At the beginning of this century sculpture seems to be failing us for being too vague. It is unsure whether to go out to the public space and claim its space or hide at the back of the warehouse to lick its wounds and meditate. It comes down from the pedestals and creeps out, crawling along walls and sliding down from ceilings – uncertain of whether its time is over or, on the contrary, it is the beginning of a new era, now that it has finally managed to emerge from a shaft full of outstanding men and mercenaries, goddesses and courtesans.

Its absence plays tricks to apprehend the air, to give it shape, to domesticate it. It speaks with the air trying to seduce it, to capture it – its distress filling the space with bases where to rest if it gets tired. But sculpture is elusive. It hides behind shades and only shows us its diluted trace – rather than its face.

 A concave word and a convex concept meet near the skirting board at a corner of the room. Between them, the light draws a sharp edge and a crease, which climb up onto a podium and show off. They come together, they separate or they hide themselves, in a dance move for two where light is music.

 The word aspires to replace marble; the concept, bronze. As when seen through a mirror, life is replaced by its reflection and we, by seated androids with one only function to perform: swallow.

]]> http://francesc-morera.com/espanol-la-escultura-ausente-francesc-morera/?lang=en/feed/&lang=en 0 http://francesc-morera.com/espanol-el-vacio-y-las-naturalezas-muertas-francesc-morera/?lang=en&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=espanol-el-vacio-y-las-naturalezas-muertas-francesc-morera http://francesc-morera.com/espanol-el-vacio-y-las-naturalezas-muertas-francesc-morera/?lang=en#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2012 10:21:11 +0000 admin http://francesc-morera.com/?p=346 ( From Morandi to Zurbaran, covering Cezanne)

We suggest a hypothetical journey which goes from Morandi’s stillness to Zurbaran’s austerity. It embraces the static timelessness of the first and lingers in the simplicity of the latter, who – with his solitary and sparse elements – holds gravity back from his still-lifes. And we do not forget Cezanne – halfway through the journey – and the draperies which constitute the core elements of his still-lifes. All these elements make up the baggage-absences where draperies have been used almost in the way of shrouds. The resulting shapes act as plane which marks the limit between non-being (the absence) and space – a plane which struggles between emptiness and nothingness. And in this way the object and its limits change roles so that the limit – rather than the object – becomes the real. The look, then, tends to fix the resulting objects, unadorned, in an ancestral eternity which is oblivious and prior to history – as if they were animals, crouching, hidden, waiting to spring at the visitor’s soul.

“Camí” aims to spur our collective memory; it aims to serve as an excuse to surface memory by using the tools we have at our disposal – in our case, Art.

Must we remember? Must we go back over and over again the 1936-1939 events? It is commonly held that we must remember our past so that we do not repeat it, an argument we tend to consider as fairly satisfactory. However, our everyday life shows us that human beings do not learn from the past, so there must be something else. During one of the exhibitions, I heard these words which helped me realize that there is much more to it: “We should be able to build a society which is based on human values instead of on money”. It seems obvious enough; it actually sounds terribly logical.

What we need to remember and incorporate today are the values of those generations: solidarity, modernity (insofar as it aims for an improvement of living conditions and human rights), freedom (as the right to make decisions beyond market or economic relationships), etc., concepts which are nowadays considered as harmful, outdated or not practical – if not as directly stupid – by the prevailing neoliberal policies. However, reading them aloud now I see that they do not differ so much from what many young groups – known as anti-system, anti-globalization or squatters – are presently advocating for.

It looks as if History has wanted to connect two generations together by leaving out another two. So perhaps it would be wise to make evident that our great-grandparents fought for things which are very similar to the ones that these young groups are fighting for today, and that history’s mistake lies in the generations in the middle… and not the other way round.

]]> http://francesc-morera.com/cami-ramonn-alabau-i-francesc-morera/?lang=en/feed/&lang=en 0 http://francesc-morera.com/francesc-morera-la-meoria-fertil-joaquim-vinyes/?lang=en&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=francesc-morera-la-meoria-fertil-joaquim-vinyes http://francesc-morera.com/francesc-morera-la-meoria-fertil-joaquim-vinyes/?lang=en#comments Sun, 07 Oct 2012 15:47:16 +0000 admin http://francesc-morera.com/?p=213 “…when this sculpture work does not captivate us with its perfection and beauty, it fascinates us as the most demanding intellectual proposal. Author of infinite patience, ontological demiurge, his proposal is based on the absence of the being which he believes – as I do myself – is more intriguing than the being itself. He offers us only the traces: signs, tracks, lines, angles, peels… the scantiest wrapping he can offer of a presence which is no longer there.

No Romanesque walls or their hieratic tinctures – they are mere external flattery, pure rhetorical fanfare: just the space, the silence, the void created within…”.

où les formes?

où les arômes?

ailleurs,

dans la latence impatiente,

au-delà,

dans les linceuls du révolu.

RAMON ALABAU I SELVA 2001

(original en francès)