multistudio BOOKS launches its new collection 12 PRINTS, with works of photography, graphic art and illustration by 10 different artists. They are limited series of packs with 12 reproductions.
I have taken the opportunity to publish my collections "Walk in a dream", "Fragile" and a series of illustrations "la Floresta".
Check them at multistudio BOOKS
When I met Oscar Tusquets years ago, to design his first website, I was fascinated by his work, as an architect, but especially as a painter. Then I read his books and I liked the way he structures and explains his reflections. Eduardo Mendoza sums it up very well in a prologue: "what Tusquets proposes to us is a way of seeing and appreciating things so simple and so vital that it takes us by surprise and to the point that it shakes our habits and questions our criteria, it is stimulating to the highest degree".
Tusquets receives me in his house, with a kindness and courtesy that makes me feel at home immediately. I find him in great shape, at 80 years old, awake, witty, very attentive to the conversation as we talk, especially about photography and books. I guess he is a good talker, because apart from always contributing with a different and erudite vision, he leaves space for others and is interested in all opinions.
Architect by formation, designer by adaptation, painter by vocation and writer by desire to win friends, Oscar Tusquets Blanca is the prototype of the integral artist that the specialization of the modern world has led progressively to the extinction.
Graduated in architecture in 1965, after working in the studio of Federico Correa and Alfonso Milà, he created Studio Per with Lluís Clotet, Pep Bonet and Cristian Cirici. He has been assistant professor to the Chair of Projects of the ETSAB and has given lectures and workshops at universities in the United States and Europe. In 1983 he was named Life Patron of the Gala Salvador Dalí Foundation at the explicit wish of the Master. In 1987 he founded with Carlos Díaz Oscar Tusquets Blanca Arquitecturas with which he carried out projects in Spain, France, Holland and Japan. Since 2008 he works practically alone or with the sporadic help of young collaborators trained in his studio.
As a designer he is a founding partner of BD Barcelona Design where he started as a designer of furniture and objects. He has worked mainly for Italian, German and Spanish companies. Some of his pieces are part of the collections of museums such as the MoMA in New York or the Georges Pompidou in Paris.
As a painter he has exhibited in national and international galleries. In 2003 he publishes the book of art Anna (RqueR editorial), and in 2015 one of erotic painting, Hot Days (Umberto Allemandi & Co).
In 1994 he revealed himself as an essayist with Más que discutible (Tusquets Editores); since then he has published a dozen more books, in addition to articles and texts for other publications and for the press.
Among other distinctions, he has received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, the National Design Award, the Palme de Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the Creu de Sant Jordi. In addition, he has two Premis Ciutat de Barcelona, and several FAD of Architecture and Delta of Design awards.
Portraying someone very close to me is difficult because it is difficult to abstract oneself and take distance. In the case of Hélène it has been even more complicated because for many years, she is the person with whom I share my life, that is to say, everything.
I portray her in her studio, a luminous space where she spends hours and hours working and also studying, because one of the qualities of Hélène is her thirst for knowledge, be it art, history, mythology, philosophy, physics, astronomy or the botanical sciences.
While she is moving easels and frames to make room, I think about how her painting has evolved since I met her in Seville in the early 90s. She has been perfecting her line, the treatment of color, without ever ceasing to look for resources and solutions. And the result is a realistic style, perfectionist but fresh, with a remarkable technical mastery, but away from any fashion trend, and with a special concern for the composition, surely the result of her background as a graphic designer.
Born in Shawinigan (Quebec), Hélène Gélinas studied graphic design in California and Australia, painting in Seville with Jesús Alcántara, and pictorial restoration in Barcelona. This combination of different disciplines and geographical locations is reflected in her work.
She has exhibited her paintings in Montreal, Seville, Barcelona, Estartit, Sabadell, Anglet (France) and Sant Cugat.
Xavi receives me in his studio in the neighborhood of Gracia. I tell him again my admiration for his work, since the first time I saw one of his magnificent ornithographs. We talk about his photographs and the complex world of the art market. I guess he is much more comfortable with his camera patiently waiting for a flock of starlings in the field than discussing with gallery owners and collectors. He talks passionately about the behavior of birds. How one day he stopped the car when he discovered a group of cranes flying in a "V", which inexplicably ended up flying in circles, like vultures, creating a beautiful ellipse in the sky. Or how the starlings alter their trajectories because of the threatening appearance of a raptor.
I am glad to know that he does not want to become "the-photographer-who-portrays-the-traces-of-birds-flying" and wants to continue exploring other forms and contents, always mixing his devotion to nature with his great ability to create visual poetry based on light and movement.
Xavi Bou has a degree in Geology from the University of Barcelona. In 2004 he completed his photography studies at the International School of Photography Grisart, and during the following decade, Xavi worked in the advertising and fashion sector combining it with teaching photography.
In 2012 he started his project Ornitographies; photography inspired by his curiosity for the invisible patterns traced by birds in flight, which quickly attracted the attention of international publications and collectors, and since then his work has been published in National Geographic, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Geo and Sonntag, among many others. Xavi has exhibited Ornithographs in Australia, Holland, USA, Spain, Switzerland, France, Russia and Greece.
In 2014, returning from Brazil, I curated a retrospective exhibition of my uncle Marcel Giró in Badalona, his hometown. Then I looked for a place with enough entity to do another one in Barcelona and I only received excuses, evasions or silences from the main galleries and museums of the city. Only Rocío was immediately interested, demonstrating that she knew how to value a work as forceful as Giró's, overcoming the prejudices and cronyism so common in the art world and institutions. Since then, Rocío has shown Giró's and Palmira Puig's work all over the world, and has organized remarkable exhibitions at her gallery on Gran Vía.
Rocío Santa Cruz moves with a lot of experience and astuteness in the art world. She knows everyone and knows how and when to play each piece to win the game. That is why she has collected so many successes and has turned her gallery into an essential reference of contemporary art and photography worldwide.
We spend many hours together in my studio reviewing the Giró y Puig archive, and there I realize that, beyond organizing exhibitions and traveling to fairs around the world, Rocío's true passion is research: immersing herself in hundreds of contact sheets, negatives and documents of all kinds to reconstruct stories.
Not forgetting her other great passion, books, which has led her to create ArtsLibris, currently one of the most important fairs in the sector.
In 2014, returning from Brazil, I curated a retrospective exhibition of my uncle Marcel Giró in Badalona, his hometown. Then I looked for a place with enough entity to do another one in Barcelona and I only received excuses, evasions or silences from the main galleries and museums of the city. Only Rocío was immediately interested, evidencing that she knew how to value a work as powerful as Giró's, overcoming the prejudices and cronyism so common in the world of art and institutions. Since then, Rocío has shown Giró's and Palmira Puig's work all over the world, and has organized remarkable exhibitions at her gallery on Gran Vía Avenue in Barcelona.
Rocío Santa Cruz moves with a lot of expertise and astuteness in the art world. She knows everyone and knows how and when to play each piece to win the game. That is why she has collected so many successes and has turned her gallery into an essential reference of contemporary art and photography worldwide.
We spend many hours together in my studio reviewing the Giró and Puig archive, and there I realize that, beyond organizing exhibitions and traveling to fairs around the world, Rocío's true passion is research: diving into the hundreds of contact sheets, negatives and documents of all kinds to reconstruct stories.
Not forgetting her other great passion, books, which has led her to create ArtsLibris, currently one of the most important fairs in the sector.
Rocío Santa Cruz, founder and CEO of ArtsLibris, studied at the École Estienne in Paris and is also the initiator of the publishing label Raíña Lupa, created in the French capital in 1994 and moved to Barcelona in 2002. Involved in the world of gallerism for years, since 2015 she has been running the gallery that bears her same name in Barcelona.
The interconnection between art and literature, through various projects such as the edition of illustrated books, and the curatorship of exhibitions -such as Leer imágenes: el archivo fotográfico de Julio Cortázar and La palabra y su sombra, José Ángel Valente- constitute her main interests. In her activity as a gallery owner, her focuses of interest are photography, experimental cinema and the edition of artist's books, and she conceives the gallery as a container of ideas, a space for discussion and dissemination of contemporary artistic practices.
Laura exudes a contagious enthusiasm. She shows me some of her recent work, we talk about friends and common places, and while I set up the camera she hurries to tidy up her table, which, to me, is not cluttered at all. I read this same neatness in her way of posing and dressing, the same one that can be seen on the screen, in the image of the typography she is designing.
Laura Meseguer is a designer and teacher specialized in editorial design and custom typography design, from a monogram to a complete alphabet.
She studied at Llotja and started in the profession working in several advertising agencies and studios. Since 1992 she has been a member of the typographic collective Type-Ø-Tones, from where she distributes and promotes her typefaces. In 2003-2004 she was a student at Type & Media and obtained a Master's degree in typography design at the KABK in The Hague, The Netherlands.
She is the author of TypoMag, Tipografía en las revistas, and, together with Cristóbal Henestrosa and José Scaglione, co-author of the book Cómo crear tipografías. Del boceto a la pantalla.
Member of the board of ATypI since 2017. Gráffica Award 2018.
Laura Meseguer web site
Type-Ø-Tones web site
I met Pep in the 90s when he was a pioneer in interactive production in Barcelona and he often commissioned me to create designs. A photograph of Miles Davis presided over his office. We immediately connected. Now we're neighbours and we spend a lot of time talking about art, music and life at his studio in La Floresta. Pep defines himself as an art worker, because the term "artist" makes him uncomfortable. It is a good definition, because his artistic restlessness has him constantly active: when he has not yet finished a project, he is already planning a couple more. His graphic work is therefore abundant, and in constant evolution. Behind every drawing, painting or printing, there is a demanding formal concern but also a rich discourse, often surprising. This coherence is, for me, the best of his work.
Pep Puig has worked as a designer, draftsman, layout artist, editor, photographer, director and video producer. He has collaborated with newspapers such as Mundo Diario, El Noticiero Universal, El Periódico, El Món and Diario de Barcelona. In 1984 he founded the video production company Clara Films and in 1989 Interacción, a pioneering company in the creation of interactive media. In 2003 he set up an industrial design studio and Bitenberg, a new interactive production company. In 2012 he collaborates in the creation of the art therapy centre Espai 21. He is currently working on his own artistic creations.
On the second day of the year and a few hours before she returned to Berlin, I photographed Mariona Berenguer, an artist with a complex and powerful discourse. It seems that Mariona does not waste time on the superfluous and focuses her world on everything that moves her artistic performance. She has an attractive sweetness and at the same time a strong, determinant attitude.
This is how she defines her artistic approach: My artistic practice is fundamentally grounded in the exploration of conditions in which the possibility of opposites coexist, creating a unique tension between seemingly disparate positions that coalesce or combine into works which investigate a space “between”.
Mariona Berenguer studied at the Escola Massana in Barcelona, specializing in sculpture, and graduated at the University of Barcelona with a degree in Fine Arts.
She takes part in group exhibitions at LafuturA gallery (Barcelona), Fine Arts Academy (Sabadell), History Museum (Sant Feliu de Guíxols), TEDxBarcelonaWomen, San Salvador Monastery (Burgos), Maristany Art Centre and Es-Fiera 72 (Sant Cugat). In 2018, her work is selected for the XXI Biennial of Catalan Contemporary Art, where she presents Metástasi(s), an audiovisual installation with a performative extension in the company of the pianist Lucía Fumero. In 2019 she takes part in the Loop festival in Barcelona with an audiovisual installation in collaboration with the sound artist Juan Segura and a group exhibition in Kunsthaus Bethanien, the historical centre of art in Berlin. This last year she has been selected for the Felicia Fuster Foundation grants with the interactive installation About desire, a project with which she starts in the field of robotics and which she has exhibited in Monopol during this year's BerlinArtweek.
She lives and works between Barcelona and Berlin, where she combines her most personal work with the production of the German artist Michael Sailstorfer (König Gallery).
She is currently preparing a solo exhibition on production in art and at the same time she is developing the theme of desire, some of which will be shown at the GlogauAir art centre (Berlin) during the next year.
Looking for new protagonists for the BCN VA project, I went to a remote spot in Collserola to portray Dani Pulmón.
Dani defines himself as a performing artist, because - he tells me - he is not just a musician, or a recognised and award-winning beatboxer, or an actor. He is all of these mixed together. Or, as a mutual friend says, a juggler, capable of making the audience laugh, or dance with only his voice and his small sound system.
Dani Lleonart, known as Dani Pulmón, is one of the greatest exponents of national beatboxing. Always with beatboxing as his cornerstone, Dani is professionally involved in live music, music production, theatre and teaching.
Dani Pulmón website
Luci tells me that she always appears out of focus in the photos. I smile, trusting my tripod and my camera settings. But back in the studio I discover that in many photos her face does indeed appear slightly out of focus. Luckily there are a few good ones, but I'm still intrigued by that strange power Luci has.
During the photo session she keeps a sweet and calm look, only interrupted by her hands playing endlessly with her glasses. Her drawings reflect this fragile tranquillity; they are clean, concise and funny, with a touch of an almost unsettling naivety.
Luci Gutiérrez studied illustration at the Escola Massana in Barcelona and has worked in advertising, press and books. In 2007 she lived for a while in New York in the hope of learning English well. She did not do so, but she was comforted by drawing people, places and moments of that great city, which later gave life to the book English Is Not Easy, a manual to learn English with joy. She regularly publishes in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and she is a leading illustrator of The New Yorker. She has illustrated campaigns for companies such as Apple or the Barcelona City Council. In 2019, she published her second book, Manual de autodefensa, to make it clear that life, like English, is not an easy matter.
She has received several awards, such as the Communication Arts Award, the Society of Illustrators of New York and the Gràffica prize. But her greatest prize is to sleep many hours a day.