Exhibitions
Xavier between books: the multidisciplinary universe of the artist at the Palau Foundation
An exhibition that explores Xavier's passion for reading, poetry and illustrated books through painting, engraving, sculpture and more.
“The relationship between words and images has been something that has fascinated me,” Xavier.
The Palau de Caldes d'Estrac Foundation hosts its new temporary exhibition, Xavier entre llibres , from November 8 to April 26, 2026. The exhibition offers a multidisciplinary journey through the painting, sculpture, ceramics, engraving, lithography, cinema and theatre of Xavier, an artist born in Boulogne-Billancourt in 1958, focusing on a lesser-known facet of the artist: his passion for books, poetry and literature.
Xavier, An idea in the fog nº44, 2022.
The exhibition, curated by Malén Gual, invites visitors to explore how the relationship with the written word has influenced his work, revealing a creative universe where literature and art meet and constantly dialogue.
Reading, ideas and books are the main themes of the new exhibition at the Fundació Palau de Caldes d'Estrac, which dedicates its central part to the illustrated book. Xavier's passion for printing and the publishing world has led him to create more than 500 engravings and lithographs, as well as numerous illustrated books, reflecting his close connection with literature and graphic art.
Xavier, Book, 2013-2015.
The exhibition also includes a wide selection of paintings from different decades in which figures appear reading, as well as representations of “ideas” as a driving force of inspiration and starting point for future creative projects. Alongside these pictorial works, the Palau Foundation presents ceramics and sculptures that revolve around the same theme: reading. This multidisciplinary set allows the visitor to explore how the world of letters has influenced Xavier's artistic production, becoming a common thread that connects painting, sculpture, engraving and ceramics.
Xavier began painting his first oils in 1964, when he was only six years old, and in 1972 he presented his first exhibition. Since then, his production has only grown, fueled by an insatiable curiosity and a commitment to artistic creation that has lasted through the years. But his work is not limited to painting: he also explores drawing, engraving, lithography, ceramics, sculpture, cinema and theatre, building a multidisciplinary universe where each discipline dialogues with the others and contributes to weaving its own, unique and unmistakable narrative.
Xavier, Four days in the Alhambra, 1990, Atelier Franck Bordas.
His artistic vision is marked by a singular sensitivity: the characters that inhabit his works can be close, well-known, or completely invented, but they always carry the emotional and poetic charge of human experience. Xavier follows a creative path that constantly evolves, far from conventions and established trajectories, and that allows him to offer us a rich and complex vision of the world, where reality merges with imagination. His iconography is a cartography of feelings and experiences: what he has seen, felt and dreamed becomes images that captivate, challenge and transport the viewer to a personal, but at the same time universal universe.
“First of all, there is the smell of the book, the smell of the ink, the material, the paper... All of this is what made me fall in love with books, even before I could read,” Xavier.
