Modest Cuixart

MODEST CUIXART I TÀPIES (Barcelona, 1925 - Palafrugell, Girona, 2007).
Untitled.
Gouache and ink on monotype.
Signed.
Measurements: 17 x 12 cm; 34 x 24 cm (paper); 51 x 41 cm (frame).

This work is a paradigmatic example of the "Magicism" or Magic Realism characteristic of the Catalan avant-garde group Dau al Set. At the top appears the word "skizii" (or skizli) in an invented gothic or runic style typography. The use of mysterious words, single letters and literary graphics was common in the group (heavily influenced by the poet Joan Brossa) to evoke mystery or arcane rituals.

Rich in symbolism, we see drawn with fine and nervous strokes "the all-seeing eye", surrealist symbol par excellence. There is a profusion of floating elements: waning moons, conical shapes reminiscent of magicians' hats, musical notes and unstable geometric structures. The central black circle acts as a "hole" or a black sun, around which the other elements of vibrant primary colors (red, yellow, blue) orbit.

Faced with the gray reality of the Spanish post-war period, the artists sought refuge in a world of fantasy, dreams, occultism and the subconscious. This "naïve" but sinister aesthetic, full of insects, moons and hybrid beings, is what defined the Catalan avant-garde before Tàpies and Cuixart himself jumped into matter abstraction in the mid-1950s.

A painter and draftsman, he trained in Barcelona, in the workshop of Ramón Rogent and at the Academy of Plastic Arts with Ángel López-Obrero. After dedicating himself to painting and drawing in anonymity, he held his first individual exhibition in 1946, at the Art Gallery of Bilbao, which was to be his definitive consolidation within the national artistic panorama. In 1948 he founded, together with Tharrats, Puig, Cuixart, Tàpies and Brossa among others, the avant-garde group Dau al Set. Selected by Eugenio D'Ors, he participated in the Salón de los Once in Madrid in 1951 and 1952. In 1952 he took part in the Hispano-American Biennial, and the following year he spent some time in Paris, where he met Joan Miró and was able to exhibit at the Musée de la Villa. On the latter's recommendation, Ponç gained access to Brazilian artistic circles, settling in São Paulo from 1953 to 1962. In 1954, the year of the dissolution of Dau al Set, he held an exhibition at the city's Museum of Modern Art, with such success that the organization acquired all of the works. In Brazil he visited the equatorial jungles, where he was impressed by the fauna, especially insects, which he incorporated into his imagery. In 1955 he founded the Taüll group with Marc Aleu, Modest Cuixart, Jaume Guinovart, Jaume Muxart, Mercadé, Tàpies and Tharrats. After returning to Catalonia due to an illness, as a fully consecrated artist, he shows his work in New York, Rio de Janeiro, Bonn, Paris, Frankfurt, Geneva, Antibes and several Spanish cities. In 1965 he won the International Drawing Grand Prize at the São Paulo Biennial. Ponç's paintings present phantasmagoric images that are at the same time painful and tortured, in which the subconscious is the protagonist. For the painter, art is nothing more than an introduction to the mystery and secrets of the spirit. More a draughtsman than a painter, his work is extremely detailed and meticulous. Ponç's production can be divided into six periods: the Dau al Set period (1947), the Brazilian period (1958), the metaphysical-geometric period (1969), the metaphysical characters period (1970), the acupainting period (1971) and a final period of synthesis (1972). He is currently represented at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo, the Museo Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the MACBA in Barcelona, the Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo in Vitoria, the Museo de L'Empordà and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.