"I have never painted Golden Angels" by Eulàlia Grau
06/02/2013.
MACBA. [BCN] Spain 08/02 > 26/05/2013
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Eulalia Grau, between art and activism, the MACBA. Tomorrow, Thursday 7 February at 19.30, will opening the exhibition "I have never painted golden angels" by artist Eulalia Grau (Terrassa, 1946). Images taken from the contemporaneous media form the raw material for the art of Eulàlia Grau (Terrassa 1946). Since the early seventies, Eulàlia has been creating photographic montages and collages in the avant-garde tradition of an art committed to values that happen to be in crisis at the time of production of the work.
Eulalia Grau, "Nixon" (Ethnography) 1973. Photographic emulsion on canvas 112.5 x 57 cm. Particular collection. Photo: CRBMC Center of Restoration of Béns Mobles of Catalonia. Enric Gracia Molina and Joan M. Díaz Sensada.
Eulalia Grau "Rics and celebrities / Rich and famous" (Ethnography) 1972. Photographic emulsion and anilines on canvas, 120.5 x 124.5 cm. Particular collection. Photo: CRBMC Center of Restoration of Béns Mobles of Catalonia. Enric Gracia Molina and Joan M. Díaz Sensada.
Eulalia Grau "The capitalist regime creates every day situations in the working class / The capitalist regime creates situations like this in the working class every day," 1976 Offset printing on paper 59.5 x 40 cm Edition of Gallery G of 200 folders. Prova d'artista Private collection. Photography: Gasull Photography.
Eulalia Grau, "Núvia i rentaplats / Novia y lavavajillas" (Ethnography) 1973. Emulsión fotográfica y anilinas sobre tela, 62.5 x 108 cm Colección Pazos – Cuchillo. Fotografía: CRBMC Centre de Restauració de Béns Mobles de Cataluña. Enric Gracia Molina y Joan M. Díaz Sensada.
Eulalia Grau, "Misses y gángsters" (Ethnography) 1973. Photographic emulsion, anilines and acrylic paint on canvas, 108.5 x 115.8 cm. MACBA collection. Consorci Museu d’Art Contemporani of Barcelona. Photograph by Tony Coll.
Eulalia Grau, "Interior d'un avió / Interior de un avión" (Ethnography), 1973. Photographic emulsion, anilines and acrylic paint on canvas, 113 x 152 cm MACBA Collection, Donation GR. Consorci Museu d’Art Contemporani of Barcelona. Photograph: CRBMC Center de Restauració Bens Mobles de Catalunya. Enric Gracia Molina and Joan M. Díaz Sensada.
Eulalia Grau "Songbook of vertical men and horizontal men", 1975. Typographic and offset printing on paper. 29.5 x 22 cm Private collection. Photograph by Gasull Photography.
She criticises the way in which the press at the time, in line with the political and economic powers, serves the interests of a controlled, censured, unjust and male-dominated society. The media propagates social models of cultural and economic dominance, as well as forms of ideological and physical violence. Eulàlia's work has become a document of a period of changes and crisis with uncomfortable parallels to the present. Her aesthetic option cannot be understood without her strong ethical commitment: it holds a prominent place among the artistic practices that make up the space of expression occupied by feminist movements at the end of modernity, and that are part of the changes in opinion that radically altered our society at the end of the Franco dictatorship and during the Transition that followed.
I Have Never Painted Golden Angels is a survey of Eulàlia's 'paintings' – as the artist herself calls her works – that helps us revisit them today with a renewed interest. The exhibition does not follow a strict chronological order. It is constructed as a visual story based on subjects that have always interested the artist: from the most obvious mechanisms of control, such as the police and prisons, to more subtle yet equally efficient devices, such as schools, labour hierarchies, access to living accommodation or to justice, and gender models. Eulàlia's silk screens and emulsified canvases are shown together with lesser known works such as posters and graphic interventions in books and magazines, media that she used to reach a wider public beyond artistic circles, practically nonexistent in those days.
Opening: 7 February 2013. Dates: 8 February 2013 to 26 May 2013. Curator: Teresa Grandas. Organisation and production: Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA).
