The Arranz-Bravo Foundation pays tribute to Eduard Arranz-Bravo

The Arranz-Bravo Foundation pays tribute to Eduard Arranz-Bravo (1941-2023), who died on October 20, with a double event: the presentation of the Arranz-Bravo memoir. From the inside, written by Jordi Garrido and published by Comanegra, and the opening of the Arranz-Bravo exhibition. Expanded Memory (1950-2023). Both projects complement each other and function like a diptych, allowing a parallel reading in which the artworks accompany the artist's life story.

The event, which will take place on November 22 at 7 p.m., will be attended by Natàlia Garriga (Culture Minister of Catalonia), Núria Marín (Mayor of L'Hospitalet), Albert Mercadé (Artistic Director of the FAB ), Joan Sala (editor), Jordi Garrido (author and curator of the exhibition), and Vicenç Altaió (art critic).

The book of memories of Eduard Arranz-Bravo was the last project in which the painter was immersed, being printed on the day of his passing. The collaboration between Arranz-Bravo and the book's author, the art critic Jordi Garrido, began in 2020 when he started working as a studio assistant in Vallvidrera. A book was needed in which Arranz-Bravo was given a voice talking about his life and Garrido took the initiative, with the collaboration of Albert Mercadé as editor. The author gives voice to the unique character of the painter - intense and smooth -, reviewing the main moments of his life and artistic career, loaded with anecdotes and experiences with world-class artists and figures (Warhol, Hamilton, Dieter Roth, Camilo José Cela, Miró or Dalí).

As described in the synopsis of the book edited by Comanegra: "Eduard Arranz-Bravo is a total, multidisciplinary and tireless artist. He has exhibited halfway around the world, in cities such as Barcelona, New York and Rio de Janeiro. In collaboration with Rafael Bartolozzi, he painted the walls of the Tipel factory, one of the most relevant and recognized mural interventions of pop art in the Peninsula; years later they participated together in the Venice Biennale, and even painted the house for a Nobel Prize winner. These are the memoirs of a man who has put art before everything and has never needed to disguise himself with a false public image. Jordi Garrido, historian and art critic, signs here an exercise in literary ventriloquism that manages to make the artist speak and that allows him to show, through his biography, the history of Catalan art from the Franco regime to the 'actuality, with lights, shadows and chiaroscuro.'

The tribute is complemented by the Arranz-Bravo exhibition. Expanded memory (1950-2023). This exhibition was conceived in life by Eduard Arranz-Bravo himself and the foundation with the aim of showing an exhibition to accompany the publication of the book of memoirs, based on a large linear extension of Arranz's work- Bravo from his first drawing when he was nine years old until the same 2023. His death has made this exhibition transform into a tribute show, worked on from the same initial idea, but from the selection and assembly of his best friends intimates, from the author of the memoirs (commissioner together with the management of the FAB), through friends and family.

The exhibition shows in a multifaceted and progressive manner the diversity of Arranz-Bravo's artistic views, bringing together a total of seventy-four pieces that help place his artistic evolution within the History of Catalan Art. Drawings, engravings, paintings, books, murals, sculptures or even stamps, through a selection that also provides unpublished work from the Arranz-Bravo foundation and the artist's workshop.

The book of memories and the exhibition, which will close on February 11, will mark the 15th anniversary of the Arranz-Bravo foundation. Since its opening in 2009, the Arranz-Bravo foundation in l'Hospitalet has been an art center of reference in the promotion of young contemporary creation and the work of Arranz-Bravo in the bustling artistic context of the 'Hospitalet de Llobregat.