Parar la fresca

Anne-Lise Coste, Enric Farrés Duran, Marine Hugonnier, Perejaume, Wilfredo Prieto, Joan Brossa, Hannah Collins, Bernat Daviu, Joan Hernández Pijuan, Chema Madoz, Josep Maynou, Ana Mendieta, Jordi Mitjà, Luna Paiva, Teresa Solar, Antoni Tàpies, Rosa Tharrats

Fonteta
Jun 18 - Aug 3, 2021
josep-maynou_chanclas

We’re delighted to present a joint project by Bombon, Galeria Joan Prats and NoguerasBlanchard in Fonteta, a small village in the Empordà region from June to September.

The exhibition, conceived in two chapters (the first opening June 18th and the second August 7th) brings together artists from three different generations. The proposal begins with a concept from the Empordà Parar la fresca (to take in fresh air) described by Josep Pla in the book Las Horas (The Hours), 1953.

Distracted ones of the world, unite!

a text by Gabriel Ventura

The artist is an animal who gets distracted – Aristotle

Parar la fresca [1], sit on a chair —or on a rocking chair— and allow yourself to be entranced. All of a sudden, you can feel the song of the birds (silky, euphonic, oscillating), you see the slow and lazy bustle of the clouds, you pay attention to the streetlight on the corner, which until today had never been of interest. A new world of nuances opens up within the world of each day, faces and things are subverted; we may notice how espadrilles (or flip flops) gain weight as they carry us down our usual street, today different, but also identical, to itself. The weight of our legs, and of our spirit, forces us to observe our surroundings more carefully, to make our imaginations fly without lifting our feet off the ground. When we ‘Parar la fresca’, when we sit down and keep quiet —or become overly talkative— and we do nothing, magical things happen. Suddenly, everything becomes susceptible to being read as a work of art: the headlines in the newspaper, the landscape of a neighbour’s back, a cactus, or a fennel branch. The rocks levitate and the sea becomes a desert of blue sand. Thoughts, soft and malleable, start to infiltrate from all sides. They get muddled with the trees, with the facades and roofs of buildings, with the heat and the flies, they make fun of us and contradict us.

Badar in Catalan means exactly this: to open yourself up, to bud like a flower, to detach yourself from reality, and to become enchanted by watching the world. Perhaps in English the closest translation would be “to space out” (or to zone out, in America). Don’t badar! We are often told as children. The prohibitions imposed in childhood could well explain our cultural repressions. Badar leads us astray from what is really important: work. When we are distracted we are not productive (or we are, but in a form that is erratic and out of control). Even the semantics of the word seem to agree. Take, for example, the word badadura, which means to slit, or to cut. Badar is also a way of piercing conventional time, cracking it apart and opening it up to new possibilities. In fact, without branching out further, the verb badar also has a third meaning: to split. To pierce reality, and to glimpse at the difference in the repetition.

To badar and to parar la fresca are two sibling operations that involve, at the same time, a concentration and a disconnection. This, I would say, is the most revolutionary facet of the term badar, it is the most Kafkaesque, and the most difficult to explain. When you engage in badar, and you space out, you are there and you are not there, you are observing one thing butthinking about another, you go so deep into matter that (to try to capture it in some way) matter disappears, it becomes abstract, a completely new entity.

The badoc (the person in a state of badar) is at an intermediate point between physical and spiritual matter, between the earth and the cosmos, on the highest rung of metaphysics. This person has their vision of reality so flat and devoid of expectation that background and form merge to become the same thing. The badoc places their heavenly staircase on the ground, and, at street level, without moving from their chair, they travel and allow themselves to be enraptured by the universe.

Gabriel Ventura (1988) is a reversible writer who walks with the same naturalness through art, cinema and literature. In previous lives he was a neighbor of Serge Daney, assistant director of Maya Deren and heteronym of Fernando Pessoa. Poetry leads him to teach, to work with artists and filmmakers, with bookstores, galleries and museums, to research, translate and act.

[1] Literally, ‘stop the cool’ in Catalan, understood as ‘to take fresh air, and watch the world go by’.

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Installation

01_parar_la_fresca

02_parar_la_fresca

03_parar_la_fresca

04_parar_la_fresca

05_parar_la_fresca

Selected Works

Antoni Tàpies
Tamboret

1987

Painting and bronze

60 x 36 x 36 cm (23 58 x 14 532 x 14 532 inches)

Antoni Tàpies
Aire de ventall I

1992

Paint, varnish an crayon on kraft paper

40.5 x 55 cm (15 1516 x 21 2132 inches)

Rosa Tharrats
Ópalos en ascensión

2021

Sea fennel, steel, silk, viscose, paper, mixed media

Teresa Solar
Forma de fuga: tuneladora (2)

2020

Ink and watercolors on paper

38 x 57 cm (14 3132 x 22 716 inches)

Teresa Solar
Forma de fuga (1)

2020

Refractory clay, resin, paint, glaze

67 x 26 x 20 cm (26 38 x 10 14 x 7 78 inches)

Wilfredo Prieto
Hoja verde

2018

Leaf, acrylic paint

40 x 25 x 10 cm (15 34 x 9 2732 x 3 1516 inches)

Wilfredo Prieto
El mundo desaprovechó la oportunidad

2020

Acrylic on canvas

29.7 x 42 cm (11 1116 x 16 1732 inches)

Joan Hernández Pijuan
Paisatge amb xiprers

1986

Mixed media on paper on canvas

200 x 100 cm (78 34 x 39 38 inches)

Perejaume
Emmarcatge

1996

Polychromed wood

45 x 90 cm (17 2332 x 35 716 inches)

Luna Paiva
Silla

2019

Polished bronze

Ana Mendieta
Untitled

1972/2020

Suite of six black and white photographs

Each, 57 x 73 x 4 cm (22 716 x 28 34 x 1 916 inches)

Josep Maynou
Nikke

2018

Aluminium

23.5 x 29 x 10 cm (9 14 x 11 1332 x 3 1516 inches)

Josep Maynou
!

2021

Handwoven 100% wool tapestry and clothing

200 x 120 cm (78 34 x 47 14 inches)

Chema Madoz
S/T

2012

B/W photograph on baryta paper, sulfide toned

150 x 117 cm (59 116 x 46 116 inches)

Jordi Mitjà
Pausa

2018-2019

C-Print on Hahnemühle paper

65 x 55 cm (25 1932 x 21 2132 inches)

Jordi Mitjà
Brazos en cruz

2021

Mixed media on linen

230 x 80 cm (90 916 x 31 12 inches)

Marine Hugonnier
Art for Modern Architecture (Mai 1968)

2017

Silkscreened Rives paper onto vintage newspaper

80 x 62.5 x 4 cm (31 12 x 24 58 x 1 916 inches)

Enric Farrés Duran
Conjunto de figuras (Tableaux 1456)

2017

Mixed media on wood

55 x 141 cm (21 2132 x 55 12 inches)

Enric Farrés Duran
Tu que passes has de saber

2018

Frottage on paper

73.5 x 53 x 3 cm (28 1516 x 20 78 x 1 316 inches)

Bernat Daviu
Por si las moscas

2020

Oil on linen

114 x 146 cm (44 78 x 57 1532 inches)

Anne-Lise Coste
Immensita 4

2019

Acrylic on burlap

225 x 190 cm (88 1932 x 74 1316 inches)

Hannah Collins
The Fragile Feast - Anemones 6 (anemones caught in the sea)

2011

C-Print

130 x 130 cm (51 316 x 51 316 inches)

Joan Brossa
Despullament

1991

Poem object

98 x 13 x 100 cm (38 1932 x 5 18 x 39 38 inches)

Drag