ceramic vision: madrid

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That look...Getting Things of my Chest

While this is not one of my usual post it regards something that has bothered my for many years.
The other day I went to see an exhibition in a very established gallery in Madrid, they were hosting new works from mallorcan artist Miguel Barcelo`. I wanted to go for days but couldn't find the time, so eventually I had to squeeze it in between attending my son basketball match and Saturday house duties.
As soon as I entered the gallery´s space I notice the assistant's look, you know "that Look", it was not the first time but it always surprise me. Maybe because I have the bad custom of being accompanied by children (we are talking 9 and 12, shouldn´t they start to appreciate art ??) or because I dress extremely casually ( don´t we all ???) but it happens, and it is very sad.
The "Look" is a behaviour, stupid and impolite, that should inspire you to leave the space ASAP while the gallery´s assistant attend that old lady in the fur coat ...Porfavor

Sorry to burst the bubble but these days you really shouldn´t concentrated on the furry-coated ladies, have you notice that the world´s richest men wear trainers ( this is not the case, but don't know that ) ???
And if art is only business than let us pay a ticket at the entrance and let us enjoy the works in peace.
I, as you might have guessed by now, hate hate hate this attitude, it pays a terrible service to art and it should be simply dropped.

I am aware that it doesn't happen only in gallery, a couple of months ago I had a really nasty encounter in a fancy house decoration shop. They had various nice looking ceramic pieces and I made the mistake to get to close to a sturdy stoneware pot....ohh I didn't realise I was committing a sin. The assistant run to me screaming that it was extremely fragile and that I shouldn't dare touching it...WHAT ??? Am I supposed to buy a ceramic piece without even touching it ??? Don't you know (can I add stupid cow at this point ??) that touch is so deeply connected with ceramics that you can't have one without the other ??

Well to cut the story short in both cases I left promptly deeply offended by their assumption of my lack of knowledge. But here is the message to gallery's owners out there: train your assistant, people come in a gallery or a shop to enjoy and if they don't...well they won't buy. So either if you are in the business for passion or for money...it is time to wake up !

thanks for letting me get this thing of my chest and sorry Miguel I would have loved to experience your work more deeply, maybe next time I'll come to Mali ;)

Miguel Barcelo`en Madrid

Miquel Barceló

26/01/2013 - 27/03/2013

MANIFESTO DE BARRO. Miquel Barceló. Otoño 2012

translated from Galeria Elvira Gonzales's site.

While waiting to see the Barcelo' exhibition I wanted to share his words. Remember these are the words of an artist (not just bad translation !!)

"I once wrote that I started working with clay because in Gogoly-Sangha (Mali) the wind wouldn't let me paint. Surely it was like that, but more surely is that with this clay I didn't do anything but keep on painting.

Like with my paintings I started with an old potter in Banani, who taught me where to get the best clay and how to prepare it. After mixing it with camel and donkey dung and bits of broken pots jars, you wedge this body (smelly mass) and let it ferment and work it again, you achieve a certain plasticity-nothing compared to what you can buy, that is soft and flexible like plasticine-so you can start modeling.

The first piece in dogon clay was a skull onto I wanted to apply two big ears.

Given the appalling ugliness of the result, I replaced the ears for a long pointed nose, a bit like my nosebut longer ... I realized it was Pinocchio when, between the drying and firing (rudimentary) the head size was reduced by fifteen percent.

That was the evidence -and that is usually the case in all my works, whatever the material-that the long nose is the lies persist death. That told me a woman and I remember I do not usually seek explanations beyond the title, that could otherwise perfectly have been amb Cap de nin llarg nas (boy head with long nose)

When I was working on the ceramic skin that cover a chapel of Palma's catedral it became clear that this material was just another of my pictoric materials, even in the way I create the work, with punches and slabs-also with brushes, drippings and drops- 4 to 10 square meters, like Tiepolo like Giotto, like the painter in Altamira or the Pileta cave, meter by meter, day by day. The only authenthic measure is our own life. One comes to realise this. So, terracotta, this that we call ceramic, like the generic of painting, like acetilsalicílic acid is for Aspirin.

I always think of Chauvet's owl, traced with the index finger on the surface of the soft mud that covered then the walls of the cave. 25 seconds, maybe 27that it was it took the Master of the stunted little finger (that was his name) to draw the powerful curve of the head, slightly sunken in the wings closed with energic vertical lines. The two upstanding ears and the two points that look at us from the future. This great masterpiece is made of clay, mud, slime Terracotta, dry soil: like Masaccio like everything."

Maria Bofill

Bellissima e poetica esposizione ieri allo Espacio Jordana. I lavori di Maria Bofill, artista catalana che da diversi lustri lavora la ceramica, riempivano di piccole storie le pareti della galleria. Paesaggi, angoli, viste mare, montagne di bianco e blu, evocative e romantiche.

Beautifully poetic exhibition at Espacio Jordana last night. The works of catalan artist Maria Bofill, filled the gallery with whispered stories and magical views: montains, waves, corner of a house, a box, blu and white, evocative and romantic