PERE NOGUERA
— A tot li cal una paret [Everything Needs a Wall]
“I live life as if it were a work of art”
Pere Noguera
Conceived as a retrospective, A tot li cal una paret [Everything Needs a Wall], an exhibition curated by Vicenç Altaió, presents emblematic works by Pere Noguera from his earliest creative period in the 1970s to the present day, along with pieces that have never before been exhibited.
While conceived as an anthology, the exhibition narrative does not follow a chronological path. Instead, the exhibition is laid out along thematic lines that enable us to acquire a deeper notion of the totality of Noguera’s work, covering nearly five decades of production.
Born in La Bisbal de l’Empordà, Catalonia, in 1941, and resident in the same town, he was trained at Barcelona’s Escola Massana. A teacher and maestro was the sculptor Eudald Serra (1911–2002), himself a beloved student and friend of Ángel Ferrant (1890–1961), the artist featured in the exhibition L’amistat infinita [Infinite Friendship], which can currently be visited at the Espais Volart.
Pere Noguera’s career began in the 1970s with creations which transgressed classic concepts of sculpture and installation. From the very beginning his pieces were characterised by their materialisation, and by the manner in which he focused on transformation, on the process.
In the words of the artist, “My works never end nor begin. And they must be simple, not at all complicated, as if they already existed.” As he admits, he has always shown great respect for objects.
Following his own artistic path, and in parallel with the evolution of Arte Povera and Conceptual Art in Catalonia in the 1970s, Pere Noguera contributed to tendencies in contemporary art through various initiatives. For example, his first works included natural components. Further on they featured archival material, such as photocopies and photographs, as well as found objects, which contributed to his becoming one of the leading mid-1970s figures in ready-made practices.
One of the most recurring materials in his work would be clay, which is typical of the popular and industrial ceramic production of his birthplace. This led to works referred to as enfangades, or “muddied”, which consisted of objects being covered in layers of liquid clay. Towards the middle of the 1980s his practice incorporated the oxidation of metallic objects as an artistic feature.
Over the years Pere Noguera has never ceased to enrich his artistic processes with the inclusion of various artistic tendencies—from Conceptual Art to Land Art, for example—as well as materials such as water, chocolate and flour, amongst others, all the while adapting his practice to the digital era.
Noguera seeks to enable the visitor, moving through the spaces occupied by his works, to enter into a process of reflection on the dilemma of life: “I do not wish to express anything other than the spirit of reality and of life, of naturality,” he explains. As Vicenç Altaió states, “In fact, rather than producing art, as an artist Noguera provokes paradoxes, thought and knowledge.”