Juan Genovés

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Juan Genovés
Born31 May 1930 
Valencia
Died15 May 2020  (89 years old)
Madrid (Spain) 
NationalitySpanish
EducationSan Carlos Royal Academy of Fine Art 
Known forPainter & graphic artist
Awards•II Turia Awards •Spanish National Visual Arts Award (1984) •Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (2005) Prize for Great Merit from the Valencian Regional Government (2016)
Websitehttps://juangenoves.com/

Juan Genovés Candel (31 May 1930 – 15 May 2020)

painter whose work is considered to symbolise the defence of democracy during the Spanish transition.[2]

His work has been recognised domestically and internationally, forming part of museum collections and exhibitions across the world. He received the Honourable Mention at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966 and the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, given by Spain's Ministry of Culture, in 2005. His Estate is represented by Opera Gallery.

Biography

Juan Genovés was born on 31 May 1930 at 17, Finlandia Street,

Catholics, while his father's had close links to the progressive left wing and worked in the UGT trade union's carpentry division. Political activism shaped his life and art, manifesting itself repeatedly throughout his life in his work.[3]

The social and political upheavals in Spain during his childhood, which culminated in full-scale dictatorship, marked the painter's life and work. His first memories and experiences took place during the Civil War in Valencia, subject to bombings and one of the main battlegrounds of this armed conflict.[4]

His first formal contact with painting was during night classes taken in the Industrial Engineering School's Artistic Metalworking department. Soon after, at a very early age, he started at the San Carlos Fine Arts school.[5] But the stifling environment of Spanish society at that time prevented the flow of ideas and influences from abroad. As a result, Genovés found himself in an arts faculty that was stuck in the past, with teachers who defended the school of Sorolla and were set against anything to do with modern art.[4] In contrast, Genovés was always critical of his surroundings and his teachers’ way of understanding art.[6] This led him to connect with a small group of young visual artists, with whom he created the group Los Siete (1949-1954),[6] who opposed narrow academic impositions.

Between 1957 and 1961 he began to create links with other artists, this time with the Parpalló Group, which was driven by a shared interest in renewing the language of

new figurativism».[6] This group saw pictorial work as being closely linked to the artist's civic and political stance. His works added to the social demands of the time in defence of the civil liberties that Spaniards had been denied by Franco's regime.[2]

1965 marked a turning point in his career as a painter and his relationship with the dictatorship. His individual exhibition in the General Directorate of Fine Arts, currently the National Library in Madrid, was interpreted as a blatant provocation of the dictatorship, resulting in the curator, Pepe Escassi, losing his position there; Genovés was not offered an individual exhibition in a public institution until 1983. Nevertheless, he continued to take part in group exhibitions around the world and in 1968 created the Association of Plastic Artists, ASAP, clandestinely.[3] During this period, together with another 80 artists, he locked himself up in the Prado Museum as a protest against the detention of the art critic Moreno Galván. It was also at this time that he attended the World Peace Congress as a member of the clandestine Spanish delegation, together with Saura, Bardem and Fernando Arrabal.[3]

After

illegal.[6] His highly recognisable style and the communicative force of his works set him apart as a creator of some of the most iconic images in that period of Spain's history.[6]

With the arrival of democracy, the way in which Genovés had expressed his militancy changed. The painter himself acknowledges a shift in his social action, when commenting during an interview that he had moved from political to cultural militancy.[2] Between 1983 and 1995 he was part of the new Fine Arts Board in Madrid. In 1990 he created the VEGAP Association (Visual, Plastic Artists’ Management Entity), sitting on its board, and chairing it between 2007 and 2010.

Together with international recognition, which continues to this day, he received institutional acknowledgement in Spain. He received a lifetime achievement award from the Valencian Region, the Plastic Arts Prize [Premi de les Arts Plàstiques], the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts [Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes] and in 2010 Valencia's Cultural Action Award [Premio Acció Cultural].

Juan Genovés died on 15 May 2020 from natural causes, active to the end.[1][8]

Work

Despite his formal artistic education, Genovés distanced himself from the

civil conflicts taking place in Peru, Northern Ireland, the United States and Vietnam, among others.[10] He upends into his work that entire aesthetic of fear and repression, giving us painting that is easy to access, with socially committed issues, worlds away from the fashionable informalism of the time.[10]

"I had the impression that informalism put people off painting. That made me uncomfortable. To a certain extent I have always wanted to keep people close. I have always been worried about becoming a painter who is locked away in his studio, and that my work wouldn't reverberate or connect with others. The idea that what I was doing, however good it was, would only interest a handful of people was, and is, inconceivable to me, something approaching suicide. I have always wanted to be close to people, I have always looked for communication." Juan Genovés

His constant social commitment to portray those who were fighting Franco's dictatorship meant that he kept track of the historic development and consequences of the repression during the

political realism
.

The Sixties

Juan Genovés in front of his work in 1966 when he represented Spain at the Venice Biennale

In this initial stage,

Marlborough Gallery which would last his entire life. His fame abroad gives him a kind of double life until the end of the dictatorship. At the same time that he was exhibiting in Europe, Latin America and the United States, his life in Spain was one of fear and repression.[12] Pieces such as El objetivo (The Objective) reveal this concern, with a representation of a fleeing mass, in the focus of a long-distance lens or the barrel of a weapon.[14] In others he uses elements of cinema  narration, parallel language and alternating planes. His use of muted tones, sepias and greys adds to the tension and horror that Genovés presents. Nevertheless, he also created pictures such as Uno, dos, siete, siete [One, two, seven, seven] (1968),[13] Tres círculos [Three circles] (1969)[13] and La diana [The bullseye] (1969)[13] in which he engages in a dialogue with pop art in its most popular iteration, in terms of the sequential layout and, in turn, in his use of vivid colours
, even though they never fail to add to that atmosphere of gravity that characterises his work.

The study of

disconformity, and so on.[12] Furthermore, the mass is made up of characters that are points of attention;[15]
this is how the author plays with the attraction, repulsion and groupings among them.

The Seventies

There was a change of perspective in his work during this decade.[16] Genovés grounds our gaze, bringing the viewer face to face with individual aggressions.[17] The individuals, now bigger and treated in a hyperrealist manner, are superimposed on white backgrounds, figures with spot colours, whose purpose is direct communication, devoid of flourishes.[10]

One of the painter's most popular pictures belongs to this period, El Abrazo [The Hug] (1976),

Contemporary Art Museum, later continuing its journey to the Reina Sofia Art Museum collection. After many years in its vaults, it saw the light again in 2016, when it was exhibited in the Congress of Deputies’ Constitution Room, staying there until 2018 when it was included in the collective exhibition The Poetics of Democracy: Images and Counter-Images from the Transition,[20]
in the Reina Sofía Museum. The painting is currently in storage once again.

The Eighties & Nineties

A sign of the continued dialogue between the work of Genovés and the historical events in the country is the Paisajes Urbanos [Urban Landscapes] series that he created in the Eighties.

coup d’état took place on 23rd February 1981, leaving behind a deep feeling of disquiet about the political and social fragility of the time. The works in this series are mostly empty of human life; they show deserted, nocturnal cities to convey the desolation and anguish felt across the country as a result of the new atmosphere.[12]
The painter furnishes these nearly empty streets and solitary buildings with a colour palate of greys, blues and ochres, giving greater dramatism to the fear that had returned to permeate everything. At this moment the human figures play a secondary role and the setting takes on more importance than in the rest of his oeuvre.

The nineties[22] see a period of synthesis in the work of Genovés,[12] with the reappearance of crowds, this time made up of small figures always painted in blacks and greys which the light causes to reflect elongated shadows, creating the illusion of superimposition[5] over wide empty white spaces. Crossing this space sparkles and coloured shapes appear that in relation to the crowds reflect on the trends of movement, freedom, the limits of space. Sometimes, the intense colour shapes might remind one of the shock wave of an explosion, repelling the figures; at other times, however, they are attractive points of light or lines indicating direction.[4]

2000 onwards

In these two final decades,

figurativism,[4] his spaces and figures are full of colour and texture, each figure represented is different and is going in a different direction, a reflection of contemporary societies.[25] Now the individuals not only flee repression during a march, but congregate in shopping malls, on beaches, are held back by a huge frontier wall or are just disorientated and don't know where they are coming from or where they are going.[25] An example of this is Linde [Boundary],[24] which shows a canvas divided by an abrupt red line, where the crowd represents an uncomfortable tension in its attraction towards that strip, but at the same time submissively obeys and does not cross.[14] Looking at the canvas, a repressive power that questions the existence of free will is palpable.[25]

The well-known art historian Francisco Calvo Serraller commented: "All of Genovés is in the most recent Genovés, except the fact that aesthetic of the image offers a greater paradoxical moral force, because it better dramatizes the absence of human refuge, intensifies the absurd, the disorientation, and makes the fragility more palpable and urgent".[26]

In this final period, Genovés continued to make a contribution to the debate on the reality surrounding him, bringing his own perspective, that as spectators immersed in the crowd it is difficult to discern.[27] His work's artistic, political and social content is transmitted by his investigation of pictorial language, the image's static movement, visual rhythm and the use of contrast between the backdrop and the figure.

Collections & museums

AENA
, Madrid
Asamblea de Madrid
Centro Cultural Internacional Oscar Niemeyer
, Avilés
Colección Amigos del Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
Colección Argentaria, Madrid
Colección de Arte del Siglo XX, Alicante
Colección Bancaixa, Valencia
Colección La Caixa, Barcelona
Colección Caixa d`Estalvis, Valencia
Colección Caja Madrid, Madrid
Colección Caja Murcia
Colección Generalitat Valenciana, Valencia
Colección Iberdrola
Congreso de los Diputados
, Madrid
Fundación Juan March, Madrid
Fundación Aena
Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno
, Valencia (IVAM)
Instituto Cultural Juan Gil Albert, Alicante
Museo Municipal, Madrid
Museo de Bellas Artes de Álava
Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Vilafamés, Castellón
Museu d'Elx
Museo del Ayuntamiento de Valencia
Museo de Cuenca
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Ayllón,
Segovia
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Cáceres
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid
Museo d`Art Contemporany dels Països Catalans,
Bañolas
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Unión Fenosa,
La Coruña
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
Museo de Santa Cruz, de Toledo
Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo (Artium), Vitoria.
Palacio de la Moncloa
, Madrid
Patrimonio Nacional del Estado español, Madrid
Fundación Caja de Granada
Nationalgalerie, Staatlische Museen de
Berlín
Neue Galerie der Stadt,
Aquisgrán
Kulturministerium Badem-Württemberg, Stuttgart
Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Fráncfort del Meno
Museum Modern Kunst, Vienna
Bruselas
Taidehalle Ateneum, Helsinki
Centre National d`Art Contemporain,
París
Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Róterdam
Sainsbury Center for the Visual Arts, Norwich
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Roma
Muzeum Lódz
Muzeum Narodowum, Wroclawiu
Collezione Thyssen-Bornemisza, Castagnola
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Arkansas Arts Center, MacArthur Park, Little Rock, Arkansas
Nueva York
Guggenheim Museum, Nueva York
Chase Manhattan Bank, Nueva York
The Art Institute of Chicago
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
Washington
The Philips Industries Collection,
Dayton, Ohio
Andrew Dixon White Museum, Ithaca
Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA)
Worcester Art Museum
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Missouri
Ohio University College of Fine Arts, Athens
Madison Art Center,
Madison, Wisconsin
Museo de Arte Moderno de Río de Janeiro
Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende,
Santiago de Chile
.
Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana
Museo de Arte Moderno de México
Museo Rufino Tamayo, Ciudad de México
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Managua
Museo Itinerante
Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas
South African National Gallery, Ciudad del Cabo
Museo de Arte de Pretoria
Museo Internacional Arte Contemporáneo, Guinea
Power Gallerie of Contemporary Art, Sídney
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Museo de Arte, Nagasaki

Work in public spaces

Awards

  • 1950: Medalla de Oro, IX Exposición Arte Universitario, Valencia
  • 1950: Primer Premio Nacional del SEU; Exposición Arte Universitario, Madrid
  • 1951: Pensionado de 2 años de la Diputación Provincial de Valencia en la especialidad de <Figura>;
  • Beca de Pintura (Paisaje) Residencia Oficial "El Paular" y Segovia; Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Valencia;
  • 1953: Primer Premio de Pintura; X Exposición Nacional del Frente de Juventudes, Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid: Taller de ceramistas
  • 1953: Medalla conmemorativa; seleccionado a partir de la II Bienal del Reino de Valencia para la Bienal Hispanoamericana; Instituto Iberoamericano de Valencia: Mercadillo
  • 1954: Medalla de Plata; III Concurso Nacional de Pintura, Alicante
  • 1955: Medalla de Plata; IV Concurso Nacional de Pintura Diputación Provincial de Alicante
  • 1955: Primer Premio; Concurso "Norteamérica vista por pintores españoles", Casa Americana de Valencia: En cada puerto...
  • 1955: Primer Premio; XV Salón del Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid
  • 1956: Premio; II Bienal de Barcelona: Tiovivo (1953)
  • 1966: Mención de Honor; XXXIII Bienal de Venecia
  • 1967: Medalla de Oro; VI Biennale Internazionale d'Arte República San Marino, sección "L'immagine fotográfica": Agrupamiento
  • 1968: Premio Internazionale Marzotto
  • 1984:
    Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas
    , Ministerio de Cultura de España
  • 2001: Mejor Individual de Artista Extranjero en el año 2000 por "Secuencias y Sueños" presentada en el Museo de Arte Moderno; ADCA, Asociación Dominicana de Críticos de Arte, Inc.
  • 2002: Artista Invitado a Premios Vadepeñas 2000; Centro Cultural Cecilio Miñoz. Fillol, Valdepeñas, Ciudad Real.
  • 2002: Premio de las Artes Plásticas de la Generalitat Valenciana.
  • 2005:
    Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes
    , Ministerio de Cultura de España.
  • 2016: Alta Distinción y Gran Cruz de la Orden de Jaime I el Conquistador de la Generaliat Valenciana.[28][29]

References

  1. ^ a b "S'ha mort l'artista Joan Genovés a 89 anys". VilaWeb (in Catalan). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  2. ^ a b c Montesinos, Armando; Murría, Alicia; Navarro, Mariano (2019). Juan Genovés: disonancia y resistencia. En La Fábrica, ed. p. 23.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ a b c Cronología de Juan Genovés "Juan Genovés : Cronología". Archived from the original on 2011-02-26. Retrieved 2021-06-23. Imágenes de ambas obras ""El Abrazo" de Juan Genovés | Arte Spain". Archived from the original on 2012-01-27. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Muñoz Molina, Antonio (2018). Genovés. La intensidad del silencio. Valladolid: Museo Patio Herreriano. p. 18.
  5. ^ a b c d Calvo Serraller, Francisco (2018). "Los luminosos barrotes de la belleza". Genovés. La intensidad del silencio. Valladolid: Museo Patio Herreriano. p. 14.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Murría, Alicia (2015). Juan Genovés. Multitudes.
  7. ^ a b Muñoz D'imbert, Sílvia (2014). "Universo Genovés". Juan Genovés. Anar i tornar. Marlborough.
  8. ^ "Juan Genovés: una vida entre la energía de la multitud y la lírica de la soledad". La Vanguardia (in Spanish). 2020-05-15. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  9. ^ a b G. Andújar, Daniel (2019). "Resistencia contra la dictadura, 1968". Genovés. Resistencia. La Fábrica. p. 115.
  10. ^ a b c d Porcel, Violant (2019). "La posibilidad de congelar una acción". Genovés. Resistencia. La Fábrica. p. 11.
  11. ^ tendenciasdelarte (2009-05-01). "tendencias del mercado del arte". www.tendenciasdelarte.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  12. ^ a b c d e f "JOSÉ MARIN–MEDINA | El Cultural" (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  13. ^ a b c d "1960-1969". Juan Genovés (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  14. ^ a b Coomer, Martin (2012). "Juan Genovés". Genovés Obra Reciente. Marlborough.
  15. ^ Camarzana, Saioa (2014-11-07). "Juan Genovés: "La cultura no cambia el mundo como pensábamos en los 60" | El Cultural" (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  16. ^ "1970-1979". Juan Genovés (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  17. ^ Sánchez Castillo, Fernando (2018). "In-Transición". Genovés. Resistencia. La Fábrica. p. 95.
  18. ^ "Juan Genovés - El abrazo (The Embrace)". www.museoreinasofia.es. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  19. ^ Arranz, María (2020-05-15). "El 'abrazo' de Juan Genovés a Madrid". EL PAÍS (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  20. ^ "Poéticas de la democracia | Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía". www.museoreinasofia.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  21. ^ "1980-1989". Juan Genovés (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  22. ^ "1990-1999". Juan Genovés (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  23. ^ "2000 - 2009". Juan Genovés (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  24. ^ a b "2010-2020". Juan Genovés (in European Spanish). Archived from the original on 2021-09-27. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  25. ^ a b c Parreño, José María (2020-05-16). "Juan Genovés, camino del futuro | El Cultural" (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  26. ^ "Juan Genovés". Colección Gelonch-Viladegut (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-23.
  27. ^ Toral, María (2018). Juan Genovés. La intensidad del silencio. Museo Patio Herreriano. p. 10.
  28. ^ Generalidad Valenciana (2016). "Alta Distinción de la Generalitat". Argos. Portal de Información (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 8 March 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  29. ^ Decreto 152/2016, de 7 de octubre, del Consell, por el que concede la Gran Cruz de la Orden de Jaume I el Conqueridor a Juan Genovés Candel. DOGV (Consultado el 7 de mayo de 2017).
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Juan_Genovés&oldid=1217790927"