Years ago, when my workshop in Baixada Peixateria was filled with the smiles of young artists, whose concerns, in one way or another, I also embraced, we all worked together in pursuit of a Contemporary Art Centre and a building: La Chartreuse. Talks, meetings, conferences, actions – everything revolved around a project that promised to consolidate soon, at least that was indicated by the mutual understanding between the Tarragona and Barcelona managers, and especially the effervescence of the artists. Various actions were being prepared for Sant Jordi, to inform the public about the need for Tarragona to have a Contemporary Art Centre, like those already existing in other Catalan cities. Sant Jordi’s Day in Tarragona is celebrated on the Rambla Nova; the idea was to set up tables with explanatory leaflets, containing a brief text, which people could take freely. However, something was needed to make this stand attractive, and Blai Mesa suggested I improvise a sculpture, and that is how the monumental ensemble of “El Beso” was born.
In my workshop, fragments of mannequins remained from what had been the “Suitdemanikís”, and the ladder I used to access the upper space of the workshop was already a bit old and needed to be replaced. It was the same ladder that Pep Escoda had photographed in “Cadavre & Gràfit”, at Tinglado1 of Moll de Costa. It was from this ladder that the monumental ensemble was gradually built, crowned by mannequin legs, placed upside down, meaning the feet were at the very top, with a large metal circle that came from a wind instrument. The central motif was the bust of a beautiful female mannequin, bald and armless, on which I painted keyholes, a tear of blood with a cut red glass instead of a drop (I would have liked it to be a ruby), and lips painted in a violent “Rouge” and half-erased, the result of having kissed and been kissed with passion. To avoid the impression of alopecia, as the mannequin was entirely covered with small glued fabric pieces, I continued attaching small fabric pieces around the face, until it was framed with a kind of hood that I painted blue, reminiscent of the sweatshirts students wore at the time. The subtitle accompanying the ensemble was: “The artist’s kiss to power will make it weep blood.” The fact of writing the title of the monumental ensemble in Castilian (Spanish) is because it refers to the Spanish pasodoble, which bears the same title. A pasodoble that Guillermo Marín and I joyfully sang along the way, as we carried the ensemble, in sections, down to the Rambla, accompanied by Alexandre Ayxendri, Jordi Llort, Jordi Abelló, Pau Gavaldà, and Pep Escoda, who did the photo reportage, and other artists whose names I do not recall at the moment, each carrying a fragment in a long and lively procession. Once we arrived at the Rambla, we assembled the sculpture in no time, and it was a success.
La Chartreuse, for political reasons, was never able to host the Culture Centre; currently, it is the Official School of Languages. And after countless battles, the Contemporary Culture Centre is now located at Tinglado 2 of Moll de Costa and at La Tabacalera, under the umbrella of “Teler de llum”, directed by Jordi Abelló, who, based on the concept of city-fabric, believes that art should be everywhere. It welcomes many artists who, despite the cutbacks, push their projects forward and make the Centre something alive, capable of generating life and art, which, ultimately, amounts to the same thing. The monumental ensemble “El Beso”, due to its size, did not fit in my workshop, and even disassembled, it was cumbersome, so I handed it over, disassembled, to my representative from those years to store it in his warehouses, along with other works, and to be able to display it in exhibitions, considering that a work of this kind is not always available. One day, it appeared fragmented in the hands of various collectors. Now, on 11/15/2014, I have discovered that the mannequin bust, which was like the figurehead of a ship driven by winds and weather, has appeared at auction, and I was surprised to see that in the photograph on the website where the work is documented, it appears with a top hat.
Last night I dreamt that the armless bust could not remove its hat, no matter how hard it tried with violent shakes of its head. It demanded that, at the very least, candles be placed on the brim of the hat, so that it would be a tribute to Master Goya’s work, but to no avail, no one heeded its plea, and the anguish persisted, along with the insolence. I contacted Liceoart-subhastes, in Barcelona, and they very kindly attended to my instructions regarding the work. The collector, owner of the work, says he bought it with the hat; no one knows who put it on, nor when, nor why. And thus the image representing the artist who has kissed power has been confused and betrayed by a top hat that brings it closer to the world of cabaret. And it’s not that the world of cabaret is a bad thing, by no means!, but here, precisely here, it serves no purpose.
I have just received a final message from the auction house, in which they inform me that, in agreement with the owner, they have decided to withdraw the work from sale. The collector, in an act of supreme dignity, has removed the hat from it, and the work, having finally recovered its original state, generously conveys its message. ————-Josep Maria Rosselló
EL BESO II, 2014 (The artist’s kiss to power will make it weep)
