Sou davant d’una dona i busqueu un quadre (You are faced with a woman and you search for a painting) is the second show, in a series of three, which Fundació Vila Casas has organized to exhibit some of its permanent art collection. The first show was focused on painting while this year we dedicate it to sculpture and its diverse and heterogenous aspects. Nevertheless, convinced that art is also a way of understanding ourselves and our surroundings, and that this premise is constant in our existence, we have let ourselves be captivated by one of the most beautiful and enigmatic tales in modern literature: Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu (The unknown masterpiece) by Honoré de Balzac (1831).
This jewel of romanticism, accepted as a work of art that was way ahead of its time because it anticipates abstraction, seduced such important artists as Cézanne (who considered it one of his favourite books) and Picasso, who illustrated it at the request of his agent Ambroise Vollard, who was well aware of the parallels between the two creators.
With the aim of analysing different concepts – mood, non-sculpture, creative divinity – which feature in the story (a sub-heading used by the author himself in the second edition), we suggest creating short stories between the works of art to help generate new interpretations. Thus, by means of a selection of works by artists from different aesthetic and chronological premises, we have drawn a kind of visual essay in which each of the pieces establishes a specific connection with its travelling companions. It is a journey, however, in which the readings, interpretations and associations fall on the final gaze: the gaze of the viewer, the true protagonist of the story; a gaze, now, in contemporary key.
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