ERRÓ

The retrospective on Erró –pseudonym of Gudmundur Gudmundsson – currently on view at Es Baluard offers a synthesis of pictorial work by this singular Icelander, who has been living between Paris and Formentera since 1958. Made up of 66 pieces (51 canvases and 15 collages), this exhibition is the first retrospective of his work ever organized in Spain. The film Grimaces, made by Erró between 1962 and 1967, will be screened during the exhibition.

This anthology signifies the recovery of a body of work by one of the most significant painters of the movement known as New Figuration, also called Narrative Figuration by French critic Gérald Gassiot-Talabot. Born in the early 1960’s, this movement vindicated the practice of painting as a distanced and critical testimony to the reality of the world we live in. Born in Ólafsvík (Iceland) in 1932, Erró took part in this adventure together with artists such as Valerio Adami, Eduardo Arroyo, Jacques Monory, Juan Genovés and the now-defunct Equipo Crónica, among others.

The exhibition at Es Baluard reveals how Erró has reconstructed our contemporary epic through great thematic series which range from his first works, such as Meca and Meca Make up from 1959, to his latest work on Irak or Marilyn Monroe and her Friends, including his well-known Tableaux Chinois and celebrated Political Paintings. In his striking canvases and collages full of humour and irony, Erró issues a warning, using the association of singular images or the juxtaposition of absolutely disparate iconographic elements to create a startling visual play of images.

Erró offers a personal narration of our contemporary history seen through the prism of lucidity and sarcasm. Nothing escapes Erró’s attention – thus, he misses no chance to display his disagreement with the prevailing ideologies that rule our world. His work, represented in major museums such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the MoMA in New York, constitutes living testimony to the fact that painting, at the dawn of the twentieth-first century, still has much left to say.

Location-Hall: Floor 0
Production: Es Baluard Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma