ACVIC reflects on the place and its loss in "Recosits" by Alícia Casadesús and the poet Antoni Clapés

ACVIC hosts Recosits, an exhibition where the visual artist Alícia Casadesús and the poet Antoni Clapés reflect together on the place and its loss. The result of the collaboration between both creators, which has also been taken to the publishing field with the publication of a book, can be seen from March 2nd until April 29th in the side room. The inauguration will take place together with the exhibition Perfect Day by the photographer Txema Salvans.

The axis on which the exhibition revolves is "the place understood as our own space, the one that each one mentally inhabits, our "little homeland" and not a political homeland, but a place, physical or moral, that we internalize and that he has grown accustomed to his own roots, origins, experiences, relationships... That place that gives us tranquility and serenity", as Casadesús and Clapés explain.

In the exhibition, the poems of Clapés can be read alongside the drawings of Casadesús, but not with the intention that the former explain the latter or vice versa but that they complement each other. "Poems and images come together in a single speech, in a single saying. There is no will to ekphrasis. No attempt to illustrate with words or images what the images or words say”, they say.

Recosits also talks about "nostalgia, the pain of the loss of place and which may have occurred due to various circumstances - among others, the degradation of a space, the lack of personal time, the discomfort of living, or also and above all, exile, say the artists. A unique look at the ontological dimension of existence, which in the book published with the same title as the exhibition is articulated in two parts, the first as a reflection on place and life and the second on the loss of place and exile.

About Alicia Casadesús

Alicia Casadesús (L'Esquirol, 1968) has a Master's degree in Visual Arts and Plastics from the School of Art and Design in Vic. Practice artistic work in different formats from sculpture to installation and scenography through drawing, photography, etc. His work talks about the look, the place, the silence, the slowness, the difficulty of saying with language, the life agreed with nature.

Casadesús is a visual artist who lives art as an inseparable part of life. As a way of being, of looking, of thinking and from where to tell the world. To say it in a slow way, a little against the current of how we live it. And say it trying to bring silence to the viewer immersed in the noise of the society he inhabits.

The work that has defined his career often speaks of the place and is developed from reflection and his perception; whether it is a physical or conceptual place. Some of the work he has carried out has been done in collaboration with other creators, especially with the poet Antoni Clapés. From here arise: "Micrograms" (2017), "Allí on la llum" (2018), "Recosits" (2021) and "Fer un ligall with the clothes well folded" (2022).

About Antoni Clapés

Antoni Clapés (Sabadell, 1948) is a poet, translator and publisher of poetry.

He has been living in Barcelona for years, where he actively participates in cultural life. Since 1964 he has been writing poetry and texts related to the genre. He has published two dozen books and numerous texts in art editions, book forewords, pamphlets and anthologies. His poetry has been translated into languages such as French, Spanish and Italian. He has given readings of his work in Catalonia and other Catalan-speaking countries and also abroad.

He has worked with visual artists Benet Rossell, Marga Ximénez, Lafon+Rierola, Jaume Ribas, Asunción+Guasch (ARCA Project), Pilar Abad and, especially, with Alicia Casadesús. And with the musicians Joan Guinjoan and Ferran Fages. He has written numerous reviews of poetry in various media.

As a translator, he has translated, above all, Philippe Jaccottet and Quebec poets such as Denise Desautels and Nicole Brossard and the Italian-language poets Pietro Civitareale and Remo Fasani. Also the prose of Jules Renard, Marguerite Duras, Christian Bobin, Paul Valéry (Tel Quel), among others. He is also a poetry editor and cultural activist and directs Cafè Central, an independent publishing project at the service of poetry that has edited more than four hundred publications and carried out more than a thousand actions related to this literary genre.

He has been distinguished with prizes such as Poesia Joan Alcover (1989); Josep Maria Llompart – Green Horse (2010); Rent (2018); and in the field of translation with Mots Passants (2012); the Serra d'Or criticism prize (2020) and the PEN Translation Prize (2021).

He is the creator of shows such as "Com una espurna", on the occasion of the centenary of Màrius Torres (2010); "Don't worry about my tears", with texts taken from Tomba de Lou by Denise Desautels (2014), among others. Clapés studied Economics at the University of Barcelona and from 1966 until his retirement in 2013 he worked as a consultant in the IT industry.