The work by Joan Pla (Barcelona, 1941-2023) is the result of a late vocation. Although he began learning photography in his youth, at the age of sixteen, he did not concentrate on it fully until his fifties. Since then, he has devoted himself to capturing with his camera the poetics of the world around him.
Pla lets himself get seduced by the energy and inevitable attraction of beauty; he seeks a subtle and sensitive gaze by means of order and reason. Occasionally, his photographs fragment and decontextualize reality and reduce it to forms, volumes and textures. He has often been carried along by the sinuous dance of dunes, the unattainable attraction of horizons, the rotund volumes of bodies and the changing nature of smoke floating in the air. On other occasions, it is the dialogue between two or more photographs that, reminiscent of Brossa, endow the work with a unique poetic, that calls into question reality and the name of each thing. The scenes, which are always monochrome, carry us to the limit of meaning through the association of ideas, ingenuity and reflection.
Leaving aside chronologies and corsets, this exhibition presents a new perspective on his work as a whole, distinguishing itself from previous occasions. It forgoes the series that he usually works with – Cota zero, Les dunes, Subtileses … – to create new visual tales. Featuring the aesthetic resources of the photographer, the selection of images included in this exhibition seek to enhance the poetic evocation by means of the dialogue between images to reveal new meanings in everyday reality.
Exhibition curated by Bernat Puigdollers.
© Joan Pla: Sèrie 135 Estudios acromàticos (5), 2006.
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