LLEI D'ART 10

the human is still that which leads us to seek each others truth. The characters in my pictures, within the crowds that surrounds them, are differentiated. I use different ways and tricks to distinguish them. Juan Genovés wants not to be judged by anyone that bases their opinion on the reproductions that exist of his work, because a painting needs to be contemplated in the flesh to avoid creating myths, and he tells us this. Seeing this last exhibition that brings together his personal collection, he remembers the time of the dictatorship, the time of struggle, when he painted possessed by a very political spirit. ‘Now, when I look at them, I see that this meaning has disappeared. With fresh eyes, all that pain and drama has been distilled and turned into the aroma of the period. They are the same paintings, but I am no longer the same’, Genovés admits. He speaks with enthusiasm. Moreover, his tone is affable and simple. He wants to speak and carry on looking into the deepest of his emotions, which all seem so jovial and friendly, and nobody would guess that they were the words of a man of his age. He resolutely states: It is the spectator that makes the painting. For me, painting is the most free of all the arts. When you go and see a film or listen to music, it’s difficult to think because you are following the story –not to denigrate any of the art forms, of course. However with painting, you can look wherever you can, it is like a symbol of eternity, a reflection on each piece chosen. Therefore it makes me sad to see that peo- ple don’t even spend a few seconds looking at it. I distrust all generalisation We can’t help ourselves, and we ask Genovés the million- dollar question: define art for us. He pauses for a few moments and answers: ‘The truth is that I don’t know, because every time I find myself before a painting, I see different things. I know that it is something subjective, occasional, complicated, that shouldn’t be systemised. Art is not science. Art is art.’ I stopped being a political resistant to be an artistic one Fear is the enemy of the painter; that is why I get up before dawn, feeling myself a prisoner of the half-sleep that clings to you, because then you feel no fear and you can paint any old drivel. Then I really let myself go. If you think too much you can become paralysed by it. The afternoons, however, are for reflection. Many of his paintings reflect the drama of loneliness in the midst of the herd, of the marginalisation of the individual, of a marriage between freedom and confusion in the middle of a period marked by individualism. His characters are often viewed at a certain distance which, paradoxically, invites a rapprochement. When this happens, small materic concretions take place. A game of perception that makes up a large part of his symbolic discourse. We want him to share something special with us, some story from the time that he would sign up to anything, an activist with anything to do with freedom, and insist he shares. There are so many things that I don’t even have the patience to write down! Many of these memories are part of collective endeavours: founding an artists’ association where we used to hold clandestine meetings during the dictatorship or get hold of the Fine Arts Circle for the artists...we achieved many things together. Once, more than eighty of us artists managed to lock ourselves inside the Museo del Prado. I remember the panic that we had in the Goya room during the night when the police tried to get rid of us, and the fear that one of the paintings might be destroyed! It was even featured in international press. Faithful to the Marlborough Gallery, with whom he has worked since 1958 after moving to Madrid, Juan Genovés is, above all, an artist loyal to his principles, who remains firm in his adherence to free art. His work is weighty and makes no concessions, and even after the fame his proudly Mediterranean-tinged name has won, he has not abandoned the dynamism and his insistence on looking into the deepest parts of the essence of man and his will for freedom. Luisa Noriega Juan Genovés. Impacto/ Impact , 2012 Cortesía Galería Marlborough 2012. Foto Leonardo Villela 59