Juan Genovés

JUAN GENOVÉS (Valencia, 1930 - Madrid, 2020).
"Under arrest", 1973.
Acrylic on canvas.
Signed, dated and titled on the back.
With Marlborough gallery label on the back.
Exhibitions: Individual Exhibitions:
Genovés. Marlborough Gallery, New York, May-June 1973; Marlborough Godard Gallery,
Toronto, June-July 1973
Joan Genovés [Retrospective exhibition 1965-73 of painting and graphic work]. Alcoiarts Gallery, Altea, Alicante, 7 September-3 October 1974.
Genovés: Paintings, 1960-2000. Marlborough Gallery, Madrid, 10 May-24 June 2000.
Genovés. Paintings, 1960-2001. Le Bellevue, Biárritz, 15 December 2001-19 January 2002.
Genovés. Paintings 1963-2002. Museo Provincial de Jaén, September-November 2002; Centro Cultural Fundación Caja de Granada, Granada, November-December 2002; Centro Cultural Caja de Granada, Almería, January-February 2003; Multitudes, Centro Cultural Las Claras Caja Murcia, Murcia. 2016; La intensidad del silencio, Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, July-September 2018; New York, Marlborough Gallery, Juan Genovés: Reconsidered, May - July 2022, no. 67 , n.p., illustrated in color.
Group Exhibitions:
Xe Biennale Internationale d ́Art. Palais de l'Europe, Menton, July-September 1974.
Provenance: Estate of the artist.
Bibliography:
GENOVÉS. PAINTINGS 1963-2002. Caja de Granada Obra Social, Granada 2002 [catalog], rep.
GENOVÉS. PEINTURES, 1960-2001. Galería Marlborough S.A., Madrid 2000 [catalog], cit. n.o 20, p. 70, rep. p. 35.
Genovés. Marlborough Gallery-Marlborough Godard Gallery, NY-Toronto 1973 [catalog], cit.
n.o 4, p. 4, rep. pp. 10, 27 [technique: "mixed media on canvas"].
GENOVESE: PAINTINGS, 1960-2000. Marlborough Gallery, Madrid 2000 [catalog], cit. n.o 20, p. 78, rep. p. 35 [technique: "oil on canvas"].
JOAN GENOVÉS. Galeria Alcoiarts, Altea 1974 [catalog], rep. p. [14] [fragment].
CULTURAL EXHIBITION OF THE VALENCIAN COUNTRY. Ajuntament d'Alcoi, 1981 [catalog], rep. p. [34].
Xe BIENNALE INTERNATIONALE D ́ART. Menton 1974 [catalog], cit. n.o 294, p. [167]
[technique: "technique mixte"]
Multitudes, Centro Cultural Las Claras Caja Murcia, Murcia. 20162018 [catalog], p.65
The intensity of silence, Patio Herreriano Museum, Valladolid. 2018 [catalog], p.57

Measurements: 115 x 135 cm.

In "Under Arrest", Juan Genovés reaches one of the most forceful formulations of his political imaginary: the instant in which the individual is subjected to the anonymous force of power. The scene, reduced to three isolated figures on a dark and almost stripped field, possesses an immediate intensity. Two agents lead the detainee, whose leaning body concentrates all the vulnerability of the image, while the projected shadows lengthen the action and turn it into an almost threatening presence.

The work belongs to a particularly significant moment in Genovés' career, when his painting is affirmed as one of the most incisive voices of Spanish critical realism. The artist avoids any accessory detail and constructs the scene from a distance, as if it were an image captured from a vantage point. This distance intensifies its dramatic charge: the arrest becomes a symbol of repression, fear and collective memory.

The palette, limited to blacks and grays, concentrates all the tension in the gesture, the displacement and the relationship between body and shadow. In this extreme economy lies much of its strength: Genovés converts a minimal scene into an image of enormous moral and visual power, capable of condensing the climate of surveillance and violence under a totalitarian regime. At the same time, the image transcends its immediate historical context (late Francoism) to become a universal allegory of the individual in the face of any form of coercive power.

Because of its date, theme, format and compositional quality, "Under Arrest" is a work of special relevance within Genovés' production. It brings together the elements that have made his language recognizable and valued -figures seen from a distance, narrative tension and an extraordinary capacity for synthesis-, placing it among his most emphatic formulations of the individual stripped of humanity.

Juan Genovés was a key figure of Spanish critical realism in the second half of the 20th century. He exhibited widely in Spain, Europe and the United States, received the National Plastic Arts Award in 1984, and his work is represented in institutions such as the Reina Sofia Museum, the IVAM, the MACBA, the MoMA in New York and the Guggenheim Museum.