WRITTEN ABSTRACTIONS
21.01 – 06.03.2021
Exhibition by Jordi Marcet and Rosa Vila-Abadal
Opening of the exhibition, Thursday 21st January at 7 pm
[view program]
This new exhibition by Jordi Marcet (1949) and Rosa Vila-Abadal (1950) is an excellent sampling of their careers, which have been remarkable for their sobriety and their elegance, and their focus upon experimentation and rigorous, meticulous work.
The materials used are stoneware and porcelain, with similar variations in colour and texture. The three-dimensional works are structured upon the basis of an underlying geometry which unfolds precisely at an increasing rate, so granting the composition both a measured dynamism and its expressive energy. In the murals, the superposition of typographic elements forms an irregular and dynamic surface, with a multiplicity of planes and a complexity marked by an apparent disorder, where entropy and chaos demonstrate their ability to create changing formal structures. The seemingly random arrangement of the letters does not conceal a profound effort to achieve order or the search for harmony, concepts that in some way guide these pieces. It is remarkable that, in both three-dimensional works and murals, stylisation finds its counterweight in the rhythmic accumulation of elements - the letters - which, by means of chalcographic transfer, become measured notes of colour or black, all highlighting on top of white.
The presence of letters is contained, and we must see them not as isolated elements, but as elements integrated into an alphabetical structure of a typographic nature. When letters are combined to form words or even sentences, we find a deliberate lack of meaning, either because they refer us to the traditional keyboard, as is the case with "qwerty", or the ordered enumeration of letters as in "Uiopasd", either because of the decontextualisation and its character of fragmented discourse, as in "our democracy is very much me" or "of an audience formed by". Then we could say that we are faced with a discourse that moves within the limits of linguistic meaning which - in the words of H. Lefebvre in reference to silence - "is within language and at the same time within its borders" *.
Miquel Bardagil
Art Critic
* H. Lefebvre, quoted by STEINER, G .; Language and silence, Barcelona, 1994, p. 84.
Jordi Marcet and Rosa Vila-Abadal. Study at the Massana School and the Eina School of Design, Barcelona, respectively. Members of the International Academy of Ceramics. Master Craftsmen Ceramicists, awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya, in recognition of their work in this specialty. Individual exhibitions in Catalonia, Spain, Holland and Brazil, and group exhibitions in Catalonia, Spain, France, Taiwan, Germany, Belgium, Andorra, Japan, Holland, England, Austria, Korea, Venezuela and Sweden.
Museums and public collections: Museo Nacional de Cerámica y Artes Suntuarias “González Martí", Valencia; Musée National Adrien Dubouché, Cité de la céramique-Sèvres & Limoges, France; Grassi Museum in Leipzig, Germany; Nakatomi Museum of Contemporary Fine Craft, Japan; Yingge Ceramics Museum. New Taipei City, Taiwan, Museu del Disseny de Barcelona, Museu del Càntir d’Argentona, Barcelona; Terracotta Museu, La Bisbal d’Empordà, Girona; Museu de Ceràmica de Manises, Valencia; Museu Etnogràfic de Ripoll, Girona; Museu del Centro de Artesania de Espanya i Amèrica, La Orotava, Tenerife; Museu Municipal de Ceràmica de Avilés, Asturies; Colección Taller Escuela Ceràmica de Muel, Zaragoza; Col·lecció Testimoni de La Caixa, Col·lecció Fundació Caixa Vinaròs, Castelló de La Plana; Handelsbankens Konstförening, Stockholm, Sweden; and Col·lecció d’Art, Ajuntament del Vendrell.