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Daniel Verbis and the reinterpretation of painting.
In the panorama of young Spanish painters, it was not easy to find
new names in the decade of the nineties. The great attraction of
photography made even painters and sculptors of recognized prestige
and established language momentarily "switch over" to
explore this new medium. People continued to paint in the Fine Arts
schools, though generally with outdated methods, and young people
who considered themselves "modern" devoted themselves
to photography or video. Even today in Spain, it's as if video were
the latest innovation, when it is a medium with thirty years of
history behind it and has been completely consolidated as yet another
medium of expression, lately in a much larger format, in projection
on a wall (sometimes on triple screens) or even on screens isolated
in the middle of the room.
However, in Spain, there is still little discussion about the clear
recovery of painting, and that the most interesting painting nowadays
can no longer be innocent, but is rather, like everything inn our
times, a critical, and even sometimes ironic revision of the parameters
of this discipline. Looking back at painting in history, a return
to the classics, from kitsch (as in John Currin) or an openly conceptual
painting (as in the youngest generation of English painters) are
some of the developments that are beginning to appear. Another trend
gets back to the subject of format and decorative aspects: one of
the most important theoreticians of this current is Markus Brüderlin
and an exhibit in Barcelona introduced it in Spain, showing numerous
international artists from this movement: it was the exhibit titled
de coraz(i)ón, and Jorg Bader (Centro Cultural Tecla Sala,
L´Hospitalet, March-May 1999) as curator. Artists such as
Lily van der Stokker, Michel Majerus, and Peter Kogler questioned
the limits between advertising painting and high painting, or proposed
paint applied to furniture, or to wardrobe elements, while others
explored the very support of the fabric or its direct placement
on the wall (Richard Wright or Bader himself). We can situate Verbis
in this context, to which we would have to add the context of Spanish
painting and more specifically the work of Luis Gordillo, who was
an important point of reference for him.
It is curious to see how artists who achieve their own language
begin. In general, they already show some of the characteristics
that will later form part of their aesthetic, their vocabulary,
or their way of seeing the world. In the case of Verbis, this began
in 1989 with a full series of works that evoked Frank Stella or
Sean Scully, two great painters, though from very different generations,
who used bands as a motif. Verbis then faltered and began to explore
minimalist languages: repetitions of a motif, serialized, nets and
meshes on enormous surfaces, shapes made with a stamp once again
on enormous white walls.
In 1995 he began a series that was very visually gratifying, made
with colored buttons and with colored rings that he called bright
or morning stars (luceros or luzeros), since he has loved plays
on words since he was young, as well as narrative or metaphorical
titles. Duchamp did not pass in vain. The rounded shape suggested
not only stamps, eyes, or amoebas to the viewer, but also circles,
shots, worms, clasps, or constellations. In short, a very wide range
of associations of ideas.
In Verbis, from the very beginning, there is an interest in questioning
the limitations of the underlying framework: many of his early paintings
are placed directly on the wall and not only fill it with a traditional
centered composition, but also suggest a painting that was dropped
randomly, slipping from a corner, spilling out without order or
from bottom to top; these experimental attempts demonstrated that
the artist knew well the questioning of the support/background relationship
carried out by the minimalists and by the French Support/Surface
group in the 60s and 70s.
Then came another series, modeling clay, in which he used this medium,
looked down upon by all because of its association with handcrafts
and children's creations. Verbis created several compositions halfway
between the psychedelic painting of the sixties, ornamental painting,
and certain abstract experiments at the beginning of the century.
The mood of the modeling clay paintings (in him, who is personally
so serious) continued in "Ganga dos tres", several strange
experiments with expanding foam, a balloon, and several nails. In
1999, these experiences were expanded into mural paintings with
abstract biomorphic shapes, or into explosions of paint and dripping
blotches: this was his particular revision of the drips of American
abstract expressionism, and the narrow frontier between high abstraction
and decorative painting.
His first methacrylate boxes with threads appeared in 2001, and
I think in them, Verbis found an ingenious formula: this is not
painting, but this work possesses the forms of abstraction (almost
as if we were dealing with the fabrics of Clifford Still), only
he makes them with colored threads, sometimes adding rags to them.
He demonstrates total mastery; at this point he is dominating the
profession. The threads are fascinating because they bring together
the greatness of high painting with intimate and heterodoxical aspects
of the "feminine" material: suddenly the artist achieves
texture and coarseness with something that is not the paint itself,
nor the materials of informalism. A great discovery, and proof of
it is his commercial success.
And from here we come to the Verbis that we now see today: large
paintings in which the painted part is almost a negative, a remnant
of the painting, to allow the frame underneath to show through.
Sometimes he does this with translucent canvases, with scattered
orifices that bring the surface to life, making it unsettling. Other
times, the artist uses a series of amoeba shapes that call to mind
those of Luis Gordillo, "broken" or crossed by vectors
created with paint or wood strips. The result is highly dynamic,
suggesting centrifugal or centripetal readings.
Despite its total abstraction, this recent work ties in with content
that is connected to the feelings and emotions thanks to the titles
- often humorous - and to their pastel or happily acidic colors,
such as when he includes greens and yellows. While in the eighties
painting became visceral neo-expressionism on a classic support,
it is now recovering its most decorative side - completely post-Matissian
- from an objectified, exploded support. One more turn of the screw
for a medium that will never die, but rather will be constantly
renewed.
Victoria Combalia
Daniel Verbis
GALERIA MAX ESTRELLA. Santo Tomé, 6 (patio)
September 23rd - October 30rd
Monday to Friday:10-14 h. , 16,30-20,30 h.Saturday: 11-14 h. ,
17-20,30 h.
Opening: September 23rd at 20 h.
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