A pictorial poem of epic scope, with reminiscences spanning from Ovid to Kafka and a genesis of dazzling resonances. Drawing upon the law of conservation of energy and transforming its principles, Josep Maria Rosselló surprises yet again with the axiom that art is neither created nor destroyed; it is only transformed. He achieves this with a snip of the scissors. For ten days, he will cut three monumental canvases into minuscule fragments. These canvases were created in the early eighties for the spectacle ‘La Pascua Flamenca,’ within the framework of the Roman Easter Festival. The paintings, created live during the work’s four performances, were destined for obscurity precisely due to their immense scale. Previously, during the height of the Movida, Rosselló had rehearsed to exhaustion in his workshop on General Arrando Street in Madrid. The result was ‘a resurrected secular Christ,’ or ‘Gypsy Christ’ for Enrique Morente, nailed to the earth, ‘as if murdered by the sky,’ as Lorca declared, achieved through an expressionist brushstroke and veiled by the wake of a surrealist procession of solitary hooded figures. The pieces disappeared into the shadows of a warehouse, coiled like fabric worms for over two decades. The painter recovered them in 2005, when they were exhibited at the Port and immortalized by Pep Escoda, who thus left a graphic record, which led to an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art of the Diputació de Tarragona (MAMT), under the title: ‘La memòria del efímer.’ Now, Rosselló intends to ‘destroy’ three of the four canvases, along with two others, ‘Nocturno’ and ‘Venus de Montera,’ conceived in Madrid in 1986 for the successful project ‘El arte en la calle’ (Art in the Street), in which Dalí himself enthusiastically participated in his final days, leaving only the first, ‘the best preserved,’ intact, which resides in the MAMT’s collection. During the inauguration, Rosselló ascends the steps of a stepladder in Tinglado 1. He recites socially conscious verses by Pasolini under the watchful influence of the undulating ‘Venus Mediterrània,’ a work created in 2004 in collaboration with his friends Bartolozzi and Royo, which imbues the narrative’s development with fertility. In the immense hall, there is a poignant emptiness in the air, a feeling of absence that Lorca described in his profound ‘Poet in New York.’ The artist has envisioned the metamorphosis of his chrysalis-paintings. Rosselló envisions the fragmented resurrection of the weightless canvases as chromatic, embalmed butterflies, in a marvelous metaphor that outlines the inherent plasticity of every organic cycle. The artwork comes to life, devoured by an insatiable death that is, in turn, generative and creative. As the canvases yield their space, three young talents, selected by the Centre d’Art, will be given the opportunity of the blank canvas. Rosselló once again champions the next generation, even though he ‘hardly notices that so many years have passed.’ A light from yesterday momentarily tinges the room. And Lorca, eternal Lorca, omnipresently lingering on the creative horizon of a brush imbued with brilliant lyricism. You cannot miss it; rarely does art contains so much art. Source: http://www.diaridetarragona.com/blog-post.php?id=68&id_post=911