Joan Brossa

JOAN BROSSA (Barcelona, 1919 - 1998).
"Nuptial", 1984. Made in 1988.
Poem-object, issue 6/10.
Metal with wooden box and methacrylate.
Justified.
This work was part of the Joan Brossa's exhibition at La Máquina Española Gallery, 1988. It appears published in the catalog of the exhibition.
Work published in:
- "Joan Brossa/Carmen Calvo", Spain at the XLVII Venice Biennale, 1997.
- Learning with Joan Brossa", Glòria Bordons (coordinator).
Measurements: 9 x 33 x 22 cm.

Joan Brossa, the great creator of visual poems, unfolds before the spectator questions or messages whose deciphering requires several keys. For the Barcelona-born artist, the shiny wives symbolize both the slavery of wealth (he suggests that money and opulence can enslave a person, limiting his or her freedom and autonomy) and the loss of freedom in marriage. These two interpretations are intertwined in his work, reflecting his critique of society and his focus on the loss of individual freedom. The readings of his visual poems are open. As Brossa said, "in a visual poem you gamble everything for everything because there is no past. No tradition protects you. If the poet fails, you are sinking miserably" (Gual, Antoni; Ruiz, Carles: "Joan Brossa: l'alternativa poètica").

Brossa was a poet for whom there were no distinctions of genre (literary, scenic, visual, objectual...) He was co-founder of "Dau al Set" together with Ponç, Tàpies, Ciuxart and Tharrats, and throughout his career he received the Lletra d'Or, City of Barcelona, the UNESCO Picasso Medal, the National Plastic Arts Award, the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts and the National Theater Award of the Generalitat. His visual poetry and his posters constitute the best known part of his work, to the point that in this field Brossa became a world reference. From the seventies onwards he manipulated objects to deepen their meaning, or to represent the bare concept, through everyday objects and poems. His first object, "Escorça", a true "objet trouvé", dates from 1943. And 1951 is the first object made expressly, from the association of two distant realities (in this case a hammer and a letter composed of two others). But it is from 1959 that the poet intensifies his visual research with the "Suites de poésie visuelle" (Suites of visual poetry). It will be from the exhibition at the Fundació Miró in Barcelona in 1986, "Joan Brossa o les paraules són les cosas", and the anthological exhibition at the Reina Sofía in 1991, when the poet begins to be recognized in the country and around the world. This allowed him to carry out a series of more complex projects, which were translated into installations and what he called corporeal poems, or interventions in urban spaces.