Guinovart: vital references

Josep Guinovart (1927-2007), one of the greatest exponents of the Catalan and Spanish avant-garde art of the second half of the 20th century, embodies like few others the figure of the artist in constant mutation.

Guinovart comes from the profession of painter. His father was a gilder and his uncles were wall painters. He grew up among paints, colors, brushes and boards. These were the first references for a young artist. But throughout his career, Guinovart added other references with which he was in dialogue intermittently throughout his life and without which the exuberance and lushness of his production would not be explained.

The exhibition Guinovart. Vital references , curated by Maria Guinovart and with the collaboration of the Fundació Espai Guinovart d’Agramunt, delves into these references that have become vital in Guinovart’s work and proposes a visual and conceptual dialogue between the artist’s works and some selected works of his most direct references: Mir, Nonell, Gimeno, Palència but also and above all, Picasso, Dalí and Miró. Great references of the artist to which we must add, as his own stamp, a constant reference: the environment, the ochres of the wheat and dry stone landscapes of Agramunt and the blues of the sea of ​​Castelldefels.

Works by Muixart, Tapies, Aleu, Mercader, Cuixart, Tharrats, Nonell, Mir, Gimeno, Palència, Dalí, Picasso and Miró accompany the works, paintings and sculptures, of Guinovart in addition to documentation – press clippings, publications, graphic work, photographs… – in an exhibition proposal that develops a singular itinerary through the artist’s extensive career.

Vital references

The discovery of Romanesque art, and especially the paintings of the apses of the churches of the Vall de Boí, marked his first works. Guinovart was part of the short-lived Grup Taüll (1955), together with Marc Aleu, Modest Cuixart, Jordi Mercadé, Jaume Muixart, Joan Josep Tharrats and Antoni Tàpies. At that time, all of them were young artists who wanted to transform art in Catalonia and who would end up, each evolving with their own style, forming the avant-garde of Catalan art in the mid-20th century.

Before that, however, Guinovart had looked at and been imbued with the gypsies of Nonell, the landscapes of Gimeno or Joaquim Mir and the works of Benjamin Palència. These artists would be the first foundations of his painting: from his first oil paintings, landscapes of Castelldefels or Agramunt, but also from later, fully abstract works, in which he distills the essence of all of them.

Guinovart’s great references will be Picasso and also Miró and Dalí with whom he maintained a more direct relationship. Guinovart, in his constant mutation, will also experiment with surrealist iconographies or be inspired by the most Dalinian landscapes such as Cap de Creus, making his own readings and proposals. He will also drink from the apparent compositional simplicities of Miró’s work or experiment with Picasso’s cubist forms. Guinovart will reflect on all of them and especially on their works and establish very particular dialogues with them in his constant and never-ending process of artistic experimentation, almost as homages.

Finally, the exhibition leads to the most personal references, more intrinsically linked to the artist’s life and where he recognizes himself: the profession of painter, so present in the work Brotxa Bandera (1970), and his most immediate surroundings, Castelldefels and Agramunt.

The exhibition presents Guinovart from the beginning and from the last stages: the realistic, expressionist, magical, materialist, informalist, abstract Guinovart…; but above all, it highlights the endless research and constant experimentation with techniques, supports and materials and the permanent dialogue with tradition and with the backgrounds that most directly marked them.

The exhibition closes with the screening of the tribute cantata dedicated to him by Carlos Santos “Gui-no-vart” (2007) performed by the Coral d’Avui. A nod to the artists who have found Guinovart and his work a reference, also of inspiration and new tradition.

As described by Raül Garrigasait in the presentation text of the exhibition ( Tradició , 2018): Painters have an advantage over writers: for them, sensuality is not the hypothetical goal of art but its premise. From the very beginning they operate with pores full of reality, with the ancient wisdom of the total man, magic and matter and word fused. Creating tradition, for them, is rubbing against the places and universes of other artists until they ignite them and see them sparkle.

Guinovart Year

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the death of Josep Guinovart. Promoted by the Guinovart Foundation and with the support of several institutions, the commemoration of the Guinovart Year has been promoted: a series of programs that aim to review, learn about or discover some of the many faces of the prolific artist.

Throughout the Guinovart Year, nearly 20 exhibitions, of very diverse dimensions and themes, are planned on the artist and his rich and varied work and career, most of them curated by Maria Guinovart, the artist’s daughter. The commemoration, which began at the end of 2017, will conclude with a large retrospective that the Vila Casas Foundation will dedicate to him at the Espai Volart, from January to May 2019.

http://www.espaiguinovart.cat/descarregues/Programacio-any-Guinovart.pdf

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