Bonart and the Vila Casas Foundation, a shared history

A few days ago, the public farewell ceremony for businessman and philanthropist Antoni Vila Casas was held in Barcelona. It was a simple mass in Catalan - which ended with the singing of Virolai -, without too many people, and not too long, as he liked things to be, just the right amount; this does not mean that he did not have the relevance that he had, with presidents of the Generalitat de Catalunya up and down and artists and programmers who dismissed him. Two readings were held, one by Natàlia Chocarro, one of her closest collaborators - perhaps because of this esteem and this esteem he had for her, he did not let her be the art director of the foundation but only wanted her for him, as the president's art advisor - and Joan Torras, the director general of the foundation and Antoni's family who, as he admitted to me the other day, all excited, acted as a second father to him and was there working fourteen years. Perhaps the feeling of emptiness for these two people - like that of the wife and daughter and other relatives and friends - who worked side by side every day on the first floor of the Ausiàs March offices, always ends up being immense. And Antoni was intense and filling. He was sly and sullen and never stopped visiting exhibitions and planning things until the last days of his life. He also controlled everything to the extreme.

Vila Casas i Natàlia Chocarro

In 1998 he introduced an art and heritage line within the guidelines of the foundation, created much earlier. A year later, with the support of my parents, I launched the bonart magazine at just twenty-one years old. We met in the middle of exhibitions and cultural events. He started in Pals with the collection and immediately everything was packed, he was hyperactive and he was not at all lazy to go around the Catalan geography - seems the permanent honorary minister of culture. I remember that he came to Girona to see the bonart offices, including the headquarters of the magazine, which were housed in the former house of the sculptor Emília Xargay. All over the office we had works by Emília Xargay and she fell in love with one of them. I put him in touch with the family and they did not understand each other. And in another meeting he told me one day, I have found one of the same but cheaper. He was a negotiator of sorts, it is clear and to the extreme. We hit it off right away, me with my youthful naivety, I always had his support in all the actions we did and always with a friendly and close treatment, from time to time he scolded - who wouldn't - but with that exquisite education he had. I had the perception as if I was scolding a family member. I remember that he was particularly excited when I was named a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi -thanks to the proposal presented by gallerist Josep Canals-, of which he was also part. For two years we organized an art fair in Girona, when Catalonia had become an orphan of events of this nature - there was still no high-speed train -, and he always told me to go ahead. With my parents, Narcís and Anna Maria, honorary presidents of cultural bonart, he also spoke for hours, while we were presenting the bonart awards at the volart space in Barcelona. I also remember the curatorship of the exhibition by Enric Ansesa at the Barcelona foundation, an artist with whom he also got along very well and who did the assembly of the permanent rooms of the collections; we had him from time to time supervising what we did - I think he watched over me more than Enric. Another key person for many years was Glòria Bosch, who entered through the mediation of Arcadi Calzada, a member of the foundation, and who did a splendid job in the art direction doing a duet with Natàlia Chocarro, two big women flagging the equipment. Now the art direction is in the hands of Bernat Puigdollers, bonartdes collaborator for more than a decade, who was introduced to me by the lucid and intelligent art critic and historian Albert Mercadé, current president of the Association of Art Critics of Catalonia and director of the Arranz-Bravo Foundation.

Vila Casas amb els premiats i els editors de bonart durant els premis de 2013 que el grup cultural organitza i que es van fer diverses vegades a la seu de la fundació barcelonina de l'entitat.

So, the truth is that it was a pleasure to have him close to Antoniou, as we used to say to him in private, as it is now to have the friend and collector Lluís Coromina, with whom they were also friends and with who agreed in the way of understanding the love of art with generosity and passion. In fact, Lluís was the one who sold him the flat where the foundation's offices were located on Carrer Ausiàs March - the name of the great poet of Catalan literature. As an anecdote, leaving the ceremony, Rosa Serra told me that I had a reserved seat next to her in the rows in front of everything, I knew it, but in an attack of mine to pass more discreetly, I stood further back, looking with perspective the stage and the round church of Sant Gregori Thaumaturg, next to the photographer Leopold Samsó, of Enric Pladevall, and finally in Medina-Campeny, the Udaeta and the Assumption Mateu. There is little more I can add, only that an educated, elegant, passionate man who had the country on his mind is gone, let's hope the flame continues.

Una de les darreres vegades que vaig coincidir amb l'Antoni -febrer del 2023-, en el reconeixement a palafrugellenc d'honor -fill adoptiu- amb l'artista Eduard Bigas i al costat de Bernat Puigdoller