Fake art and five artists
I feel like a fake. A fraud. I feel hollow inside. I feel like everything I have done, everything I might do, is empty. I am nothing but a husk of an artist, but now I know there was never anything germane in me at all. I can’t even quote John Cage “I have nothing to say and I am saying it.” My work is not poetry.
“…it is a good representation of the learning curve of the artist…”
I started the evening at a retrospective of four Catalan artists, all men, all born long before me. From child-like trees to vertically pieced-together wooden birds and heads, from simple volume maquettes to graphic design come-to-life, the show at Espai Volart rewarded longevity in art. It is, maybe, the best that I can hope for. To work, quietly, alone. To make sculptures and paintings and prints. To have a few shows around and about and to hope and pray that one day someone will bring together enough of my work to give a sense of the journey I have taken. Although I have never heard of these four artists (Narcís Comadira, Jordi Fornàs, Joan Pedragosa and Subirà Puig) and have never seen their work before, it felt familiar, comfortable, of its time. This is not a criticism, per se; rather an acceptance that we are part of the world we live in and we are never going to be truly original. Each piece would have felt at home in any home, on a wall, on a plinth by the window, giving an agreeable aspect to your living room or study. There was nothing not to like and much to love, and the odd piece to stop you in your tracks and make you really look. And look again. For me, due to my predictable love of orange, it was Comadira’s scene of five trees with orange trunks (Roig, 2014) that did it for me. And then the heads of Subirá Puig. Of course there was the odd piece that is not so strong. “This is not a fruitbowl, this is just a representation” (Comadira, 1976) is a case in point. This is not art, but it is a good representation of the learning curve of the artist, and deserves to be in the show.
Within this exhibition was a real sense of purpose, of being driven, of the need to create, for the sake of creation. There was nothing clever or funny, witty or provoking about the work. But neither was there anything sombre, intellectual, antagonistic. You get the feeling that in spite of the problems of life (and we all have problems in life) these four just got right on with it, creating pieces that they love so that they could move on to create the next piece.
“These are things that would haunt your dreams, spill into your nightmares.”
As I moved on to see the next show, I felt the warmth of two glasses of cava seeping through me on a cold winter’s night, and was looking forward to more gibes at 3Punts gallery. Last week, Mr. Brainwash. This week…
This week the most sublime, nuanced, detailed, specific, reverential, awe-inspiring work I have ever seen in a gallery in Barcelona. Clearly, when I see a Subirachs sculpture at Joan Gaspar, or a Dalí at Galería Atelier I have similar feelings, but these come from my previous experience, my knowledge of the work, the aura of the artist. But here I was walking into a new space, an unknown world, a world of reality writ large in a dream worthy of a decade of the best psychotherapy money can buy. A description is simple. Paint the walls of the gallery grey. Spotlight each sculpture. Put a small label with the name and material next to each work. Write almost no blurb. Sculptures of cats and dogs and people and birds and sheep. Nothing you wouldn’t expect to see in a tea-shop gallery in a quaint market town in Hampshire.
But I am a fake, a fraud. I am hollow inside. I will never produce work like this. There is no point to my “artistic practice”. There is no point to my life. There is no point. Just starting with the craftsmanship, Gerard Mas has produced work of such subtlety that it doesn’t just appear to be alive. It has more life than I have ever had. The skin of the pig, the wool of the sheep. Perfect. The girl, cut in two, vertically. Hollowed out. This is how I see my life now, just an empty shell. A hummingbird or woodpecker, whispering or hammering in my ear, questioning everything I ever thought was true. The deification of pig and dog and mouse. A suckling pig, suckling indeed on the breast of a renaissance girl. These are things that would haunt your dreams, spill into your nightmares. They are beautiful. So beautiful that they must be from some ethereal world. But they are made of stone and wood and bronze, as all real sculptures should be. I need to reiterate the point about artwork being for the home, for people to take home and love and look at every day and be inspired and feel warm and cosy and loved. The work of Gerard Mas will do that for you. But don’t be surprised if one day you come downstairs and begin to worship your sculpture and start a new cult. This is real brainwashing. This is the real art.
