\u201cART IN THE STREET\u201d<\/p>\n
A project carried out in Madrid, in 1986.<\/p>\n
Those were the years of the \u201cMovida madrile\u00f1a\u201d and the \u201cPelotazo\u201d. Although I had my studio in Madrid, <\/p>\n
I had moved for a few months to Seville, to paint the backdrops for the play \u201cPiel de Toro\u201d<\/p>\n
by Salvador T\u00e1vora with La Cuadra de Sevilla. After the premiere, I returned to Madrid, as <\/p>\n
another project awaited me. My friend and art critic Santiago Am\u00f3n had already mentioned it to me <\/p>\n
when he came to see me in Seville. It was about making use of the advertising billboards <\/p>\n
considered obsolete, either because they had become old or because they were a nuisance. It was not permitted <\/p>\n
to display advertising on them, nor were they removed due to the high economic cost involved in the<\/p>\n
operation; there were many throughout Spanish territory, and they remained dilapidated everywhere, without any<\/p>\n
use. The idea was to display reproductions of the works by the great masters of <\/p>\n
Spanish painting of the 20th century, followed by those of the young artists of that generation. The artists <\/p>\n
chosen were: Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Joan Mir\u00f3 and Salvador Dal\u00ed.<\/p>\n
The meetings with Santiago Am\u00f3n, at my studio on General Arrando street, or at the home of the<\/p>\n
promoters of the project \u201cARA, espacio de creaci\u00f3n\u201d, on Doctor Arce street, were always<\/p>\n
pleasant, enjoyable, and fruitful, even though more than once it seemed to others that we were having<\/p>\n
conversations in Etruscan. \u201cEl Arte en la calle\u201d was a success, and Santiago gave talks <\/p>\n
and lectures everywhere, speaking about the artists. I was frantically preparing my works <\/p>\n
related to the project, since it was my turn to be the first to exhibit, after the masters.<\/p>\n
I was also in charge of preparing the \u201cdossiers\u201d for each of the projects, the works that<\/p>\n
comprised them were chosen in the meetings.<\/p>\n
All the exhibited artists were very well received by the public, and this was reflected by both the<\/p>\n
media and the surveys; the one dedicated to Joan Mir\u00f3 was especially successful,<\/p>\n
who had passed away a year prior. And when it was Salvador Dal\u00ed’s turn, the anticipation was complete. <\/p>\n
The artist, despite being confined to Torre Galatea, maintained an admirable lucidity; one only needs to<\/p>\n
read the last interview Santiago Am\u00f3n conducted with him. The master became enthusiastic about the <\/p>\n
project, he improvised a phrase to accompany the reproductions on the billboards: Long live<\/p>\n
Gala!, and secretly sent us a collection of trembling signatures, so that we could choose the<\/p>\n
one we considered most suitable for reproduction. Trembling, yes, but resolute and unequivocally <\/p>\n
Dalinian. The success was absolute; an unforeseen connection occurred between the public and the artist, <\/p>\n
everyone perceived that Dal\u00ed was giving them a part of that spirit, damaged by age, yet never<\/p>\n
defeated, which still pulsed. So much so that at a meeting in Doctor Arce, we agreed to <\/p>\n
close the project. It was unlikely that another artist, no matter how much effort they put in, could achieve a <\/p>\n
similar challenge. And to continue would condemn the artists and the project. We also agreed to <\/p>\n
repeat the Salvador Dal\u00ed exhibition, as a final culmination, with the reproduction of other works<\/p>\n
by the master, another success. And the project \u201cEl Arte en la calle\u201d was considered closed. The \u201cPlaza de <\/p>\n
Salvador Dal\u00ed\u201d, in Madrid, was a result of this project.<\/p>\n
The canvases I painted to give continuity to \u201cEl Arte en la calle\u201d, with the ambition of<\/p>\n
forming an exhibition, as they were large format, were kept rolled up and ended up<\/p>\n
in a warehouse. They could not be recovered until twenty years later, along with those from another <\/p>\n
theater project carried out in Rome \u201cLa Pascua popular flamenca\u201d. Ten years ago, they were <\/p>\n
able to be seen at Tinglado 1 of the Costa Pier of the Port of Tarragona, within the project \u201cCadavre &<\/p>\n
Graffiti\u201d, which was photographed by Pep Escoda.<\/p>\n
The large format of the works created for \u201cEl Arte en la calle\u201d, is related to the purpose<\/p>\n
of avoiding as much as possible the \u201cpixels\u201d that were produced in the macro-reproductions that were then<\/p>\n
made for the advertising billboards, which only disappeared from a distant view, but not up<\/p>\n
close. It is also why they have spent their lives in the dark, rolled up and <\/p>\n
stored, and no matter how much care is taken, their scale reveals their deterioration.<\/p>\n
I called them \u201cHanging Canvases\u201d, \u201cThe Venus of Montera\u201d and the \u201cNocturne of 1986\u201d, and several<\/p>\n
others. It was planned to exhibit them without stretchers, as they had been painted, an experimental work,<\/p>\n
which, once photographed, comes to an end. Now, with those from Easter, they will form <\/p>\n
part of \u201cCreation-Destruction, Theory of a Project\u201d, in which they will change form, and will be<\/p>\n
distributed in pieces among the attending public, and from the remains, two artist’s books will emerge, one<\/p>\n
for the Port’s collection, and the other for my collection which is deposited at the Museum of Art<\/p>\n
Modern of the Diputaci\u00f3 de Tarragona.<\/p>\n
————————————————Josep Maria Rossell\u00f3————————————————–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cART IN THE STREET\u201d A project carried out in Madrid, in 1986. Those were the years of the \u201cMovida madrile\u00f1a\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josepmariarossello.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josepmariarossello.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josepmariarossello.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josepmariarossello.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josepmariarossello.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/josepmariarossello.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josepmariarossello.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josepmariarossello.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josepmariarossello.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josepmariarossello.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}