Room 20

All the pieces in this room underline the expressive power of the material: ceramics, fabric, wood, cloth, paper, pigment, powder... Fragile, hard, flexible, live, inert, solid, evanescent materials... primordial raw materials symbolically linked to the very origin of our existence. Interest in the seminal purity of primitive art, particularly African art, was decisive in this search for the essential at this time. The influence of such art is still felt and in evidence nowadays.

Blanc i rosa, 1964, by Antoni Tàpies, and P'isaq, 1978, by Frederic Amat, coincide in their respective explorations of the expressive possibilities of materials. In the case of Tàpies, without abandoning the medium or format of the painting, nor certain references to the pictorial genre such as the still life. Amat's piece of work is of an anthropological nature, given the importance of craftsmanship and the process of preparation and construction.

Bajorrelieve 1, 1988, is worthy of special mention, in which Ferrán García Sevilla combines the founding forms of the modern alphabet: squares, circles and triangles with a “worker” construction based on untreated wooden slats.

And there is a connection between Grand pot avec crânes sur 1 face, 2000, by Miquel Barceló, and Untitled (leveler), 2019, and Stubborn, 2020, by Lucía Bayón, but not only the material separates them: ceramics in Barceló´s work and varied in Bayón´s. They are also separated by the transforming element of each type of matter; fire in the former and water in the latter. The third difference is underlined by their layout and location. However, the creative power of the transformation of matter is visible in both cases.