Factoria Cultural hosts a retrospective dedicated to Romà Vallès

Factoria Cultural hosts, from November 24 to February 25, a retrospective dedicated to Romà Vallès on the centenary of his birth. Curated by Joan Gil, Conxita Oliver, Silvia Muñoz and Ricard Planas, Romà Vallès 1923-2023. Retrospectiva collects the most significant and important pieces from each of the eleven series that encompass Romà Vallès' body of work.

A pioneer of Catalan informalism, Romà Vallès (Barcelona, 1923-2015) worked throughout his career on a theme or a concept until he fully investigated it, linking in a coherent manner between the one and the other in different chronological periods. This is why his works are structured in series that each explore specific ideas or content until they exhaust their possibilities. He studied Fine Arts in Barcelona and continued his training in the main European cities. He dedicated his life to his passion, painting. The first exhibition in Barcelona was at the René Metras Gallery and, from then until his death, year after year, he presented his paintings all over the world. Romà was a tireless worker, in addition to his facet of pedagogue, as an artist he held more than 345 exhibitions, of which 85 people and a large number of conferences, presentations and articles.

As Ricard Planas, co-curator of the exhibition, writes: "Everything flows, nothing stands still", this is what the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus said in his aphorism 'panta rei'. A man who had the nickname of obscure and by whom Romà Vallès was fascinated. And it was because of this spirit of going against fashions and isms. This strong, poignant, terrible soul - but which in the case of Vallès could be perceived as fragile - is mimicked in the two characters. Formal and metaphysical forcefulness of creations that are the last paintings of a long career and that end up rethinking everything. Despite the fact that it reconnects with the photographic pictorial collage of the 60s, where it clearly highlights a leaves careful and brutalist at the same time and where art, like life, is an eternal beginning again, reinventing itself, shedding all predetermined backpacks. Romà Vallès surprised us with this rebirth. With the forcefulness of large-format works that they seemed to be made by an overflowing energy, by a twenty-year-old spirit. Photograph carefully selected and intervened. Textures, visually fictional materials but also enriched on black and white photographs that illuminate everything. A luxury at the end of the journey. A 'rara avis' that shined when everyone ends up going down. A "mannot" luxury that reinvented itself without losing its essence, its voice."