Josep Guinovart

JOSEP GUINOVART BERTRAN (Barcelona, 1927 - 2007).
Untitled. 1975.
Intervened engraving (collage with rope, stones and mirror), P/T copy.
Signed, dated and justified by hand.
Measurements: 75 x 55 cm; 79 x 59 cm (frame).

This work by Josep Guinovart is a notable example of his intervened engravings from the mid-seventies, a period in which the artist turns the graphic support into a physical, almost ritual territory, through the incorporation of real materials and gestures with a strong symbolic charge.

The composition is organized on a dominant black field that acts as a telluric background from which irregular white shapes emerge, fragmented, crossed by gestural stains and nervous strokes. On this base, Guinovart introduces collage with rope, stones and mirrors, materials that break the two-dimensional illusion and reinforce the idea of the work as an object and tactile experience.

The central circle with mirror, surrounded by an earthy halo crossed by a rope, functions as a point of energy, establishing a symbolic axis between the upper and the lower. The rope, dangling and taut, suggests bonding, rootedness or even sacrifice, while the small embedded stones bring weight, memory and direct reference to the earth, an essential element in Guinovart's imaginary.

Josep Guinovart is represented in the Museums of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Madrid and Mexico City, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao, the Museo San Telmo in San Sebastián, the Museo Eusebio Sempere in Alicante, the Museo de Navarra in Tafalla, the Casa de las Américas in Havana, the Bocchum Museum in Germany, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Long Island, New York, and the Museo Patio Herreriano in Valladolid.