Luis Gordillo

LUIS GORDILLO (Seville, 1934).
“Composition,” 1980.
Mixed media on cardstock mounted on panel.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 72 x 101 cm; 75 x 103 cm (frame).
The work as a whole is dominated by the idea of a deconstructed, fragmented, and reinterpreted figuration, which leads the viewer’s eye to wander through the vignettes in no particular order, looking indiscriminately from one place to another. In this work, the artist employs the device of repetition, creating a rhythmic sense to the scene. “Gordillo believes that an image is subject to a continuous process of reproduction and never reaches a definitive state. Furthermore, following his discovery of and practice of psychoanalysis, he incorporated into his work an interest in meanings and the connection between the world of thought.”
Luis Gordillo is one of the leading figures in abstract art in Spain. After studying law and music, he enrolled in the School of Fine Arts in Seville. Between 1958 and 1960, he lived in Paris, where he encountered an artistic and cultural environment brimming with freedom that profoundly influenced him. His early works fall within the realm of Informalism, following the lead of Michaux, Tapies, Millares, Wols, and others. He would later evolve toward the Pop aesthetic, of which he is one of the pioneers in Spain. Later, Gordillo would add technological exploration, the transformation of images in the media, and photographic creation to his distinctive style. Throughout his career, Gordillo has faced a stark dichotomy between, on the one hand, highly direct and expressive work and, on the other, the creation of highly controlled, clean, and perfectionist pieces that have been influenced since the 1970s by mechanical techniques such as offset printing, photography, and, more recently, the computer. The linear element, the blending of techniques, and the inclusion of symbolic graphic elements—such as letters—are of considerable importance and approach the style of Informalism. A highly regarded artist internationally, he has been honored with the National Prize for the Visual Arts (1981), the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts (1996), the Gold Medal from the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid (2004), and the Velázquez Prize for the Visual Arts (2007). He was also awarded the Order of Knight of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication in 2008. He has held solo exhibitions around the world, and his work is represented in the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, MACBA in Barcelona, the Juan March Foundation, ARTIUM in Vitoria, the Patio Herreriano Museum in Valladolid, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the Folkwang Museum in Germany, and elsewhere.