”, the artist affirmed. He arrived in the fifties with his wife Alice Rubinstein, both Jews, following the advice of Pau Casals, with whom he had met in Prades and Bucharest, after having tried his luck in Paris and Israel.
The faint, trembling or vibrant lines, the irruption of geometric shapes and biomorphic traces are the signs that call to the immensity of silence in compositions that –a new paradox– frequently evoke musical scores. It is no coincidence that music criticism was one of his main occupations when he arrived in Barcelona, where he established contact with some of the most renowned musicians, such as Xavier Montsalvatge or Josep Mestres-Quadreny. As he was also very close to the prolific group of painters who, like him, explored the possibilities of informalism. In the same way as in Paris and New York, he had not had any problems reaching the artists that most interested him at the time.
However, although several tendencies of abstraction are identifiable in his work, Adrian's ability to find his own expressive path has been highlighted, which he himself named Principal Art and which he even tried to develop by creating the group Essentialist Tendency, which he exhibited. in Barcelona in 1967 and in Madrid in 1969. His first individual exhibition was held at the Syra Gallery in the Catalan capital, to continue showing his work in France, Italy, Germany and Norway. Although it is part of prominent international collections, it has rarely been seen. For this reason, the Zlotowski gallery in Paris and the Marc Domènech gallery in Barcelona are now bringing back a work that makes it clear that silence is also a revolution.
Peak Adrian Paintings from the 60s. Marc Domènech Gallery, Barcelona. Until March 16
