Josep Guinovart

JOSEP GUINOVART BERTRAN (Barcelona, 1927 - 2007).
Untitled. 1976
Engraving adhered to wood intervened, P/T copy.
Signed and dated by hand.
Measurements: 79 x 57 cm.

In works like this one Guinovart takes the engraving beyond its traditional condition, turning it into an expanded and objectual support. The original engraving is adhered to wood and then intervened, fragmented and rearranged by means of a black geometric structure that functions as a grid, a frame and a constructive element at the same time.

The composition is articulated as a mosaic of partial images, where fragments of bodies, gestures, nervous strokes and black ink stains are combined with warm color fields characteristic of Guinovart's sensual and telluric imagery of the seventies. The repeated use of red introduces a symbolic charge linked to the vital, the erotic and the pulsional, while the veiled areas and voids generate visual pauses and a sense of internal breathing in the work.

The compartmentalized structure is reminiscent of both a stained glass window and a constructivist assembly, but its content is organic and overflowing: the forms seem to want to escape from the limits imposed by the grid. This tension between order and tearing, between geometry and gesture, is central to Guinovart's production of this period.

Josep Guinovart is represented in the Museums of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Madrid and Mexico City, the Museo de Escultura al Aire Libre de Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museo de Bellas Artes de 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.