Equipo Crónica

EQUIPO CRÓNICA (Valencia, 1964 - 1981).
"Double whistle". Series A place, a date, an image.
Silkscreen on paper. Issue 61/75.
It has several tears in the upper left corner, the left side and the lower left area.
Measurements: 102 x 73 cm.
The work "Pito doble" by the Equipo Crónica collective is a particularly lucid example of the visual and intellectual strategy that defined the group's production during the 1960s and 1970s: a painting constructed from the appropriation, quotation and critical re-reading of the history of modern art. Founded in Valencia by Manolo Valdés and Rafael Solbes, Equipo Crónica developed a language deeply influenced by pop art, although endowed with a much more incisive political and historiographical dimension. In "Pito doble", that critical vocation is manifested through the incorporation of images and signatures of Juan Gris and Francis Picabia, essential figures of the historical avant-garde of the 20th century. The presence of both artists does not function as a simple erudite homage. Equipo Crónica turns their references into material for cultural analysis, establishing a dialogue between the heroic modernity of the avant-garde and the contemporary society of the image. Juan Gris appears associated with the structural rationality of cubism, with an analytical conception of painting based on the fragmentation and reconstruction of reality. Picabia, on the contrary, introduces the irreverent, ambiguous and provocative component inherited from Dadaism. The coexistence of both references generates a deliberate tension between order and disruption, between consolidated artistic language and constant questioning of its own codes.
Formally, the work displays the characteristic features of the collective: flat colors, defined contours and a composition that refers to advertising graphics, comics and the mechanical reproduction of images. However, beneath this apparent visual clarity, a complex reflection on the circulation of images in contemporary culture is developed. Equipo Crónica understood art history not as an untouchable repertoire of masterpieces, but as an open archive that could be manipulated, reinterpreted and politicized.