Antoni 罢脿辫颈别蝉: L鈥橢sperit Catal脿
From the early stages of his career, Antoni 罢脿辫颈别蝉鈥檚 works were associated with 鈥渟treet graffiti and a whole world of repressed, clandestine protest; a world full of life that moved around the walls of my country鈥�, as he himself put it in his Comunicaci贸n sobre el muro (Communiqu茅 on the Wall, 1969). Urban walls became places for political and personal messages, similar to the kind of things Brassa茂 photographed in the 1930s; what the artist does is to transfer such messages directly to the painting. 鈥淓very wall of a city that family tradition had made me think of as my own, was a witness to the martyrdoms, to the sheer inhuman backwardness inflicted on our people鈥�.
罢脿辫颈别蝉 made The Catalonian Spirit in 1971. Essentially, it is a wall reflecting Catalonian life in the last few years of the Franco regime. Marked by the four vertical bars of the Catalonian flag, the painting is full of messages, some large, like 鈥渓ibertat (freedom)鈥�, 鈥淐atalunya viu (Catalonia lives)鈥� and 鈥淰isca Catalunya (Viva Catalonia)鈥�. In general, the messages are about spiritual and political renewal: dialogue, social equality, democracy, truth and culture. The painting is thus a political and aesthetic manifesto: a 鈥渢rue Guernica for the resistance鈥�, in Josep Meli脿鈥檚 words.
In opposition to those who understand the avant-garde in all its manifestations as an essentially internationalistand therefore apolitical movement, 罢脿辫颈别蝉 argued in favour of the artist being firmly rooted in his own land, as he wrote in another article of the time (El arte de vanguardia y el esp铆ritu catal谩n (Avant-garde art and the Catalonian spirit), 1971): 鈥淧atriotic feeling to be brutally frank in our country at least and despite what the less patient among us might believe, is also still at bottom a preserve of the progressives鈥�. And this, for 罢脿辫颈别蝉, is not localism, but rather an attempt to 鈥渒eep the essential battle alive, be it in love or war, on behalf of humanism, democracy and freedom鈥�.
For 罢脿辫颈别蝉, the primordial function of the artist is not to talk about himself, but to appear as the 鈥渁lmost anonymous鈥� spokesman for the 鈥渃ollective鈥�. And this is what happens in The Catalonian Spirit, which presents us with an urban wall that provides a space for the anonymous demands of the people.
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From the early stages of his career, Antoni 罢脿辫颈别蝉鈥檚 works were associated with 鈥渟treet graffiti and a whole world of repressed, clandestine protest; a world full of life that moved around the walls of my country鈥�, as he himself put it in his Comunicaci贸n sobre el muro (Communiqu茅 on the Wall, 1969). Urban walls became places for political and personal messages, similar to the kind of things Brassa茂 photographed in the 1930s; what the artist does is to transfer such messages directly to the painting. 鈥淓very wall of a city that family tradition had made me think of as my own, was a witness to the martyrdoms, to the sheer inhuman backwardness inflicted on our people鈥�.
罢脿辫颈别蝉 made The Catalonian Spirit in 1971. Essentially, it is a wall reflecting Catalonian life in the last few years of the Franco regime. Marked by the four vertical bars of the Catalonian flag, the painting is full of messages, some large, like 鈥渓ibertat (freedom)鈥�, 鈥淐atalunya viu (Catalonia lives)鈥� and 鈥淰isca Catalunya (Viva Catalonia)鈥�. In general, the messages are about spiritual and political renewal: dialogue, social equality, democracy, truth and culture. The painting is thus a political and aesthetic manifesto: a 鈥渢rue Guernica for the resistance鈥�, in Josep Meli脿鈥檚 words.
In opposition to those who understand the avant-garde in all its manifestations as an essentially internationalistand therefore apolitical movement, 罢脿辫颈别蝉 argued in favour of the artist being firmly rooted in his own land, as he wrote in another article of the time (El arte de vanguardia y el esp铆ritu catal谩n (Avant-garde art and the Catalonian spirit), 1971): 鈥淧atriotic feeling to be brutally frank in our country at least and despite what the less patient among us might believe, is also still at bottom a preserve of the progressives鈥�. And this, for 罢脿辫颈别蝉, is not localism, but rather an attempt to 鈥渒eep the essential battle alive, be it in love or war, on behalf of humanism, democracy and freedom鈥�.
For 罢脿辫颈别蝉, the primordial function of the artist is not to talk about himself, but to appear as the 鈥渁lmost anonymous鈥� spokesman for the 鈥渃ollective鈥�. And this is what happens in The Catalonian Spirit, which presents us with an urban wall that provides a space for the anonymous demands of the people.
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