Face Face To
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FACE TO FACE The portrait at Foto Colectania Collection Texts in English Exhibition Idea and production Fundació Foto Colectania Curator Pepe Font de Mora Production of the adaptation of the exhibition for its circulation Culture. Arts Promotion Office of the Provincial Council of Barcelona Circulation Culture. Arts Promotion Office of the Provincial Council of Barcelona Participating councils Graphic design Fons Gràfic Educational service A Bao A Qu Related activities A Bao A Qu Fundació Foto Colectania Transport and setting Jorge Bravo Frames Acutangle Insurance Willis Catalogue Editing and production Press and Communications Department Technical coordination Culture. Arts Promotion Office of the Provincial Council of Barcelona Design and layout Fons Gràfic Printing Agpograf, SL Photographs © Alberto García-Alix, António Júlio Duarte, Inês Gonçalves, Jorge Couto Guerra, Humberto Rivas, Rafael Sanz Lobato, Alberto Schommer, Miguel Trillo, Toni Vidal, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2013 © Of the other authors, the authors themselves Cover photograph Alberto García-Alix. Benedicte, 1987 A selection of pictures from the exhibition can be found in the Catalan version of this catalogue 2 At the Diputació de Barcelona (Barcelona Provincial Council) we are strongly committed to backing those cultural initiatives that aim to bring creative talent to the wider public. That’s why, in conjunction with the Foto Colectania Foundation and based on their photographic collection, we have organised the travelling exhibition entitled “Face to Face”. The display explores the portrait genre from the 1950s to the present day and is made up of numerous photographs, texts, a space for documentation, an education service and related complementary activities. This catalogue presents a work by each of the photographers featured in the exhibition: Josep M. Casademont, Juan Manuel Castro Prieto, Francesc Català-Roca, Toni Catany, Joan Colom, Gabriel Cualladó, António Júlio Duarte, Manuel Ferrol, Albert Fortuny, Alberto García-Alix, Cristina García Rodero, Inês Gonçalves, Jorge Guerra, Fernando Lemos, Ramón Masats, Xavier Miserachs, Nicolás Muller, Leopoldo Pomés, Humberto Rivas, Pablo San Juan, Rafael Sanz Lobato, Alberto Schommer, Ricard Terré, Miguel Trillo and Antoni Vidal. Since the late 1990s, the Diputació de Barcelona has presented travelling exhibitions in the province’s town councils by means of the Visual Arts Programme of the Office of Artistic Promotion (ODA). The objective of this initiative is to give support to local policies promoting contemporary art and contributing to the training and professionalisation of municipal visual art technicians, as well as providing town councils with contemporary art dissemination projects, mainly travelling exhibitions, and offering services and resources linked to the displays for educating audiences. The methodology of this programme is focused on working on the basis of town councils’ needs, diversity and potential; collaborating with institutions, curators, artists, companies and professionals of reference; and seeking a balance between excellence and dissemination. 3 I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the cooperation provided by the Foto Colectania Foundation, the collaboration of all town councils taking part in this travelling initiative and the work of the professionals involved in making this face to face possible. Our intention is to offer resources to visitors to contextualise, explore in depth and open a dialogue with the subjects and philosophy of the exhibition and with the artists participating in it, contributing, in short, to an enriching coming- together of contemporary art and the people in our towns. Mireia Hernàndez Deputy Member for Culture of the Diputació de Barcelona 4 The Foto Colectania Foundation is a private, non-profit organisation founded in Barcelona in 2002 with the aim of promoting photography and encouraging photography collecting through exhibitions, activities (conferences, seminars, trips) and catalogue editions. Foto Colectania has its own photography collection that comprises more than 3,000 works by Spanish and Portuguese authors from 1950 until today. It also has a library with free access to the public and a conservation vault, where the photography collection is stored together with photographer Paco Gómez’s archive (donated by his family in 2001) and the deposit of several private collections. The Foto Colectania Foundation has always sought the alliance and involvement of organisations and institutions, be they public or private, to carry out its activity. A significant part of its work consists in the programme of travelling exhibitions, the aim of which is to share and disseminate the Foto Colectania collection at both the national and international level. The “Face to Face” exhibition, jointly organised with the Diputació de Barcelona provincial government, responds to this spirit of cooperation and diffusion of the Foundation. Foto Colectania Foundation 5 Photography changed our way of seeing and thinking about art. Concepts as elementary as perspective, movement or capturing the moment were redefined from the appearance of this discipline. Following the 19th century, painting was obliged to reinvent itself and find new paths. It was the painted portrait however which most suffered that profound transformation, losing its documentary function due to the proliferation of photographs. A good deal of this transformation was motivated, on the one hand, by the democratisation of the cartes de visite, a type of small photograph which, as its name indicates, was used as a calling card. And on the other hand, it was driven by the change in paradigm represented by maintaining a pose for seconds for a photo to be taken, instead of the days required to be portrayed in paint. The word portrait comes from the Middle French of the 1560s, being the past participle of portraire, meaning to portray or depict. Through photography, “Face to Face” shows how the portrait concept has evolved beyond its etymological definition, how it has progressed from mere representation, and reminds us that the genre has been one of the most attractive forms of this medium, as it refers to something extremely close to us: ourselves, and other people. The “Face to Face” exhibition is a magnificent model of collaboration between public and private organisations which has been made possible thanks to the Diputació de Barcelona’s Office of Artistic Promotion (ODA). Rather than a general review of the photographic portrait, the display sets out to showcase outstanding examples of Spanish and Portuguese photography from the 1950s up to the present day, through the Foto Colectania collection. It explores various kinds of portraiture and re- 6 examines this genre by employing different sub-themes, both at the formal level with close-ups, group photos and body language, as well as at the portrait level, with children and adolescents, celebrities and self- portraits. Humberto Rivas often said that during photographic sessions and precisely due to the subject’s awareness of being in front of the camera, a dispute would develop, on occasions a bitter struggle, between the image the subject wished to project and that which the photographer was attempting to reveal. Photographers know that this face to face can have only one winner. Pepe Font de Mora Director of Foto Colectania Foundation and curator of the exhibition 7 Josep Maria Casademont (Barcelona, 1928-1994) Josep Maria Casademont was Biographies a photographer, teacher and photography editor and one of the driving forces behind the Barcelona photography scene of the 1960s and 70s. He directed the Sala Aixelà gallery from 1959 to the mid-seventies, where he organised numerous photographic exhibitions, such as “Terré, Miserachs, Masats II”, “Colom, Maspons y Ubiña”, “Paco Gómez y Gabriel Cualladó” and “Mario Giacomelli”. He also brought now well-known authors like Toni Catany, Colita, Jordi Blassi, Ton Sirera, Manel Esclusa and Joan Fontcuberta to the public attention. In 1963 he created the magazine Imagen y Sonido, which was published up to 1975 following an editorial line very close to photographic documentalism and the work of photography associations. Casademont was also a pioneer in many other fields, such as cinema, and was one of the first to attempt to systematise the history of Spanish photography. In 1978 the Gustavo Gili publishing house commissioned him to compile the appendix corresponding to Peter Tausk’s book on the history of Spanish photography. The Casademont archive may be found in the Museu d’Art Contemporani in Barcelona, where it is currently being inventoried. Further information: www.macba.com 8 Juan Manuel Castro Prieto Francesc Català-Roca (Madrid, 1958) (Valls, Tarragona, 1922 – Barcelona, 1998) A self-taught photographer, Juan Francesc Català-Roca worked and Manuel Castro Prieto’s relationship learned the photography profession with the medium began in 1977. with his father, Pere Català i Pic, who Following years of practice and a was one of the leading representatives member from the early 1980s of of Catalan avant-garde photography. the Real Sociedad Fotográfica de Francesc Català-Roca became Madrid (Royal Photographic Society independent in 1948, opening his own of Madrid), he opened the “Contraluz” laboratory and embarking on a long laboratory. In 1990 he travelled to and influential personal career. He Cuzco, Peru, to print the photographic collaborated in numerous publications, plates produced by Martin