Virtual Exhibition

Josep Guinovart

Toros, hondura y cante
Start 09/01/2019
Exhibition held from September 17th to December 19th, 2009

Toros, honduras y cante

On the back of the door or my university office is quote attributed to Josep Pla, which reads, “We live surrounded by utter chance”. It is undeniable that luck, like a river, norishes but it can also dry up and desiccate. Luck plays an important part in bullfighting too, with different phases know as suertes, or in English “lucks”, the “lucks” of pikes, the “luck” of banderillas, not to mention the luck needed when entering the bullring to finally dispatch the noble animal. I mention all this since bulls top the bill of the welcome Guinovart exhibition organised by the Vila Casas Foundation at Volart 2 in Barcelona. Toros, hondura y cante...

EXHIBITION PAINTINGS: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

A las cinco de la tarde. Homenaje a Ignacio Sánchez
1950
Painting
Ink on paper

Honoring his great friend, Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, Federico García Lorca dedicates a poem to the dead bullfighter in the bullring of Manzanares on August 11, 1934. For Guinovart, the Andalusian poet was a constant in his artistic career and attracted for the images that he was able to create thanks to his work. In the piece we observe all the key elements of that day, the bullring, a clock that marks five o'clock in the afternoon and the horns of the bull stained with blood. The symbolism in this work takes the same force as the verses of Lorca.

Aparato para aprender a torear
1952
Painting
Oil on canvas

The stimulating tour of the rural world and the painting of Benjamín Palencia, make Guinovart change his perception of the sensations extracted from this real world and those experienced at an intellectual level of the world of culture. Aparato para aprender a torear is a wonderful example that announces a small change towards abstraction. The representation of the bull lives built like an apparatus and that paradoxically its interior is observed, it formalizes its intention of introducing itself in a schematization of geometric character. The artist, once again deals with the bullfighting themes, as a pretext to look for new compositions.

Duende
Drawing
Mixed media on wood

Guinovart was not a big fan of the bulls, but he was interested in it from a plastic point of view and the courage and passion of the bullfighter who plays his life before the bull. This same idea of the tragic feeling, of the purely emotional aspects, was what led the artist to be attracted also by cante jondo. In this work, the strings of a Spanish guitar are represented with the words that it could be a flamenco song. The piece worked in wood, is one more blow, a new form of expression of Guinovart.

Guitarres Lorquianes
Sculpture
Mixed media on wood

Lorca, a reference for the artist, is again inspired in these pieces. In an act of deconstruction, Guinovart returns to communicate with his own language and he does it in the most plastic way he can, dismantling guitars. The choice of this instrument is possibly given to be a poetic object that he associates with the poetry of Lorca and also because of his relationship with the Andalusian jondo song. The way to treat the elements of these works, denotes the same passion that Guinovart admired in the bullfighters, using the same chromatic range as in previous pieces.

Sense títol
1959
Drawing
Ink on paper

The influences of Picasso, Miró and Lorca are present in the artist's creations dedicated to bullfighting, either directly or indirectly, we can always find inspiration in any of them. The importance of the bullfighting universe and its fascination for the art of the fight, shows that the fight between bull and horse or between the bullfighter and the bull, become the protagonists of a combat of existential sacrifice. The liturgy of the bullfighters at the time of facing the bullfight or the expectant public to the bloodthirsty duel, are scenes chosen by Guinovart in this series of ink on paper.

Portada original de la Carpeta de la Sèrie "Els Braus"
1950
Drawing
Gouache on paper

Fascinated by posters of bullfighting, Guinovart dedicates part of his work to emulate these advertising pieces with his pictorial language. His great contribution in this genre, in terms of iconography, are precisely these famous pictures of bullfighting, the first shot of which was made in 1816. In all of them, it shows scenes focused on the most bloody aspects of the show or making reference to other typical elements of Andalusian culture, such as Spanish guitars. In many prints we find his signature or references to Lorca.

El toro i l'estel
1958
Painting
Gouache on paper

Guinovart's stay in Paris, between 1953 and 1954, opens up new horizons and enables him to a new plastic adventure and we will then observe pictorial changes in his language. In the work El toro i l'estel, it already reflects this freedom of allegorical expressionism, deforming the face of a bull, the representation of a star and the bullfighter's weapons on top. Again, a desperate cry and a buried drama as a metaphor for the fight of life, shows us a brutal and ferocious look of the suffering of the animal with soft brush strokes.