Zush

“ZUSH”; ALBERTO PORTA (Barcelona, 1946–2025).
“Guerrero Evrugi,” 1983.
Photomontage.
Signed, dated, titled, inscribed, and located on the reverse.
Measurements: 25 x 19.5 cm.

Evrugi is the language invented by Evru (formerly Zush) to bring to life the Evrugo Mental State, the fictional universe he created in 1968 as a symbolic alternative to conventional states and systems of communication. It is not a functional language with a complete grammar, but rather an artistic and conceptual language composed of signs, symbols, and its own alphabet—the Asura—which appears integrated into his drawings, paintings, prints, and digital works.

Zush was Alberto Porta’s artistic alter ego from 1968 to 2001, the year Evru, his new persona, was born. Defining himself as an ArtCieMist—an artist, scientist, and mystic—he was self-taught and held his first exhibition in 1968. That same year, he created his own realm—an alternative conception of reality called Evrugo—with its own elements and an alphabet of his own invention. In 1975, he received a fellowship from the Juan March Foundation and the J. W. Fulbright Foundation to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he began working with new technologies. Beginning in the 1970s, he participated in solo and group exhibitions that brought him international recognition. Some of these exhibitions included Documenta in Kassel (1977), “New Images of Spain” (Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1980), “Les magiciens de la Terre” (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1989), “Drawing on Chance” (MoMA, New York, 1995), “Zush Tecura” (MACBA, Barcelona, 2000), and his retrospective organized in 2000 by the Reina Sofía National Art Museum. That same year, he received the City of Barcelona Award for the Visual Arts. He has participated in various editions of the art fairs in Cologne and Chicago, as well as in every edition of the Basel Art Fair. In his new phase as Evru, he presented the exhibition “From Zush to Evru: The Second Reincarnation” at the Haim Chanin Gallery in New York in 2004. His work is included in public and private collections around the world, such as those of the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York, the Reina Sofía Art Center, MACBA, the Museum of Modern Art in Valencia, and the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, among many others.