Since his first exhibition featured at the legendary Sala Gaspar of Barcelona in 1969—now almost 50 years ago—the artist Joan-Pere Viladecans has become an international figure exhibiting in the different cities that opened their doors to him as a young artist and poet: Madrid, Toronto, Washington D.C., New York and Stockholm, among others. His work has received recognition both at home and abroad, so it is not surprising that the Parliament of Catalonia has dedicated a gallery with six original works to him, a privilege reserved for a small number of outstanding artists like Miró and Tàpies.
To consider what is presented in the exhibition A Look Inside. A Look Inside?, we must talk about Edgar Allan Poe and his story “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains” as well as, surprisingly, Marfan syndrome. We must also discuss Doctor Faustus by the writer Thomas Mann and the author’s exiles. All of this reveals some of the artist’s concerns regarding the limits of human beings and freedom as well as our relationship with health, medicine and science.
Regarding the subject matter, the exhibition invites you to enjoy highly visual large- and medium-format works with the inclusion of objects both real and depicted using different techniques (painting, printing, collage, assemblage and so on), the presence of a colour palette mainly based on primary colours and wide surfaces of dark patches (mainly gray) or broken spaces.
You will see that human beings are the focus of almost all of the exhibited creations and can also look at the artist’s entries in his diary, where you can read and interpret his thoughts since 2011.
Our vulnerability as individuals as well as the physical weakness that demonstrably rules us through illnesses and pain and also the limitations on free thought, such as forced exoduses for survival, are proposals for a dialogue about our fears and limits, whether as individuals or as societies.