The exhibition Guillem Viladot, Unceasing experimentation by Guillem Viladot (1922-1999), curated by Pau Minguet, aims to re-establish an artist on the geographical periphery who was abreast with, and participated in, the cutting-edge radical experimentation of his day.
Born into a family of pharmacists, he combined the profession of apothecary with frenetic activity in the fields of letters and the visual arts. Based in Agramunt, the county town of Ribera del Sió, he produced a vast poetic, narrative and objectual output. He entered the Catalan cultural scene in the 1950s, creating strong ties with the main figures of the day. Thus it was with the help of Josep Iglésias del Marquet he set up “Lo Pardal”, a company that published experimental poetry, in the late 1960s in Agramunt. In 1980 he exhibited in the Galeria Maeght in Barcelona his series “Iconografies de l’ús i de l’oci” (Iconographies of Use and Leisure), a project which over time has become seen as one of Viladot’s most important contributions to the world of Catalan visual art.
A remarkable figure in himself, he opened a museum with all the pieces he made, fruit of found objects and assemblage. Viladot provides us with material to circumvent all the romantic or even condescending preconceptions we may have of rural life. To promote the figure of Viladot is to promote the idea that, although being geographically marginalised in an agricultural town in the Urgell region; it is possible to be at the forefront of radical artistic exploration. He conducted his own exploration, with a wealth of transformations, without ever losing touch with his roots.
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