Exhibitions
Romà Vallès, abstraction as a research horizon
More than six decades of the career of one of the precursors of informalism in Catalonia, reviewed through the series 'Cosmogonies' and 'Collages' and an unpublished set from the Rafael Tous collection.
For Romà Vallès, abstraction was not a one-off break with figuration, but a way of understanding painting and, in a broader sense, an attitude towards life. Born in Barcelona in 1923 and died in 2015, Vallès is one of the fundamental figures of Catalan art in the second half of the 20th century and one of the artists who contributed decisively to opening the way for abstraction and informalism in Catalonia in a context marked by the fracture of the Civil War and the post-war years. His career is now being reviewed at the Fundació Vila Casas in an exhibition that can be visited until January 17.
Curated by Conxita Oliver, a collaborator of Bonart, and Bel Vallès, the exhibition proposes to recover the complexity of this long itinerary based on a selection of works that allows us to follow more than six decades of artistic research. The tour relates the different stages of his production and shows how, behind the formal transformations, the same will remains: to question the limits of painting and explore what lies beyond the strictly visible reality.
The exhibition gives special prominence to two series that are essential for understanding this evolution. Cosmogonies (1956–1963) represents one of the decisive moments in Vallès's process of liberation from figuration and in the consolidation of his informalist language. The works from this period demonstrate a painting increasingly focused on matter, gesture and the internal tensions of the surface, while proposing an almost spiritual and philosophical approach to the act of painting.
In the mid-1960s, Collages (1964–1966) opened another chapter in this research. Vallès incorporated press clippings, photographs and fragments from everyday reality, establishing a dialogue with the transformations that international art was experiencing and, especially, with the emergence of Pop Art. Painting thus ceased to be just a surface to also become a space for confrontation with the images and signs of contemporaneity.
It is precisely in this area that an unpublished set of works by Romà Vallès from the Rafael Tous collection is presented for the first time. The group allows us to delve deeper into a particularly unique stage of his career and observe how the artist incorporates materials taken from his immediate environment to alter their meaning and integrate them into his pictorial universe. This presence of fragments of reality reinforces one of the constants of his work: the ability to convert the everyday into a matter of reflection and experimentation.
According to Conxita Oliver, the exhibition proposes “a journey through the artist's legacy” and focuses on the most significant milestones of his career and his creative evolution. For the curator, abstraction constitutes the common thread of the entire itinerary, but not understood simply as a formal option, but as “a vital attitude and a means of spiritual and philosophical recognition”. This conception helps to understand the coherence of a production that cannot be reduced to a single aesthetic and that transforms over the years without ever losing the will to investigate.
This experimental dimension also coexisted with an intense pedagogical and informative activity. Romà Vallès was a tireless worker, both in his artistic practice and in his role as a teacher. Throughout his life he starred in more than 345 exhibitions, 85 of which were individual, and also participated in numerous conferences, presentations and publications. An activity that demonstrates the extent to which his career went beyond the strictly pictorial sphere to also project itself into the field of the transmission of knowledge and reflection on art.
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