Darío Villalba. Espíritu de congelación impreso en carne

Leandro Navarro Art Gallery presents the exhibition "Espíritu de congelación impreso en carne", curated by María Luisa Martín de Argila and devoted to Spanish artist Darío Villalba (1939-2018). It focuses on the emotional, spontaneous, and passional element that the artist aimed for in each of his artworks, which emerged from his self-named “visual promiscuity” and a mix of reflection and chance. Throughout his career, we see repeated themes (i.e. clouds and trees, faces and hair, marble, and water, etc.) treated not coldly or methodically but in a way that the artworks appear as “shaken by the anarchy of desire and the no-chronological stimulation of the exterior image”, as he used to explain.

In the exhibition, visitors will find a selection of large-format artworks combined with some of his self-named Basic Documents (small-sized artworks containing one to six photos each that the artist developed during his summer visits to London since 1957). Both large and small artworks are considered final pieces and were conceived from the view of an artist who always treated photography as painting and fused both in a pioneering way in contemporary Spanish art.