Joan Cardells
22 Mar - 30 Apr 2007
JOAN CARDELLS
March-April 2007
Opening: Thursday, 22 of March 2007 20:30
Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 20:30. Saturdays on request.
Galería Pepe Cobo is pleased to present on Thursday the 22nd of March and during the month of April a selection of sculptures and drawings by Joan Cardells, dated between 1977-2007, through which we will be able to come closer to the work of this great artist from Valencia.
His style has been qualified as neoclassical, nocturnal, sombre, monochromatic, and has given place to extensive reflections about the meaning of artistic creation or the role of the artist in front of the work of art, but the fact is that we find ourselves before a drawer-sculptor or sculptor-drawer that needs only “an object, a light, a lead pencil, and paper” to create.
After leaving the artist group “Realidad” in 1977, he installs himself in his studio in Valencia, from where he will give shape to a creative universe formed by no more than 16 motives, repeated obsesively, reinterpreted constantly. Olives, pumpkins, jackets, trousers, water deposits, uralite roofs, pome granates, cods, melons, torsos, men, wineskins, pots or the michelin mascot configure a meticulously chosen repertoire which reflects the artists tastes and likings for mining, industrial materials, ironmonger’s or tailors trade.
He realized his first sculptures by sewing card, with the idea of giving his drawings volume, of providing them corporality, in a sort of “origami” in words of the artist himself. The technical difficulty this material presented influenced his decision to work with uralite, material which an anonimous technical manual defines as an “intimate and homogeneous mixture of de-fibred asbestos and portland cement in presence of water”. The use of this material, which forms part of pipes, deposits, or roofs, supposed an innovation in artistic tradition and is once again reflection of Cardell ́s predilection for the materials and objects of daily life.
Through the use of heavy materials such as uralite or bronze the artist manages to transmit the idea of lightness, fragility and delicacy, intrinsic qualities of paper, making manifest the relation of constant and mutual interchange between drawing and sculpture, of which Cardells has said that “it is an auxiliary of drawing”.
The drawings that form part of this exhibition are produced with the technique of graphite on paper, and present themselves as still lifes in which the graphite has already occupied the whole space of the composition; the evolution from his first drawings –in which the white background prevailed- has been completed. The predilection of the artist for whites, greys and blacks, colours for which he has felt atracted ever since his childhood and which form part of his life or even nocturnal scenes from his dreams, is evident in these drawings.
Joan Cardells draws and models for the pleasure of doing so and observing his works thoroughly, slowly and in silence is a way of sharing with the artist the sensations he has captured through simple, sober and elegant forms, surrounded with mistery and calm. In few artists is the saying “less is more” more meaningful.
Joan Cardells (Valencia, 1948) lives and works in Valencia. Amongst his latest solo exhibitions stand out Joan Cardells, Galería Pepe Cobo (Madrid, Spain), Joan Cardells-Grisallas (2005-2006) in the Castillo de Santa Bárbara (Alicante) within the Sculpture Simposium of Alicante (Alicante, Spain). Amongst his most recent group shows stand out the one that took place in the Galería Espacio 21 (Madrid, Spain 2006); Metamorfosis de la Escultura. El metal de las formas en la Colección del IVAM, Sculpture Simposioum of Alicante, (Alicante, Spain); Otra Configuración-Nuevas realidades, Centro Cultural Casa del Cordón (Burgos, Spain).
His works form part of the Collections of the Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Comunidad de Madrid Collection, Spain; Diputación de Valencia, Valencia, Spain; Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Mie, Japan or Fundación La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain, amongst others.
March-April 2007
Opening: Thursday, 22 of March 2007 20:30
Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 20:30. Saturdays on request.
Galería Pepe Cobo is pleased to present on Thursday the 22nd of March and during the month of April a selection of sculptures and drawings by Joan Cardells, dated between 1977-2007, through which we will be able to come closer to the work of this great artist from Valencia.
His style has been qualified as neoclassical, nocturnal, sombre, monochromatic, and has given place to extensive reflections about the meaning of artistic creation or the role of the artist in front of the work of art, but the fact is that we find ourselves before a drawer-sculptor or sculptor-drawer that needs only “an object, a light, a lead pencil, and paper” to create.
After leaving the artist group “Realidad” in 1977, he installs himself in his studio in Valencia, from where he will give shape to a creative universe formed by no more than 16 motives, repeated obsesively, reinterpreted constantly. Olives, pumpkins, jackets, trousers, water deposits, uralite roofs, pome granates, cods, melons, torsos, men, wineskins, pots or the michelin mascot configure a meticulously chosen repertoire which reflects the artists tastes and likings for mining, industrial materials, ironmonger’s or tailors trade.
He realized his first sculptures by sewing card, with the idea of giving his drawings volume, of providing them corporality, in a sort of “origami” in words of the artist himself. The technical difficulty this material presented influenced his decision to work with uralite, material which an anonimous technical manual defines as an “intimate and homogeneous mixture of de-fibred asbestos and portland cement in presence of water”. The use of this material, which forms part of pipes, deposits, or roofs, supposed an innovation in artistic tradition and is once again reflection of Cardell ́s predilection for the materials and objects of daily life.
Through the use of heavy materials such as uralite or bronze the artist manages to transmit the idea of lightness, fragility and delicacy, intrinsic qualities of paper, making manifest the relation of constant and mutual interchange between drawing and sculpture, of which Cardells has said that “it is an auxiliary of drawing”.
The drawings that form part of this exhibition are produced with the technique of graphite on paper, and present themselves as still lifes in which the graphite has already occupied the whole space of the composition; the evolution from his first drawings –in which the white background prevailed- has been completed. The predilection of the artist for whites, greys and blacks, colours for which he has felt atracted ever since his childhood and which form part of his life or even nocturnal scenes from his dreams, is evident in these drawings.
Joan Cardells draws and models for the pleasure of doing so and observing his works thoroughly, slowly and in silence is a way of sharing with the artist the sensations he has captured through simple, sober and elegant forms, surrounded with mistery and calm. In few artists is the saying “less is more” more meaningful.
Joan Cardells (Valencia, 1948) lives and works in Valencia. Amongst his latest solo exhibitions stand out Joan Cardells, Galería Pepe Cobo (Madrid, Spain), Joan Cardells-Grisallas (2005-2006) in the Castillo de Santa Bárbara (Alicante) within the Sculpture Simposium of Alicante (Alicante, Spain). Amongst his most recent group shows stand out the one that took place in the Galería Espacio 21 (Madrid, Spain 2006); Metamorfosis de la Escultura. El metal de las formas en la Colección del IVAM, Sculpture Simposioum of Alicante, (Alicante, Spain); Otra Configuración-Nuevas realidades, Centro Cultural Casa del Cordón (Burgos, Spain).
His works form part of the Collections of the Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Comunidad de Madrid Collection, Spain; Diputación de Valencia, Valencia, Spain; Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Mie, Japan or Fundación La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain, amongst others.