Joan Cardells

Joan Cardells studied at the School of Fine Arts of San Carlos. He was part of the Estampa Popular collective in the mid-1960s. Subsequently, he founded, together with Jordi Ballester, the Equipo Realidad (dissolved in 1977). Drawing on the concepts of agitation and propaganda from the early years of the Russian Revolution, merging them with some approaches of the prevailing Pop Art, and incorporating generous doses of corrosive

post-academic humor (the subject Of the old and garments), this singular duo carried out a sort of guerrilla warfare of images against the prevailing social system.

After twenty-five long years of solo career, Cardells' work constitutes a singular milestone of existential commitment to an artistic technique, drawing, and to a graphic material: graphite. Cardells has come to assert "my sculpture is an auxiliary to drawing," subverting the secondary preparatory role traditionally assigned to drawing.

With unusual sobriety and restraint, his iconographic repertoire is equally succinct. Despite this, speaking of series in Cardells' work can be confusing since both the grouping by supports (uralites, kraft papers, marbles, iron sheets) and by theme (michelin, fights, pots, pumpkins) intertwine and juxtapose with equally notable persistence or alternation.

From this perspective, we have decided to present a set of works representative of three emblematic series in his trajectory and that encompass three moments spanning from the early 1990s (kraft paper), mid-period (Pots) and the most recent series of "Landscapes" (1999-2002).

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