“ART IN THE STREET”
A project carried out in Madrid, in 1986.
Those were the years of the “Movida madrileña” and the “Pelotazo”. Although I had my studio in Madrid,
I had moved for a few months to Seville, to paint the backdrops for the play “Piel de Toro”
by Salvador Távora with La Cuadra de Sevilla. After the premiere, I returned to Madrid, as
another project awaited me. My friend and art critic Santiago Amón had already mentioned it to me
when he came to see me in Seville. It was about making use of the advertising billboards
considered obsolete, either because they had become old or because they were a nuisance. It was not permitted
to display advertising on them, nor were they removed due to the high economic cost involved in the
operation; there were many throughout Spanish territory, and they remained dilapidated everywhere, without any
use. The idea was to display reproductions of the works by the great masters of
Spanish painting of the 20th century, followed by those of the young artists of that generation. The artists
chosen were: Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí.
The meetings with Santiago Amón, at my studio on General Arrando street, or at the home of the
promoters of the project “ARA, espacio de creación”, on Doctor Arce street, were always
pleasant, enjoyable, and fruitful, even though more than once it seemed to others that we were having
conversations in Etruscan. “El Arte en la calle” was a success, and Santiago gave talks
and lectures everywhere, speaking about the artists. I was frantically preparing my works
related to the project, since it was my turn to be the first to exhibit, after the masters.
I was also in charge of preparing the “dossiers” for each of the projects, the works that
comprised them were chosen in the meetings.
All the exhibited artists were very well received by the public, and this was reflected by both the
media and the surveys; the one dedicated to Joan Miró was especially successful,
who had passed away a year prior. And when it was Salvador Dalí’s turn, the anticipation was complete.
The artist, despite being confined to Torre Galatea, maintained an admirable lucidity; one only needs to
read the last interview Santiago Amón conducted with him. The master became enthusiastic about the
project, he improvised a phrase to accompany the reproductions on the billboards: Long live
Gala!, and secretly sent us a collection of trembling signatures, so that we could choose the
one we considered most suitable for reproduction. Trembling, yes, but resolute and unequivocally
Dalinian. The success was absolute; an unforeseen connection occurred between the public and the artist,
everyone perceived that Dalí was giving them a part of that spirit, damaged by age, yet never
defeated, which still pulsed. So much so that at a meeting in Doctor Arce, we agreed to
close the project. It was unlikely that another artist, no matter how much effort they put in, could achieve a
similar challenge. And to continue would condemn the artists and the project. We also agreed to
repeat the Salvador Dalí exhibition, as a final culmination, with the reproduction of other works
by the master, another success. And the project “El Arte en la calle” was considered closed. The “Plaza de
Salvador Dalí”, in Madrid, was a result of this project.
The canvases I painted to give continuity to “El Arte en la calle”, with the ambition of
forming an exhibition, as they were large format, were kept rolled up and ended up
in a warehouse. They could not be recovered until twenty years later, along with those from another
theater project carried out in Rome “La Pascua popular flamenca”. Ten years ago, they were
able to be seen at Tinglado 1 of the Costa Pier of the Port of Tarragona, within the project “Cadavre &
Graffiti”, which was photographed by Pep Escoda.
The large format of the works created for “El Arte en la calle”, is related to the purpose
of avoiding as much as possible the “pixels” that were produced in the macro-reproductions that were then
made for the advertising billboards, which only disappeared from a distant view, but not up
close. It is also why they have spent their lives in the dark, rolled up and
stored, and no matter how much care is taken, their scale reveals their deterioration.
I called them “Hanging Canvases”, “The Venus of Montera” and the “Nocturne of 1986”, and several
others. It was planned to exhibit them without stretchers, as they had been painted, an experimental work,
which, once photographed, comes to an end. Now, with those from Easter, they will form
part of “Creation-Destruction, Theory of a Project”, in which they will change form, and will be
distributed in pieces among the attending public, and from the remains, two artist’s books will emerge, one
for the Port’s collection, and the other for my collection which is deposited at the Museum of Art
Modern of the Diputació de Tarragona.
————————————————Josep Maria Rosselló————————————————–
