2023-12-14 21:44:57
BarcelonaThe photographer Pere Formiguera (Barcelona, 1952-2013) was also a historian of photography, writer of works such as Nirvana, collector and exhibition curator. He was a erudite, bold and much-loved creator in the industry and remembered above all for the series Cronus, consisting of portraying once a month for ten years (from January 1991) 32 people from his personal environment, aged between 2 and 75 years. Also for fun secret fauna which was invented with his colleague Joan Fontcuberta and for the portraits in the series squinty eyeswhich could be seen in an exhibition at the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), for which he immortalized with closed eyes numerous Catalan personalities, such as Ana María Matute, Lluís Llach, Tortell Poltrona, Victòria Combalia, Antoni Tàpies, Josep Guardiola, Antoni Bassas and Miquel Martí i Pol.
These series are the tip of the iceberg of a career characterized by the desire for artistic freedom, as can be seen in the exhibition dedicated to him by the MNAC from Friday until April 21. titled Donation Pere Formiguera. The creative drivethe exhibition is born from the donation of thirty-six photographic series made by his brothers Santi, Anna and Xavi in 2016. The exhibition does not include squinty eyesbut yes the portraits of Santi Fomiguera de Cronus and samples of eight other series, com My friend, like a white ship (1975), in tribute to Salvat Papasseit; Scenarios of a war (1987), a commission from the Community of Madrid on the Civil War; Painful way (1989), on pain and death, the result of manipulating photographs obtained at the beginning of the 20th century by Dr. Guillot in his office in Barcelona, and Dialogues with painting (2005). “What distinguishes Pere Formiguera is that he takes a completely free photograph, with enormous artistic autonomy,” says Roser Cambray, curator of photography at the MNAC and curator of the exhibition. “He wasn’t afraid to try new things and this allowed him to advance artistically in a different way. We can say that his photographs are painterly: Formiguera paints the images, scratches them, manipulates them,” the curator emphasizes. It also highlights the fact that Formiguera created sequences of images in the 70s when it was not a common occurrence and he drew on references such as painters Cézanne, Picasso and Modigliani to create “new works” that dialogue with them. “You see a photograph, but somehow the image connects you to the history of art,” explains Cambray.
A donation of over 4,000 images
In total, Pere Formiguera’s brothers gave the museum more than 4,000 photographs on paper, most of which are signed original copies, and there are also artist’s proofs, more than 1,000 slides and 3,900 contact sheets. The donation also includes their library. As Santi Formiguera states, the donation prevailed over the possibility of selling: “He won the option of donating because I think the sale would have been a bad sale, because the art market is what it is, that of the photography is what it is and the country is what it is.” “If we had sold the work, we would have dispersed it, but it was agreed that we would give it and we chose an institution that, first, was Catalan, because Pere was very committed to the country and we did not want to give it to a French or Spanish institution. The second condition was that it be public and the third that it be prestigious,” says the photographer’s brother. “The donation makes the work pass to the public institution and from this institution to the world, because this is our commitment,” says the director of the MNAC, Pepe Serra.
The donation also allows us to observe “the creative processes” of Formiguera, among which is the manipulation of Polaroids, his diverse trajectory and constants from the beginning such as the themes of “identity and the body”, concludes Cambray.
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