Joan Brossa

Joan Brossa i Cuervo, a poet (as he liked to define himself) in the Catalan language for which there were no distinctions of genre (literary, scenic, visual, objectual) and one of the most significant renovators of the second half of the 20th century in Catalonia.

His interest in psychology and Freud's work brought him closer to psychic automatism and surrealism. For Brossa, Mallarmé is the true precursor of the calligram, even more so than Apollinaire himself.

In 1941 he meets poet J.V. Foix, the leading exponent of Catalan literary surrealism in the period before the Civil War, who becomes another important influence.

In 1948 he participates in the creation of the Dau al Set magazine with painters Joan Ponç, Antoni Tàpies, Modest Cuixart and Joan-Josep Tharrats, the polymath Juan Eduardo Cirlot and philosopher Arnau Puig, which represents a capital point of reference for the Catalan artistic avant-garde of the time, in clear contrast with the intellectual stagnation prevailing under early Francoism. His relationship (1947-1951) with Brazilian poet Joao Cabral de Melo Neto restores his contact with everyday reality and encourages him to learn about Marxism. Brossa's work gains in political depth and assumes a social commitment that he will never abandon.

His literary work, of enormous dimensions and in part still unpublished, was written exclusively in the Catalan language. However, thanks to the immediacy of his visual, objectual and corporeal poetry, he has become universally known. The exhibition he held at the Miró Foundation in 1986 marked his national and international recognition.

His visual poetry and his posters constitute the most well-known part of his work, to the point that in this field Brossa becomes an international reference, always with an incisive message. From the 1970s onwards he manipulates objects to deepen their meaning. Objects and poems are usually very everyday. However, the interest lies in the contrast between the title and the object he presents to us.

Text provided by the Mediterranean Foundation. Author: J. B. Peiró.