Rafael Forteza

RAFAEL FORTEZA (Palma de Mallorca, 1955).
"Level of putrefaction III", 1990, Palma.
Oil and collage on canvas.
Signed, dated, located and titled on the back.
Measurements: 130 x 97 cm.

Relevant work of Rafael Forteza made in 1990, in one of the most consistent moments of his pictorial production, when the artist develops a fully recognized language within the Spanish and international contemporary panorama.
Nivel de putrefacción III is part of a series of works in which Forteza explores painting as a territory of wear, accumulation and transformation, both material and conceptual. The combined use of oil and collage reinforces the processual dimension of the work, where the surface becomes a field of sedimentation of signs, gestures and fragments, articulated by means of a rigorous, though apparently unstable, internal structure.
The title introduces a critical and symbolic reading that refers to the notion of deterioration and mutation, recurring concepts in the artist's work in the early nineties. Far from any explicit narrative, the painting proposes a visual and material experience that underlines the tension between construction and decomposition, one of the fundamental axes of his poetics.

The work belongs to a particularly valued stage in Forteza's career, coinciding with his international projection and his continued presence at fairs such as ARCO, Art Basel and Art Cologne, as well as the incorporation of his work into important institutional collections. This period consolidates his position as a reference figure within the Spanish abstraction of the late twentieth century.

Rafael Forteza is one of the most relevant and consolidated figures of contemporary Spanish plastic art that emerged in the 1980s. Trained at the University of Barcelona, from the beginning he has developed his own language that articulates gesture, matter and sign, in dialogue with the European informalist tradition and the post-conceptual currents of the second half of the 20th century.
His trajectory reaches an early international projection, with works incorporated to first level institutional collections, such as the MoMA in New York, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Musée d'Art Moderne de Céret, a key institution in the history of European modern art.
Since the late eighties he has maintained a continuous presence in the international art circuit, participating regularly in fairs such as ARCO, Art Basel and Art Cologne, and exhibiting in galleries and museums in Europe and the United States. In 2002, the Casal Solleric of Palma dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him, confirming the coherence and solidity of his career.
Awarded several national and international prizes, including the Miró Foundation Prize on several occasions, Rafael Forteza's work is now held in numerous public and private collections, making him a stable reference in Spanish contemporary art, with sustained recognition at both the institutional and market levels.