ALBERTO GARCÍA-ALIX

"Formentera … What would have become of me without the island … I have loved and been lost in it. Its waters float the sea of my conscience in it … Madness, emotional ups and downs, affections and loves …I was happier than ever and sad on this rock in the Mediterranean”, writes Alberto García-Alix about the smaller Pitiusan Island, an island linked to his holidays, as are Ibiza and Mallorca, although to a lesser degree. Es Baluard Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma is exhibiting García-Alix’ photographs of these three Balearic Islands for the first time.

Born in 1956 in Leon, Alberto García-Alix first travelled to Ibiza in 1974, although the first negatives of the island date back to 1981. He did not visit Formentera until 1989 and since then, this island "repeatedly returns to his life and therefore his work. A sense of freedom, a hedonism that permeates the images and reaches us through the filter of his eyes” as exhibition curator Nicolás Combarro asserts. García-Alix’ photographs recount the people and places that were and are important in his life. And, as the exhibition entitled “The closest I have ever been to paradise” demonstrates, the Balearic Islands, with the exception of Menorca, are a part of the autobiographical itinerary of this winner of the 1999 National Photography Prize. Even so, seek not the expected geographical or social description in it, not in García-Alix. The important thing is the photographer’s eye, how it falls on something to return to it with many shades of gray, the non-colours of the afternoons, evenings and nights. His rejection of digital technology, love of traditional cameras and passion for the laboratory are also important in the pursuit and mastery of a technical perfection that help make the characters, landscapes and experiences he portrays as strange as proximate.
 
Location-Hall: Floor -1
Production: Es Baluard Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma