The Girona Art Museum inaugurates on Friday, October 27 at 6 p.m. the first of six exhibitions and events that will take place in Girona as part of the commemoration of the 90th birthday of the artist Dom\u00e8nec Fita.<\/p>\n\n
The Fita Foundation, with the support of the Girona Provincial Council, Girona City Council, the Bishopric of Girona and the Generalitat de Catalunya, has promoted the commemoration; under the heading of FITA90, six exhibitions have been scheduled in different institutions and cultural centers in Girona with the aim of explaining and disseminating Fita’s enormous artistic production, as well as the publication of a commemorative book.<\/p>\n\n
The exhibition at the Museum of Art, entitled Divorces with Tradition,<\/em> focuses on the artist’s creative process and presents more than seventy works, among which the iron sculpture of Sant Andreu stands out and a selection of self-portraits, drawings and sculptures as well as models and preparatory drawings of some of his commissioned works.<\/p>\n\n The exhibition organized by the Art Museum, with the collaboration and impetus of the Fita Foundation, explores one of the many aspects of Fita’s artistic practice and proposes a comparative itinerary between the exercise and the work, between the idea and the materialization, between the process and the result. At the same time, it is accompanied by a series of texts, reflections and opinions of the artist himself that more clearly expose his thinking and exemplify this other aspect, theorizing about his own work and about the profession and art. Another facet of the artist, inseparable from his career. <\/p>\n\n One of the main themes of the exhibition is the self-portrait. From the beginning, Fita has been a self-portraitist, and he defends this theme as a form of exploration and artistic practice. From the first self-portraits, in which he shows himself to the world as a painter following the classical forms of the great masters, to the serial exercises of portraits, pictorial or sculptural, that evolve from realism to abstraction. <\/p>\n\n Self-portraits and reflections \u2013 notes and ideas \u2013 which are also collected in a large part of the exhibition, where drawings, notes and above all work notebooks are shown. Since its beginnings, Fita has been filling notebooks and notebooks with thoughts and drawings. All of them are preserved, perfectly ordered, and are being transcribed and digitized by the Fita Foundation. They are a rich testimony to the artist’s way of working, his methodology and systematics. <\/p>\n\n The portraits \u2013 works, blogs and drawings \u2013 are presented in contrast to the commissioned work projects. The sculpture of Saint Benedict for the Monastery of Montserrat (1961) and the sculpture of Abbot Oliva for Vic make it clear that Fita draws from his own sources to capture the faces and forms in the sculptures of both characters. But also, that he draws from the sources of tradition and that his work, in the commissioned work on religious themes, involves a deep study of the subject and a research on the materials. The exhibition presents several models \u2013 in paper, in ceramic and in plaster \u2013 of both sculptures, in a clear commitment to presenting the artist’s creative process. <\/p>\n\n It is in this line that a singular work project is also presented: the project for a sculptural group for the fa\u00e7ade of the Apostles of Girona Cathedral. An idea that Fita had in mind since 1986 and that he would end up materializing, albeit as a project, eight years later, as a proposal to present in the exhibition Fita 50 years of integrated art<\/em> , held at the Palau Robert in 1994. An imaginary commission that had the intention of being, and turns out to be, an example of the theory, defended by Fita, of the integration of modern art into the preceding architecture. The drawings and plaster models of the project are preserved, which testify to the complexity and the conceptualization work of a whole work. <\/p>\n\n Confronted with this project, a selection of Fita’s sculptures are presented, from 1972 to the 2000s, which again relate and show the interactions between free work and commissioned work, and make evident the artist’s interest in exploring various materials, shapes and volumes, far removed from fashions and trends.<\/p>\n\n The exhibition closes with a more recent work, from 2005, in which the religious theme and the contribution in the field of art for the renewal of symbols and forms are very clearly united; works that exemplify the divorces with tradition that are constant in Fita.<\/p>\n\n Dom\u00e8nec Fita has turned 90. This has motivated the Fita Foundation, with the support of the institutions and under the curatorship and coordination of the architect Joaquim Bover<\/strong> , patron of the Fita Foundation, to organize, under the heading of FITA 90, a set of six exhibitions, which has had the complicity and work of the respective host centers in Girona: the Art Museum, the Valvi Foundation, the House of Culture, the Fita Foundation itself, and also the Auditorium Palau de Congressos and the La Merc\u00e8 Cultural Center. <\/p>\n\n Dom\u00e8nec Fita’s long artistic career has facilitated a numerous and varied production, enriched by the practice of all disciplines and intense work. Covering this production in a single exhibition would require a lot of time and more space. The initiative of programming six joint exhibitions by the Fita Foundation allows us to explain more and better the thematic diversity, of materials, techniques and resources used, constant spirit of research and work, permanent struggle with chance and claim of his creative freedom. <\/p>\n\n The intention is to explain Fita’s work, in a transversal way, and to grasp the artist’s way of working and his use of materials, as well as the diversity of topics covered and the resources and techniques he has embraced throughout his long career. Each space focuses on a theme or an area; a proposal that proposes a physical itinerary to draw Fita’s artistic itinerary. The six exhibitions have a single catalogue<\/strong><\/a> that collects the six exhibition proposals and helps to highlight the unity between them all. <\/p>\n\n The first of the exhibitions to open its doors is that of the Girona Art Museum, and the rest of the centers will follow.<\/p>\n\n The Valvi Foundation<\/strong> , on November 6<\/strong> , will host the exhibition “Labyrinth of Freedom through the Nude”,<\/strong> a proposal that focuses on Fita’s academic training and classical references and, at the same time, on breaking with this tradition, to reach abstraction through paintings, drawings and sculptures, with the common denominator of the nude.<\/p>\n\n From November 16,<\/strong> two more new exhibitions will open at the Casa de Cultura<\/strong> . On the ground floor, under the theme \u201cThe void over the full\u201d<\/strong> , a broader and anthological journey through the artist’s career is presented, and one of Fita’s most significant works is included: The Reclining Christ<\/em> from the Girona Cathedral. At the headquarters of the Fita Foundation<\/strong> , on the second floor of the same building, \u201cGeometrization through rupture\u201d<\/strong> will be installed, an exhibition organized by Ignasi Esteve with the aim of explaining Fita’s systematic work. <\/p>\n\n Two more exhibitions will be inaugurated on November 23.<\/strong> One at the La Merc\u00e8 Cultural Center, where large-format paintings that make up the 1984 Rock<\/em> ensemble will be presented, under the title of \u201c Gest sense l\u00edmits<\/strong> \u201d, accompanied by preparatory drawings. And finally, in the small room of the Girona Auditorium<\/strong> , \u201cTravessia. A gesture about textures and colors\u201d will open,<\/strong> a montage with sculptures and large-format paintings that will accompany the premiere of a musical composition<\/strong> written especially for the occasion by Joaquim Rabasseda and directed by Ricard Oliver. It will be performed by the Girona Provincial Council Chamber Choir with a dozen musicians. <\/p>\n\n Also within the framework of the FITA’90 commemoration, the Fita Foundation has promoted the publication of a book that, with the title “Some glances at the work of Fita”<\/strong> and with texts by Narc\u00eds Comadira, Joaquim Espa\u00f1ol, Pilar Parcerisas, Maria Llu\u00efsa Faixedas, Joaquim Jubert and J\u00falia Subirachs,<\/strong> will provide critical readings of Dom\u00e8nec Fita’s vast artistic career.<\/p>\n\nDivorces with tradition<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n
Six exhibitions and a book raisonn\u00e9<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n