Una visió de Fortuny
Javier Montesol
Castell de Benedormiens
Pl. Santa Maria, s/n Castell d'Aro, Platja d'Aro
Inauguration
Saturday, October 3, 2020 at 7:00 p.m.
From October 3 to November 22, 2020
In collaboration with the cultural programme of Castell d’Aro, we present A Vision of Fortuny, an exhibition in which Javier Montesol reinterprets the universe of Marià Fortuny through a contemporary and deeply personal lens. Through oil paintings, mixed‑media works and works on paper, Montesol engages in a dialogue with the legacy of the nineteenth‑century master, revisiting themes, gestures and atmospheres with a vivid and expressive visual language. Installed within the historic setting of Benedormiens Castle, the exhibition offers a renewed narrative perspective on Fortuny’s enduring influence.
Ermites Imaginades
Antoni Camarasa
El Seminari Centre Tarraconenese
Carrer de Sant Pau 4, Tarragona
Inauguration
Friday February 21, 2020 at 19:00
From february 21 to september 27, 2020
In collaboration with the Centre Tarraconense El Seminari, we present Imagined Hermitages, an exhibition by Antoni Camarasa bringing together around twenty works inspired by the idea of the hermitage as envisioned through the artist’s imagination. The project explores the hermitage as a symbolic and narrative figure, shaping invented structures made of iron, wood and bronze —often recycled materials— which Camarasa transforms into memory‑laden presences.
The works engage in a dialogue with the historic architecture of the Seminary and invite reflection on tradition, materiality and contemporary notions of spirituality and refuge, highlighting Camarasa’s distinctive poetic vision.
The work of Antoni Camarasa is built upon a sensitive and reflective gaze, where tenderness and humor coexist with a keen observation of the human condition. The artist’s experiences in the rural world have been decisive in shaping a visual universe that distances itself from the noise of the present in order to approach essential and timeless forms of expression.
His visual language, marked by an apparent simplicity, is rooted in a primitivist sensibility revisited from a contemporary perspective. The influence of Jean Dubuffet, whom the artist acknowledges as a reference, is evident in his formal freedom and in a direct relationship with matter, always handled with rigor and coherence.
Irony and satire are recurring elements in his work, used as tools to observe and synthesize human behavior and social dynamics. Through a subtle and personal sense of humor, Camarasa invites serene reflection, translated into images of great visual strength. His artistic practice unfolds through various disciplines and processes, serving an honest and direct expression.
A self-taught artist, he began his professional career in 1989 with an exhibition at Galeria Tom Maddock in Barcelona. Since then, he has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. His work is part of public and private collections, including the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, the Sa Nostra collection in the Balearic Islands, and the Testimoni collection of La Caixa in Barcelona.
The Battle of Tetouan
Javier Montesol
October 20, 2019
MNAC Sala Oval
In collaboration with the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, we present Javier Montesol’s live intervention at the MNAC, an action that forms part of his ongoing research project on Marià Fortuny. Throughout the session, Montesol works in front of the audience, reinterpreting Fortuny’s universe through his own pictorial language and expanding the dialogue between tradition and contemporary practice. This intervention transforms the creative process into a work in itself, placing the artist in direct and immediate conversation with Fortuny’s legacy.
Ofrenes
Albert Gonzalo
Exhibition 01.06 - 30.06.2019
Castell de Benedormiens - Castell d’Aro
From 1 to june 30 , 2019
As part of the cultural programme of Castell d’Aro, we present Ofrenes, an exhibition gathering a selection of works by Albert Gonzalo that explores his symbolic and spiritual universe. Influenced by Eastern, African and ritual aesthetics, Gonzalo develops an introspective pictorial language that weaves together memory, gesture and contemplation. Installed in Benedormiens Castle, the exhibition highlights the poetic depth and coherence of his creative world.
Ofrenes
Albert Gonzalo
Exhibition 13.09 - 28.10.2018
Arts Santa Mònica
In collaboration with Arts Santa Mònica, we present Ofrenes, an exhibition bringing together a significant selection of Albert Gonzalo’s multidisciplinary work as a painter, printmaker, photographer, poet, and draftsman. The project combines large-scale works with working notebooks and travel journals, which reveal the influence of his numerous journeys through Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East.
The exhibition explores his symbolic and spiritual universe—an пространство where traditions, rituals, and transcultural iconographies are transformed into an intense and evocative pictorial practice that transcends formal representation. Ofrenes offers an in-depth view of Gonzalo’s creative world, highlighting both the visual richness of his production and the complexity of his thematic concerns.
Installed within the contemporary context of Arts Santa Mònica, the exhibition underscores the poetic depth and coherence of his creative universe.
The work of Albert Gonzalo (Tarragona, 1954 – Barcelona, 2014) should be regarded as one of the most personal and fascinating artistic contributions developed in Spain from the 1980s onward. Although especially devoted to painting, his oeuvre also encompasses other artistic disciplines such as drawing and photography.
His work must be understood within a broad and complex framework in which, alongside his artistic research, converge his dedication to teaching as a tenured professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona since 1979, his academic research—culminating in a PhD awarded cum laude in 1984—and his extensive travels.
Broadly speaking, Gonzalo’s art should be understood as a direct consequence of his journeys through countries in Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East. These travels provided not only an opportunity to encounter their rich and, at times, millenary artistic practices, but also a profound and direct engagement with diverse spiritual traditions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism.
A prolific artist, his intense artistic praxis can only be fully understood as the result of an ongoing dialogue with spirituality. For the exhibition Ofrenes, our aim has been not only to present some of his large-scale works, but also a selection of his pictorial notebooks and travel journals, in which one can find the essences and fragrances of what would later materialize in larger formats, as well as the relationship of this body of work with the aforementioned spiritual traditions.
http://artssantamonica.gencat.cat/ca/detall/Ofrenes-dAlbert-Gonzalo