SOURCE. THE PAINTING SPACE

Valencia Open

(September 2022 – November 2022)

 

My long journey as an avant-garde painter began in the fifties, as part of one of the richest and freest movements: informalism, which came to meet some of my most emotional needs as a creator: my need for freedom that, at the same time , was a channel of expression of my sociopolitical concerns. A bridge that allowed me to connect with the vanguards of my environment and my time, as well as with the roots of my culture. From that first moment of aesthetic positioning, fundamental for me, I evolved, but always trying to maintain a critical vision so as not to fall into possible academicisms.

In recent years I have been insisting – in small texts about my work – of my love for painting that was born with my first informalist works, eminently intuitive and passionate, made with the urgency that time, age and theories demanded. An avant-garde that allowed us a fundamental renovation of plastic languages, but always from painting, as a member of a generation that claims, as I have said over and over again, its richness and aesthetic punctuality.

I think the time has come to rescue the space of painting; recover its poetic and metaphorical dimension, its ability to excite us, to fall in love, to vibrate again with that virtual space of painting. Resume the discourse of painting and its ability to communicate, nothing more! and nothing less! Perhaps it is not only the recovery of painting, perhaps it is also searching for the transcendent dimension of the sublime… perhaps reinventing painting? When I have had to talk about my complex evolution and my periods, I have used the simile of a necklace, made up of various beads, like my periods, but always with a common thread that unites them, and that ends up meeting its beginning. I think I am at this point in my search for essentials and work with minimal elements as a means of enhancing its radical nature, very close to my searches of the fifties, but on new materials and concepts.

My works want to be a field of experimentation to search for the essentiality of a few simple brushstrokes: metaphorical gestures of the imprint of man on our reality; footprints, furrows, like those of the Castilian farmer on the ground. Material experience of man who leaves his mark on the world. And behind that reality, on the reverse, fields of color like our eternal landscape of sky-earth, earth-air, horizons that have marked our spaces, and where it is reflected, on the methacrylate support, the glaze of our own reflection. , the integration of our space as part of the same work.

 

Raphael Canogar

 

Press release:

Shiras Galería opens on September 23 at 7:30 p.m., on the occasion of the celebration of the Valencia Open 2022, two new exhibitions: 'Origin. The space of painting' by the consecrated master National Award for Plastic Arts in 1982, Rafael Canogar, who will exhibit in the Main Room, and the project of the conceptual artist Noemi Iglesias Barrios 'Bling Bling Romance' curated by Semíramis González exhibited in the Space Shelter.

After his participation in the IVAM with the project 'The abstraction of Rafael Canogar' carried out at the end of 2013, the artist Rafael Canogar (Toledo – 1935) returns to Valencia to present us with 'Origen. The painting space', an exhibition of unpublished painting produced expressly for this new edition of AbiertoValencia 2022. This new work, as the artist defines it, refers us to the moment of rescuing the painting space; recover its poetic and metaphorical dimension, its ability to excite us, to vibrate again with that virtual space of painting. Searching for the transcendent dimension of the sublime with minimal elements as a means of enhancing his radicalism, very close to his searches in the fifties, but on new materials and concepts.

As described by the avant-garde painter from the well-known El Paso group, his break in painting began in the fifties, as part of one of the richest and freest movements: informalism, which came to meet some of his most emotional needs as a creator: their need for freedom, to express their sociopolitical concerns. A bridge that allowed him to connect with the vanguards of his environment and his time, as well as with the roots of his culture. From that first moment of his aesthetic positioning he evolved, but without ceasing to maintain a critical vision and insisting on not losing that love with which his first informalist works were born, eminently intuitive and passionate, carried out with the urgency that time, age and the theories of the time.

All this has led Rafael Canogar to establish himself as one of the fathers of European abstraction. Counting throughout his career, with an extensive career of distinguished mentions and awards, among which stand out: Numerary member of the Royal Academy of San Fernando, Palette of Gold at the Cagnes-Sur-Mer International Painting Festival, National Prize for Plastic Arts, Member of the National Heritage Administration Council, Member of the Advisory Council of the General Directorate of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture of Madrid, Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, Doctor Honoris Causa by Unesco, among other. In addition to having participated in countless collective exhibitions and individual exhibitions in various parts of the world, among these several have been retrospective. As well as having works in innumerable institutions of great international and national prestige such as: The Pompidou Museum in Paris, the Collection of Contemporary Art of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, the MOMA in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, ​​the Salvador Allende Museum in Santiago de Chile, the Reina Sofia Collection in Madrid, or the Vatican Museum Collection in Rome among many others.