"In today's times, to pause is a true act of rebellion"
"What is missing in art is a little bit of sustained attention"
"In an overstimulated world, there is a lack of education in the gaze".
These are some of the reflections that have emerged from the debate on culture in Barcelona that was held at UTOPIA 46 last Tuesday.
With the interventions of: Adriana Eskenazi, Félix Fernández de Castro, Perico Pastor, Rocío Santa Cruz, Eva Serrats and Toni Ricart.
My picture Wires has been nominated at the 2023 Refocus Awards, in the Professional Minimalism category.
My picture No message has been nominated at the 2023 Refocus Awards, in the Professional Fine Art category.
My photograph Dioptry has been included in LensCulture's "Editor's Picks" for the B&W Photography Awards 2023.
This very personal project was born when Toni Ricart finished a previous work in which he portrayed sixty-six musicians, an artistic expression that he himself plays as an amateur cello player. After this experience, Ricart wanted to bring his camera closer to a larger sample of talented people related to Barcelona's art and culture, with whom he himself has been involved in his multifaceted career as a graphic designer, illustrator and editor.
Over the course of four years, Ricart has chosen, located and convinced some eighty people to step in front of his camera. As he himself points out: "the criterion for choosing them was that they were people with works and careers that had had an impact on me, moved me, or both: old acquaintances of mine or people with whom I had never had any personal contact, but who interested me".
And so we find ourselves before a broad group of personalities with whom Ricart crosses his gaze and portrays with his camera. There is certainly an important weight in the group from his professional world; that is, from the fields of graphic design, painting, illustration and photography. But we also find writers, filmmakers, singers, musicians and other artists.
The portrait of each of them is accompanied by an introductory text with two components. On the one hand, a biographical note on the character's career and, on the other, a note on Ricart's relationship with the person photographed and what motivated him to approach his personality. In this way, text and image complement each other and allow us to better capture the identity of the people portrayed. Because, and this seems significant to me, Ricart's choice avoids particularly glamorous or very popular characters, whom readers could easily know and identify with. They are professionals of great worth, but most of them are usually far from the spotlight and media attention.
Ricart has used a universal digital camera and has almost always worked with the natural light of the spaces where he meets his photographic "dance partners". On occasion he has used a diffuser screen to achieve more nuanced lighting. And all this is certainly noticeable in the photographs, which are of a very soft black and white, avoiding strong contrasts and bringing us closer to the quiet intimacy of the subjects.
Another aspect is the format of the composition. Most of the photographs are framed with medium and close-up shots, which brings us very close to the people, making them close to us. As I said, the photographs are not studio photographs, with artificial lighting and backgrounds, but are shot in the environments in which the protagonists work and move, but, in general, these spaces do not have, in this series, a very important weight. People pass in front of their environments.
In this respect, it is worth noting that, as the author explains, the gaze is almost always frontal and direct, a condition which in his opinion is fundamental for us to be able to speak of a true portrait. And another always relevant point of the work is the presence, together with the gaze, of the hands of those photographed, which also contribute to expressing the features of their personality.
The work is published by Multistudio BOOKS, a small publishing house specialising in photobooks. With a format of considerable dimensions - 21×30 cm - it allows a wide view of the portraits, which makes it quite attractive. In any case, for those who are satisfied with a screen view of the portraits, they can also be seen on Toni Ricart's website, where they can also enjoy other very interesting photographic series.
As a whole, this work allows us to approach a wide range of leading figures of Barcelona's cultural reality, in a calm, unrushed way and with a remarkable photographic quality.
Mariona Martínez and Joan Zamora, from Diari de Barcelona, were in my studio to interview me after the publication of BARCELONA RETRATS DE PROXIMITAT.
You can read it (in catalan) here
"Barcelona, retrats de proximitat" (Multistudio Books, 2023) are photographs and texts by Toni Ricart, portraits of Catalan cultural figures and a short written profile.
Toni Ricart, like all good photographers, not only takes technically perfect portraits, but also knows how to bring out an attitude in his subjects. The gazes of those portrayed by Ricart are direct, expressive, sympathetic or surly, but determined: they always look at the camera. Always. This implies a previous work by the photographer that we do not imagine, a preparation of the photographed, an approach. A more complex work than many techniques.
Last Saturday we presented the photobook "Barcelona, retrats de proximitat" in the patio of the RocioSantaCruz gallery in Barcelona. The event was presented by Jordi Soley. We also had live music by Alba Armengou accompanied by Ramon Macià at the piano.
An exhibition of portraits from the book will be on display this month at the ArtsLibris bookstore in the same gallery.
