Bill Armstrong's heroes and anti-heroes

The Palau de la Música Catalana, as part of its 2024-25 season, emphasizes the theme of heroism in music, through a close collaboration with this year's guest artist , Bill Armstrong. His exhibition, 'Heroes and antiheroes. A humanistic approach', connects deeply with the common thread of this season, as it reflects on the archetypes of the hero and the anti-hero, figures that are also present in the musical narrative that the Palau wants to explore. Through the scheduled concerts, emphasis will be placed on the great heroes of music, figures who have overcome adversity or who, with their compositions, reflect human greatness in the face of their challenges.

Armstrong's works, which can be seen in the Foyer del Petit Palau until December 15, illustrate the season's graphic campaign, underscoring the human values that music evokes: struggle, resistance, fragility and overcoming These elements are present in both the heroes and the anti-heroes of the story. Through his signature style, Armstrong expresses these qualities with a subtle use of collage and blur, creating human figures that, despite being blurred and often lacking defined features, retain the force of their gesture and the essence of the moment.

'Reinassence 1067', 2018

"In my works, the process is central: I take images, cut them, color them, blur them, and, through collage, they become something more spiritual," explains Armstrong. This process is particularly suitable for expressing the dual nature of hero and anti-hero, as his works show characters who, despite their unstable and blurred appearance, strongly convey an idea of inner strength and personal conflict. His figures evoke classic, biblical or mythological scenes, but devoid of their usual clarity, with a contemporary touch that reinforces the idea of fragility and loneliness.

The selection of exhibited works includes series such as 'Renaissance', 'Figure' or 'Portrait'. In these, Armstrong addresses the magnificence and serenity of classical figures to the emotional instability and isolation of contemporary anti-heroes. His use of color is fundamental to this exploration: vivid and contrasting hues that seem to give life to figures that, although blurred, express a latent movement, an energy that recalls the same passion that is experienced in music.

Regarding his career, Bill Armstrong, born in Concord (Massachusetts) in 1952, is an artist of international recognition. His work has been exhibited in museums such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the Getty Center, among others. An art history graduate from Boston University, Armstrong has built a career marked by constant experimentation with photography and the innovative use of blur, which has allowed him to explore the relationship between human identity and color.

Bill Armstrong al Foyer del Petit Palau. © Toni Bofill