JOANPERE MASSANA'S BOOKS
Espai Cavallers Gallery 31-33
May - June 2022
Opening: June 15 at 12 noon.

"Els llibres de Joanpere Massana" is the title of the latest solo exhibition by this artist from Lleida that will be presented by Galeria Espai Cavallers 31-33 coinciding with the Festes de Maig in Lleida.
This is the second exhibition of this title, as in 2016 an individual exhibition by Massana with the same name was presented in Palermo (Italy), at the XXS Aperto al Contemporaneo Gallery, and in 2015 with the title: "The must-see" , at the Must Gallery in Lugano (Switzerland), following the same criteria of selecting works from different "books" by Joanpere Massana.
This time it has been the curator and director of the Lleida gallery, Roser Xandri, who has selected the works that cover the latest series since 2007. For lack of space, previous series such as: "Il libro degli alberi", "El llibre dels núvols" and "Il libro dei giochi".
The exhibition starts from the series: "Il libro dell'acqua" (2007-20011), which was presented at the PAN (Palazzo delle Arti Napoli - Italy) in 2007 and 2008 at the Pinacoteca di Jesi (Italy), Galleria La Bussola, Consenza (Italy), Galleria Il Torchio-Costantini, Milano (Italy), and later the 100 Kubik Gallery in Cologne (Germany). Works such as: "Being to walk" 20 x 120 cm, on wood; "Like someone who ends up looking at the sky to see the sea" of 92 x 121.5, or "Rooting in a background where the foundations do not shake" of 45 x 102.5 cm, mixed on paper. These are works in horizontal format that refer to contemplation, calm, silence: "The book of water that suggests ephemeral and fleeting forms, Massana, this time, also uses art linked to the concept of time ( ...) offers us a book not to go through pages, but for the reader to enter its pages in search of the code to decipher a captivating but unusual alphabet ... Julia Draganovic - Director of the PAN
The following series: "Il libro dell'aria" (2011 - 2013) was presented at the Costantini Art Gallery in Milan (Italy) in 2012, at the Palazzo del Parco, Diano Marina (Italy) in 2013 and at the Galleria Raffaella in Chirico of Turin (Italy) in 2014. For the occasion a book was published by the prestigious Editorial SKIRA, with texts by Arnau Puig and Stefano Castelli. "Fertilization, birth, regeneration are in fact talked about in the cycle of Il libro dell'aria in Massana. (...) The shorthand nature, and its corresponding rational reading, is naturally accompanied by a more instinctive and sensory aspect ". Stefano Castelli - Art Critic. (Ed. Skira)
Reality swarms in every painting, in every paper gestured because the color wants, in turn, to be mimetic but also to be autonomous, as a product of gesturality, objectivity (...), retains the transience of the dynamic, and the collage (the reality that is not reality but that contributes the lived reality ... ". Arnau Puig - Art critic and philosopher - Ed. Skira.
You can see works such as: "Souls of the air" of 100 x 180 cm, mixed on wood, 2011, or "Longing seeks its space on the horizon", 60 x 100 cm, both cataloged in book.
The exhibition continues with the series: "Frontière: Le livre de la peau" (2013 - 2016) presented at the Fort of Bellegarde (France), then seen in Cologne (100 Kubik), Lugano (Must Gallery), Milano (Costantini Art Gallery), Palermo (XXS Open to the Contemporary). Works such as "Autumn Skin" of 60 x 100 cm or "Escape from the ports" of 120 x 120 cm refer to the demand to return to the perception of "Haptics", to visual and bodily touch, to borders. ..
"It simply came to our notice then
that, back then, everything and nothing were in dialogue
and that Virgil accompanied him
to another heaven, purgatory, or hell.

He walked consciously
that every step was a puncture,
a rough touch with a smooth look
one flower that opens and another that is missing ... "(Excerpt) Joanpere Massana - Le livre de la peau
From 2016 to 2017 they are a series of works dedicated to Ramon Llull (Galeria Espai Cavallers) or the 8 installations made in the Casa Durant i Sempere of the Museu de Cervera entitled: "Absences and presences"
"The Book of Flowers" (2017 - 2020) marks a frontier, a before and an after in which the artist had a serious illness. Precisely this idea of ??ephemeral, recovering old, disused wood, in order to give it new "lives", torn and sticky papers, different sewn, perforated fabrics ... are part of this poetics of "ephemeral beauty" ":" Make a shelter with the flowers I painted for you ", different fabrics of 120 x120 cm," I was looking for the sky in the reflections ", 103 x 69.5 cm., Collage of burnt and perforated papers.
"The Book of Silences and Noises" (2020 to the present) is the latest series to launch during the pandemic. A stop to reflect...

RELATED LINKS

• Espai Cavallers Gallery (link)