Jordi Alcaraz

JORDI ALCARAZ TARRADAS (Calella, Barcelona, 1963).
"Homenatge a Brancusi", 2007.
Wood, frame and methacrylate.
Signed in the lower margin of the frame.
Provenance: Important Spanish Collection.
Size: 58 x 80 x 50 cm.
Jordi Alcaraz rereads, using his own language, those painters and sculptors of the history of art who marked him, and this is how we can understand this Homage to Brancusi. This language is based on the choice of humble objects and materials, on the subtle use of conceptual paradoxes, in order to reflect on the notion of art and its limits. On this occasion, once again, he uses materials that can be linked to arte povera, and transparent materials (with which he reinterprets the meaning of "glazes" and transparencies), to investigate the encounters and misunderstandings between painting (alluded to by the frame) and sculpture (alluded to by the name of Brancusi), the empty and the full, space and its infinite dimensions (if one knows how to look for them).
Jordi Alcaraz began his artistic career in the field of sculpture and engraving. He made his debut in 1985 in a group show held at the La Main gallery in Brussels, and the following year he held his first solo exhibition at the Espai 83 of the Museum of Sabadell. His artistic media include the use of sculptures, drawings and paintings. He is of classical tradition and his works evoke the movements of surrealism, abstract expressionism and arte povera. Probably best known for the use of empty spaces in his works, Jordi Alcaraz also uses the malleability of different materials, in order to highlight the constantly changing nature of the physical world. Internationally recognised, since his beginnings Alcaraz has had numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Spain and in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Canada and Switzerland, and has been present at some of the most important fairs on the international contemporary art circuit (Arco, Art Bassel, Art Frankfurt, Art Cologne, Art Chicago, Art Miami and Arte Lisboa, among others). In 2001 he participated in the collective exhibition "De blancos, vacíos y silencios", at the Fundación Telefónica. In 2009, the Nieves Fernández gallery in Madrid included him in the exhibition "Cherchez la femme", which also included works by artists such as Chillida and Equipo Crónica. In 2010, Jordi Alcaraz had his debut exhibition in the United States, which received favourable reviews and was announced as one of the top ten exhibitions in Southern California that year. His 2013 exhibition Altered States was proclaimed a great success. He has also produced several bibliophile editions, including "Papers secants", with poetry by Perejaume (1986) and "Trasllat", with writings by Joan Brossa and Alfons Borrell. He is represented at the Centre Cultural Contemporani Pelaires in Palma de Mallorca, as well as in various private collections around the world.