Time to get lost in the labyrinth of Pérez Villalta (or why art is the endorphin of the mind and you need it)
"The confusion and wonder of labyrinths are operations proper to God and not to men," Borges wrote in El Aleph. However, the painter William Perez Villalta (Tarifa, Cádiz, 1948) has not needed the approval of Borges and much less of God to become the demiurge of his own labyrinths, a series of geometric universes, of an overflowing and mannerist imagination, that we will be able to see and experience until April 25 at La Sala Alcalá 31, of the Community of Madrid, in a montage that is in itself a physical labyrinth and a possibility for disorientation, transcendence and beauty.
National Prize for Plastic Arts in 1985, key name in the so-called New Madrilenian Figuration –los Esquizos de Madrid–, that vindicated painting and that has been defined as a generation trapped between a world that they did not like and another that was impossible. Pérez Villalta is, in reality, an artist impossible to classify or pigeonhole, who has always gone his own way and dares to say things like "Fame is tacky and in art there is a lot of famous" or what “In the world of art, dogmatic people rule – and he is referring to museum directors – who lack the concept of beauty-pleasure. For them painting has no meaning. They prefer to investigate documents, and this is fine for making a book, but it is not a joy for the eyes”.
And yes, Pérez Villalta cares about enjoyment. And the beauty. What crosses the senses and swells them with pleasure. That is why he believes that art history must be understood “as a kind of flowering”. In fact, for him art is “the endorphin of the mind. His great task is to make life more beautiful, more bearable. That is why I am so averse to expressionism, to pain, to drama. I can admire Goya a lot, but the painting of Saturn devouring his son makes me deeply uneasy. And I have always been to positive things. To go towards the light”.
Time to get lost in the labyrinth of Pérez Villalta
Personal friend of Pedro Almodóvar (who is a collector of his work), in pain and glory , his most personal film, we were able to see some of Pérez Villalta's paintings that hang in the filmmaker's house: Nymph and Satyr Y Artist looking at an art book (both from 2008). Furthermore, at the time of the Movida, Guillermo acted as an extra Labyrinth of passions: “He sent us people who were going to the Obelisk, which was then a gay race, to make a bundle walking. And suddenly, I asked Pedro: 'Who is that cute boy?' And he told me: 'His name is Antonio, and he is from your land.' "He tells it in his memoirs, now out of print, published in the Mecánica Lunar publishing house.
Self-taught painter, writer, draughtsman, engraver, jewelry designer (he has just collaborated with Suárez jewelry on a small collection), architect (who did not finish his degree), set designer, sculptor and, ultimately, as he likes to call himself: architect . Some have reached accuse him of kitsch and tacky , but criticism slips by him, and everything fits in his eclectic universe, which is characterized by the freedom and density of his iconography and symbolism. in his paintings we find scenes of mythological appearance crossed by a sense of transcendence, we find hedonism and sex, High Renaissance and the great names of the Baroque; a Salvador Dalí, Walt Disney, Duchamp, Italian metaphysics, Giorgio de Chirico , psychedelia, pop, decorative patterns, LSD, and even private aspects of his biography, as the curator of the exhibition reminds us, Oscar Alonso Molina.
'Art as a labyrinth', by Guillermo Pérez Villalta
“Pérez Villalta went through the desert in the 90s and is being vindicated by young people because today he can finally be seen in a much more unprejudiced way . Faced with this false cliché that he is an artist locked up in his ivory tower, Guillermo was ahead of a large number of the issues that are at the center of the debate today : he was one of the first to introduce narration as an important part of the work; a pioneer in gender issues, in speaking from the self and in assuming his gay identity naturally and with a playful sense; he revalued the architecture of the Costa del Sol when everyone despised it; and without a doubt he dealt before anyone else, and in a brave way, with the Bear subculture, the sadomaso and the leather world”.
Portrait Guillermo Perez Villalta
The complicity between Pérez Villalta and Óscar Alonso Molina led them to decide that the exhibition discourse of this exhibition – which revolves around the most geometric, metaphysical and transcendental part of his work – should be constructed in the form of a labyrinth: “We wanted to make an exhibition where the arrangement of the works resembled the artist head performance –the curator tells Condé Nast Traveler–, because a creator never works linearly but connecting unexpected dots and running into dead ends . We wanted the viewer to feel that way and choose his own path. But in addition to the zigzag structure there is also an epochal intention, which wants to represent the time in which we have lived. Inside the labyrinth the horizon is lost sight of and you feel anguished . So the labyrinth, which is a figure as typical of 16th century mannerism as it is of uncertain times, speaks to you of the disorientation we are now feeling in this COVID world.”
The labyrinths of Guillermo Pérez Villalta
On the occasion of the exhibition a catalog will be published, which is configured rather as " a very special artist book ", in the words of Pérez Villalta himself. In addition, the Sala Alcalá 31 will offer parallel activities to the exhibition such as meetings with the artist and the curator or guided tours for individuals and groups. So don't waste any more time and go get lost in the labyrinth Sometimes confusion is the most lucid thing one can do while waiting for COVID ( write here any other cause of anguish or restlessness, which are never lacking ) clear.