Guillem Nadal

About

Proyecto para una isla (Project for an island)
by Carlos Jover

Not just because Guillem Nadal was born on an island, but rather because he himself is an island – like everyone, some will say, although artists are a little more so, since solitude is the inseparable companion of all reflection, and even more so in unexplored terrain. This concept has been present in his work for years, so it is not surprising that this exhibition is entitled “Project for an Island”, very reminiscent of the title of Michel Houellebecq’s latest book, “The Possibility of an Island”, which tells the tale of an impossible voyage to a new species beyond human beings.

An island organised like a mille-feuille, materialised by layer upon layer of sediment deposited according to a hidden gravitation that can even be produced through a horizontal process at times, against all fallacious presumptions. Like the teeth of a plough that can feel what it penetrates, Guillem Nadal tears the Earth’s substance apart with his hands and the landscape that remains after this act, which is more like an encounter than like creation, brings us face to face with the substance of the material, free form all distorting anthropological interpretation.

Roland Barthes has already said that artistic text is “a multidimensional space” of layers that readers need to remember. Seeing in this way is “an operation of remembering”, to paraphrase Julia Kristeva.

Not in vain, Christian Dotremont, a prominent member of the CoBrA group, wrote in “The Hand that Shouts” back in 1949 that a hand sliding over the surface of a canvas is like a shout – hands are not an instrument, they do not intermediate between any two things, they do not translate languages from different sources of code. Hands, as in the case of the cave painting, acknowledge the Earth’s movement and make it possible, and that essential drop of material arises from its synthetic and synergetic expression, a summing up of its quiddity, although we do not know how to decipher it. Not in vain, thus, we find Jorn, Dubuffet, Tàpies and others in this tradition…Guillem Nadal’s hand is not alone when it plunges into the brown, black, red or white land to open up a secret passage that connects the yearned for substance that we are and the intense and internal object of our yearning.

So, when we plough through these papers, will anyone be surprised to find sex, death, blood, earth, silence, fate and the fragility with which the breath of life envelops it all?

Perched thus on the Earth’s edge, dismounted at last from so much erroneous luminescence and so many mirages, seeing as Berger showed us how to, we place our being in an intimate connection with the profound magic of the furrows that have been ploughed to make them accessible to us. Berger defines “the real as that which you can put your hands-on”. Nadal’s hand exercises reality without hesitation; everything that passes over the paper becomes part of what is real, querying as he does the hint of a mirage in everything outside of him; even us, fortuitous spectators who must prove the reality that endorses our status.

It is not a coincidence that the papers that serve as a support for the incarnation of the material were found by the artist in Thailand and that their fibrous entwinement clearly betrays their also “hand”-made nature. Thus, we stand before a kind of palimpsest in the purest line of art interpretation according to Derrida, a succession of real acts that emit their harmonic, joint vibrations, a choir of hushed voices that speak of immanence and ineluctability from their own orography.

These island shapes that open like fertile furrows, islands of material within a solidified ocean that allows for engrossed reflection: beyond all appearances, between the furrows of time and space, mere condensations of material sustain all of mankind’s hauteur, all the arrogance of that phantasmal invention that cultures have called the spirit.

An island is a node of material within the anonymous material magma the world is made of. Art must keep to the discourse of the node even to express the vacuousness of magma. This is how Nadal came to the project for an island. Bathed by magma all around, surrounded by an unfocused reality, the island is a metaphor for art. Concentrate, poetic drop within a verbose torrent of blind sounds, node – in other words, the exact counterpoint to nothingness.

I see Guillem Nadal standing erect in the centre of the island. I can almost not distinguish him from the land beneath his feet. His hand writes a furrow, dictating to reality how to make itself be seen. I can see it last.

Sediments
by Fernando Castro Flórez

According to Baudrillard, it is very difficult today to speak of painting because it is very difficult to see it: “Generally, the paint does not want to be seen exactly, but to be absorbed visually without trace”. One could say to some extent that the simplified aesthetic form makes an exchange possible. However, the best definition would be a discourse in which there would be nothing to see. The equivalent of an object that is not what it is’. We must be clear that the painting does not start from scratch, but as part of an imperfect erasure or, perhaps, the resistance of signs turned into clichés. The slate is never completely clean and the traces of what was written yesterday cannot be deleted altogether. In the same way as slate, our imagination possesses a certain quality of a palimpsest, or a Wunderblock.
Guillem Nadal has reached an artistic maturity that makes him stress the same by producing works that are always different. His previous post-informalist aesthetics with signs of the finite gave way to a territory in which he operated as if he were a farmer. He evoked the island but also the garden, land-sea, that which flows and that which is beautifully settled. In his bright studio I have seen containers full of paint and clear traces on the floor and walls that something has happened. In the wake of “abstract expressionism” and the concept of painting as an event, but without mannerisms or academic devotion, Nadal completely dominates his expressive resources. On canvas or wood he creates a site rather than an image, he produces a rugged and fertile material in formats that extended to the eyes of the viewer. In mid-1824 in his journal Delacroix spoke of the “silent power of painting”, the need for “joyful dirt” that sparks the “desire to spread good rich thick colour onto a red or brown canvas”.
An art that could be understood in Gilpinian terms, as a “rest from intellect” that is to say, to assume such sublime emotion so as to produce an ecstatic delight enabling an understanding that something is happening there which prevents any discourse or, at the very least leads to a deliberate forgetting of any effort at intelligibility. The mysterious presence of the picture is something that, as Horace says in his dictium, is similar to paint, however, not only is it silent but it also seems to impede verbal “meaning”. The work of art engages us both by its overall impression as well as by the details of the picture that are the emblem of the process through which the painting silently and creatively expresses itself. The startling detail of the picture touches the spectator, dislocating him and putting him in a state of syncope. In the painting of Guillem Nadal we find something as ancient as the potlatch ceremony; a stressful situation, where the surplus is consumed but instead of being destroyed, survives as an area of intense poetry. Painting to travel through and then inhabit as one might a familiar territory, where memories and the folds of life will eventually be knotted or beautifully woven together.

CV

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Serie Bangkok, Alzueta Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (2023)
“De sal i cendra”, Galeria Pelaires, Mallorca, Spain (2022)
Carving a new nature, Galerie Boulakia, Londres, UK (2020)
Fire & Earth, Galerie Florian Schönfelder, Berlin, Germany (2019)
Obras recientes, Galería Álvaro Alcázar, Madrid, Spain (2018)
Proyecto para una isla, Galería Gema Llamazares, Gijón, Spain (2018)
Projecte per a una illa, Galeria Miquel Alzueta, Barcelona, Spain (2017)
Guillem Nadal, La mirada del foc, Casal Solleric, Palma, Spain (2016)
Caos, Serie Chiang Mai 2, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2014)
Projecte per a una illa, Galeria Álvaro Alcázar, Madrid, Spain (2014)
Espacio Micus Arte Contemoporáneo, Ibiza, Spain (2013)
Caos, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2013)
D’aigua, terra i foc, Museu de Ciutat de Valencia, Valencia, Spain (2012)
Guillem Nadal, 5 telas, 5 papeles, Galería Álvaro Alcazar, Madrid, Spain (2011)
Galería Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland (2010)
Guillem Nadal, Pintura y Escultura, Espacio Micus, Ibiza, Spain (2009)
Sediments, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2009)
Guillem Nadal, Fundació Jacqueline Diffring, Berlin, Germany (2009)
Guillem Nadal, Galeria Álvaro Alcázar, Madrid, Spain (2008)
Guillem Nadal, Galerie Stefan Röpke, Cologne, Germany (2007)
Guillem Nadal, Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland (2007)
Guillem Nadal, Aboa Vetus@ Ars Nova Museum, Turku, Finland (2007)
Projecte per una illa, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2006)
Guillem Nadal, Sala Cai-Luzán, Zaragoza, Spain (2006)
Galería Academia, Salzburg, Austria (2004)
Galería Colón XVI, Bilbao, Spain (2004)
Galería Metta, Madrid, Spain (2004)
Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg, Germany (2004)
Centre Cultural Ca n’Apol·lònia, Son Carrió, Spain (2003)
Terra, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2003)
Mapes d’aigua, Galeria Mario Sequeira, Braga, Portugal (2002)
Galerie Academia, Salzburg, Germany (2001)
Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg, Germany (2001)
Centre Cultural La Misericòrdia, Palma, Spain (2001)
Lang Galerie, Vienna, Austria (2001)
Mogador, Sala Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2000)
Illes de Sal, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain (2000)
Indienreise, Galerie Tobias Hirschmann, Frankfurt, Germany (2000)
Caus de Foc, Galerie Tobias Hirschmann, Frankfurt, Germany (1999)
Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (1998)
Terra de Brau, Galería Reckermann, Cologne, Germany (1997)
Naufragi, Galería La Cité, Luxembourg (1997)
Sala Pelaires, Palma, Spain (1997)
Illes del Sol, Galería Tobias Hirschmann, Frankfurt, Germany (1997)
Galería Michaela Möller, Salzburg, Austria (1997)
Paisatges de la Memòria, Galería Bäumler, Regensburg, Germany (1996)
Galería Michaela Möeller, Salzburg, Austria (1995)
Chapelle des Capucins, Aigues-Mortes, France (1995)
R.A.S., Galería Joachim Becker, Cannes, France (1995)
Mapa de Foc, Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma, Spain (1995)
The Ten Best, Embajada de España, Jakarta, Indonesia (1995)
Trilogia, Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Nice, France (1994)
Bonjour Guillem, Galería Joachim Becker, Cannes, France (1994)
Vulcano, Galería La Cité, Luxembourg (1994)
Galería Lauter, Mannheim, Germany (1994)
Galería Tobias Hirschmann, Munich, Germany (1994)
Galería Michaela Möeller, Salzburg, Austria (1994)
De Carn, Galería Tobias Hirschmann, Frankfurt, Germany (1994)
Galería Tobias Hirschmann, Frankfurt, Germany (1993)
Galería Martine Queval, Paris, France (1992)
Metamorphosen, Galería Reckermann, Cologne, Germany (1992)
Sculptures, Galería Joachim Becker, Paris, France (1992)
Ritual, Centre Cultural de la Caixa de València, Valencia, Spain (1991)
Galería Joachim Becker, Cannes, France (1991)
Ritual, Palau Gravina, Alicante, Spain (1991)
Omphalos, Centre Cultural de la Misericòrdia, Palma, Spain (1991)
Oeuvres sur papier, Galería Joachim Becker, Cannes, France (1990)
Galería Joachim Becker, Cannes, France (1989)
Centre d’Art Contemporani, Castres, France (1989)
Galeria Dau Al Set, Barcelona, Spain (1988)
Galería Sa Pleta Freda, Son Servera, Spain (1985)

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
La Terre est bleue comme une orange, Alzueta Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2023)
“Maestros de la abstracción”, Galería Maria Segovia, Madrid, Spain (2022)
“Comunidad”, Galería Álvaro Alcázar, Madrid, Spain (2022)
“Temps, Illa, Existència” (Pep Llambías i Guillem Nadal), Untitled MLXF, Andorra La Vella,
Andorra (2022)
Iván de la Nuez, Bilbao, Spain (2019)
Nunca real / Siempre verdadero, Atzkuna Zentroa Alhóndiga, curated by Iván de la Nuez, Bilbao, Spain (2019)
Montaigne a Sa Torre (Iván de la Nuez y Guillem Nadal), Torre de Canyamel, Capdepera, Spain (2018)
Una colectiva, Galería Álvaro Alcázar, Madrid, Spain (2018)
IsleAr, L’Accademia Reale di Spagna a Roma, Rome, Italy (2013)
Isleart, Forum Factory, Berlin, Germany (2012)
Set (Campano, Nigel Hall, Pep Llambías, Jason Martin, Guillem Nadal, Miquel Navarro y Juan Uslé), Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2012)
Isleart, Galería Pall Mall, London, UK (2012)
A dues mans (Antoni Socias y Guillem Nadal), Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2012)
Colectiva, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2012)
Galería Álvaro Alcazar, Madrid, Spain (2011)
Concepts, Instituto Cervantes, Vienna, Austria (2011)
Institut Ramon Llull, Palma, Gabarrón Foundation Nueva York, New York,   USA (2011)
¿Quién mató a Bambi…?, Jordi Alcaraz, Rafa Forteza, Pep Llambías, Santi Moix, Guillem Nadal, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2010)
Nueva edad de bronce, Castillo de Santa Bárbara, Alicante, Spain (2005)
100 años de historia, Una mirada en el tiempo, Museo Municipal de  Arte Español Laureano Larreta, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2005)
Colectiva de Verano, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2004)
Galeria Metta, Madrid, Spain (2004)
Es Baluard, Any Cero, Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani Es Baluard, Palma, Spain (2004)
Com es fan les imatges, Sa Llonja, Palma, Spain (2004)
-/+ 25 años de arte en España, Creación en libertad, Museo Valenciano de
la Ilustración y de la Modernidad y Reales Atarazanas, Valencia, Spain (2003)
Museum am Dom, Colección del Museo, Würzburg, Germany (2003)
Pintar palabras…, Instituto Cervantes, New York, USA (2003)
Das Mallorca Atelier, Kunst Museum, Bonn, Germany (2003)
Desaïllaments, Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, Barcelona, Spain (2002)
Llum+Llum, Casal Son Tugores, Alaró, Spain (2002)
50 anys d’artistes i poetes, Casal Solleric, Palma, Spain (2002)
Parc Humà, Centre de Cultura Fundació Sa Nostra, Palma, Spain (2002)
Transparency and Transcendency, Museo Maagdenhuis, Antwerp, Belgium (2002)
Escultures de Pintors, Casal Solleric, Palma, Spain (2001)
Parc Humà, Palau de la Virreina, Barcelona, Spain (2001)
Museum Würth, Künzelsau, Germany (2001)
Animalia (Exposición itinerante), CAM, Can Gelabert, Majorca, Spain (2001)
Erotisme a la plàstica contemporània de les Illes Balears (Exposición itinerante), Govern Balear, Majorca, Spain (2001)
Itineraris damunt paper (Exposición itinerante), Majorca, Spain (2000)
In Szene – Menschenbilder, Galería Tobias Hirschmann, Frankfurt, Germany (2000)
Sélection d’oeuvres, Galería La Cité, Luxemburgo (2000)
20^th Century Art, Collection Dobe Fine Arts, Nueva York, USA (2000)
Poetry & Pelaires, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2000)
Colectiva de Verano, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2000)
Fons de la Galeria, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (2000)
Colectiva de Febrero, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (1999)
Colectiva de Verano, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (1999)
Bordes, Galería Art al Rec, Barcelona, Spain (1999)
Glazpunkte aus 25 Jahren, Galería Bäumler, Regensburg, Germany (1999)
ISLAS, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain (1998)
Von Baselitz bis Warhol – zeitgenössische Christusbilder, Marmelsteiner Kabinett, Würzburg, Germany (1998)
Meisterwerke der Zeichnung, Galería Bäumler, Regensburg, Germany (1998)
Blick auf die Zeichnung, Galería Tobias Hirschmann, Frankfurt, Germany (1998)
Dotze + 2, Casal Solleric, Palma, Spain (1998)
Mallorca a Barcelona, Espai Mallorca, Barcelona, Spain (1998)
Von Kopf bis Fuss, Blickle-Stiftung, Kraichtal, Germany (1997)
Von Kopf bis Fuss, Kunstraum, Innsbruck, Austria (1997)
ISLAS, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain (1997)
Projekt für eine Sammlung I, Galería Tobias Hirschmann, Frankfurt, Germany (1997)
Projekt für eine Sammlung II, Galería Tobias Hirschmann, Frankfurt, Germany (1997)
Dotze + 2 (Exposición itinerante), Periplos (1997)
Temps de Tardor, Galería Pelaires, Felanitx, Spain (1997)
Oeuvres récentes des artistes de la galerie, 20 años de la Galería La Cité, Luxembourg (1997)
ISLAS, Centro de Arte “La Granja”, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain (1997)
America meets Europe, Galería Bäumler, Regensburg, Germany (1996)
Galería Joachim Becker, Cannes, France (1996)
La Croix dans l’Art Contemporain, Galería Bäumler, Regensburg, Germany (1996)
Sex und Gewalt, Galería Tobias Hirschmann, Frankfurt, Germany (1996)
Projecte de Col.lecció, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain (1996)
Toros por la Gran Vía 2, Galería Buades, Madrid, Spain (1995)
Livres d’Artistes, Centro Cultural Las Rozas, Madrid, Spain (1995)
Forum Artis Museum, Montese, Italy (1995)
Referències, Casal Solleric, Palma, Spain (1995)
Galería La Cité, Luxembourg (1995)
A New Look, Galeria Joan Prats, New York, USA (1994)
Recycled, Galería Reckermann, Cologne, Germany (1994)
Zapatos Usados & Talleres de Artistas, Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma, Spain (1994)
La Réconstruction du Pays et la Paix Retrouvée, Museo Sursock, Beirut, Lebanon (1994)
Presències, Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma, Spain (1994)
Erotic Art, Galería Joachim Becker/Martine Queval, Paris, France (1993)
Rencontre Franco-espagnole, Galería La Cité, Luxembourg (1992)
Confluències Culturals a la Mediterrània, Govern Balear y Fondo Monetario Internacional, Washington, USA (1992)
Galería Joachim Becker/Martine Queval, Paris, France (1992)
Le Dessin, Galería Joachim Becker, Cannes, France (1991)
Tauromaquia, Galería Bisart, Palma, Spain (1991)
Eros, Galería Bennàssar, Madrid, Spain (1990)
Col.lecció Testimoni, Sede Central Caixa de Pensions, Barcelona, Spain (1989)
50 Propostes Pictòriques a Mallorca, Centre Cultural Ajuntament de Calvià, Calvià, Spain (1989)
España California, Galería Fuller Gross, San Francisco, USA (1988)
Galeria Mincher & Wilcox, San Francisco, USA (1988)
Museo de Arte de la península de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico (1988)
Paisatges ara i aquí, Conselleria d’Educació i Cultura del Govern Balear, Majorca, Spain (1987)
Set artistes Mallorquins, Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Palau Moja, Barcelona, Spain (1987)
Autour du Cubisme, Galería Rafael Ortiz, Seville, Spain (1986)
10 Anys de Sa Pleta Freda, Galería Sa Pleta Freda, Son Servera, Spain (1986)
Mostres d’Art, Majorca, Spain (1976/1982)

ARTWORK IN COLLECTIONS
Centro Cultural de la Caja de Ahorros de Valencia, Valencia, Germany
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Colección Dobe, Zurich, Switzerland
Colección La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain
Conselleria de Cultura, Educació i Esports del Govern Balear, Majorca, Spain
Museo de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo, Nice, France
Museu d’Art Modern, Barcelona, Spain
Consell Insular de Mallorca, Majorca, Spain
Biblioteca Nacional de Francia, Paris, France
Stiftung Grundig, Baden-Baden, Germany
Museum am Dom, Würzburg, Germany
Kunstsammlung der Diözese, Regensburg, Germany
Embajada de España, Jakarta, Indonesia
Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma, Spain
Fundación Coca-Cola, Madrid, Spain
Fundación AENA, Madrid, Spain
Caja de Ahorros de las Baleares Sa Nostra, Majorca, Spain
Ajuntament de Palma, Palma, Spain
Museum Würth, Künzelsau, Germany

ART FAIRS
ARCO Madrid, Art Basel, FIAC París, Art Frankfurt, Art Cologne, Art Miami, KIAF, Art París, Arte Fiera Bologna, Fira Dubai, PULSE Miami, Art Madrid, Le Salon de Montrouge, Bienal Dubrovnik, Bienal de La Habana, ARCO Madrid, London Art Fair