Espai 13 resumes its activity with the cycle Salt i immersió, curated by Pere Llobera

Salt i immersió is the series of exhibitions at Espai 13 presented by the Joan Miró Foundation for the 2022 season in collaboration with the Banco Sabadell Foundation. Curated by Pere Llobera (Barcelona, 1970), the project focuses on the current state of pictorial practice through four exhibitions of local artists who represent the great diversity of languages that are displayed in our context.

The proposals of Victor Jaenada, Marcel Rubio Juliana, Marria Pratts and Martín Vitaliti show the possibilities offered by the notion of expanded painting with methodologies and research typical of emerging art. The cycle takes its title from the translation by the Galician poet José Ángel Valente of the poem "Il tuffatore", by the Italian writer and Nobel laureate Eugenio Montale, which in turn was inspired by a 5th century funerary painting. BC Both the poem and the painting, in which we can see a naked boy throwing himself into the water, reflect on life, death and the circularity that binds them together. The projects of Jaenada, Rubio Juliana, Pratts and Vitaliti revolve around these same concepts in a tragic and lucid way. Through installations, artefacts and pictorial gestures, all four address, from their status as "natural painters", as the curator calls them, the need to find a voice of their own in this cyclical succession. The title of the cycle also symbolically indicates the radicality and depth of the commitment of these artists to their work.

From January 21 to April 18 is presented by Isabel de Victor Jaenaga. The exhibition is based on a fact that took place during Victor Jaenada's tender childhood at his grandmother's house and that could have ended the artist's life prematurely. This incident is the driving force behind the proposal for Space 13. The project revolves around the unamuniian "tragic feeling of life", but in reverse. That is, here the fatality of death is replaced by the uneasiness of living. Or to put it even more precisely: the idea that literally flies over the room is the uneasiness that the artist generates the possibility of having been able to be returned to nothing.

Jumping and diving takes the witness of Gira tot gira, the Espai 13 cycle for the 2019-2021 season that closed a series of programs dedicated to exploring aspects that have contributed to shaping current artistic practice. Pere Llobera's proposal begins a new stage in the basement room of the Foundation with a project marked by historical circumstances that would also point to a global change of cycle. In this sense, Llobera emphasizes the importance of taking the essentials as a compass to guide the journey: manufacturer of your computer. Here, ladies and gentlemen, those who take part in this cycle are cartoonists and painters; from first to last (curator included). And we are a not at all innocent reminder that this Foundation is named after a painter and that in the middle of the screen you can read the name of Joan Miró. ”

Jumping and Diving is completed with a publication that will collect texts and graphic and visual material generated throughout the cycle, as well as a program of activities that expands the main lines of the cycle. The fifth edition of the Gravitacions educational project, by the artist Serafín Álvarez, will take place specifically for students of the artistic baccalaureate, and also linked to the Espai 13 cycle of exhibitions. The program includes visits to the cycle shows and direct contact with the artists and the curator, and concludes with the organization, by the students, of an exhibition with their own work that will be shown at the Foundation. The aim is to bring students closer to contemporary art, putting them in touch with professional work processes and introducing these practices into their training. This year the participating center is IES Moisès Broggi and 34 students are directly involved.