Coinciding with the centenary of the birth of Juan Eduardo Cirlot (Barcelona 1916-1973), this exhibition seeks to reflect upon the close relationship the critic, writer and poet had with certain informalist artists through their collaborations with the magazine El Correo de las Artes, from 1957 to 1962.
Juan Eduardo Cirlot was a many-faceted, multidisciplinary individual, working as a poet, composer and art critic. As well as being passionate about the Middle Ages, he researched into dreams and mysteries, and theorized on symbols, surrealism, abstract art and the informalist movement. He wrote various manifestos, articles in national and international journals, as well as important essays, contributing his clear and lucid views on the artistic tendencies of this time, which he defended ardently.
Most especially, he was one of the critics who most successfully argued in favour of art informel, with Eduardo Westerdhal coming to state that Cirlot had been the informalist critic par excellence. He wrote many articles and books on artists who were related to the current. From the time he began to work with El Correo de las Artes, he found the publication to be an unparalleled platform for making Catalan art of the period better known, as the publication duly became a forum for information on informalism and its practitioners.
El Correo de las Artes emerged in a moment when informalism served as a unifying movement for the most daring and creative work of the time; it became the key contemporary art magazine in Spain in the period. In spite of this, in the beginning it took on the responsibility of being a publication open to all fully contemporary expressions of art, thus refusing to commit itself to any one movement specifically. It was promoted by then-collector René Metras (amongst others), who would later become its artistic director. It was Metras who, in the view of Mercedes Molla, would turn it into the most important contemporary art magazine in Spain.
The magazine continues to be a source of reference when it comes to studying the artistic avant-garde in Barcelona during the 1960s. Amongst its most regular contributors we find critics and artists such as Vicente Aguilera Cerni, Cirici Pellicer, Humberto Apolonio, Santos Torroella, Sebastián Benet, Maria Aurèlia Capmany, Ricard Salvat and Corredor-Matheos, as well as Cirlot himself.
Cirlot’s commitment to the publication became even firmer over time, as seen in the fact that the number of articles he contributed also grew. Special mention should be made of the article on artists and groups working in the informalist style in Catalonia, as well as those in the rest of Spain. Some of the most remarkable texts are dedicated to certain exhibitions, both in Spain and around the world, featuring shows by Luis Feito, Gerardo Rueda, Àngel Ferrant, Piero Manzoni, Josep M. Subirachs, Víctor Pasmore, Luis Sáez, Plácido Fleitas, Joaquim Llucià, José Luis García, Lluís Bosch, Eduardo Sanz, Paul Jenkins, Manolo Millares, Daniel Argimon, August Puig, Cardona Torrandell, Teodoro Asensio, Enrique Maas, Guinovart, Saura, Francisco Valbuena, Cuixart, Miró, Tàpies, Jean-Baptiste Chéreau, Pierre Haubenask and Josep M. de Sucre, along with many others.
When it came to Cirlot’s theoretical take on art informel, we find a clear indication of his critical view of the movement and its evolution in the following articles: “Informalismo y Constructivismo” [Informalism and Constructivism], “Ideología del Informalismo” [Ideology of Informalism], “Informalismo y tradición” [Informalism and Tradition], “El realismo informalista” [Informalist Realism] and “Arte y transformación” [Art and Transformation], published respectively in issues #28, #29, #31, #33 and #35.
In this exhibition, a total of some thirty works by 23 informalist artists are on view. All of them were made from 1957 to 1962, that is, during the period El Correo de las Artes was published. Furthermore, some of these works appeared in the magazine itself, accompanying articles by Cirlot; many of the artists featured were personal friends of the critic, who had followed their careers for years. A good number of these works ended up in the collections of René Metras and Juan Eduardo Cirlot. Apart from their unquestionable artistic value, many works have great intrinsic importance for what they meant for breaking with tradition.
Many of the pieces shown here have never been shown before, making the research project documenting them even more fundamental. Informalism is one of the movements that has had the greatest influence on contemporary Catalan painting, when it comes to experimenting with materials, the neutral palette and the use of the painting surface as a site for material accumulation. The influence of this movement goes well beyond mere formal considerations, as it sets the tone for the character, gestural quality and mysticism of space which together would give the work of art another quality, ensuring each piece’s identity while making it unique.