Josep Guinovart

JOSEP GUINOVART BERTRAN (Barcelona, 1927 - 2007).
Untitled. 1975
Assemblage (engraving intervened with collage, paint, pencil, mirror and fibers), P/T copy.
Hand signed and dated.
Measurements: 36 x 31 cm; 40 x 35 cm (frame).

This work by Josep Guinovart is located in one of the most experimental moments of his career, when the artist delves into the language of assemblage and the incorporation of unconventional materials to load the image with physical, sensory and symbolic meanings.

The piece is based on an intervened engraving, on which Guinovart acts with pencil, collage, mirror and organic fibers, generating a densely stratified surface. In the upper part there is a graphic fragment of figurative character, with a delicate and suggestive stroke, which alludes in a veiled way to the female body and erotic intimacy, while the lower area is dominated by a dark mass of tangled fibers, almost telluric, that evoke hair, earth, organic matter or contained vital energy.

The contrast between the linear drawing and the material-organic accumulation reinforces the erotic reading of the work: desire appears not as an explicit image, but as a tension between the visible and the hidden, between form and matter, between the mental and the corporeal. The small specular element also introduces a symbolic and participatory dimension, alluding to the gaze, the reflection and the involvement of the spectator in the intimate experience of the work.

Josep Guinovart is represented in the Museums of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Madrid and Mexico City, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museo de Bellas Artes in 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.