La primera vez

Agustí García

14/10/04. (Sala 226)

Interested from a very young age in the underground movement, Agustí García helped to promote both the comics and alternative magazines of the time by distributing them in the Ramblas and other neighborhoods. 

It was not until 2000 when he began to paint his so-called Bad Paintings. He is interested in themes of everyday life that can be shocking and that coexist on the same canvas along with the also shocking titles. In the exhibition he combines different formats and techniques.

To say something about Agustí’s painting is impossible without talking about himself.

Because in his paintings he literally pours all the images that fill his life and his own vital and visual universe.

Visual and verbal images, forms and words that surely have their origin in the world of comics, in which Agustín feels free and spontaneous.

Above all spontaneous. In his paintings there is almost (or always) the sensation that an idea in his head unleashes a cataract of images that literally cover the entire plane to the limit.

They are like religious icons, but also like the signs of the hairdressers in African villages.

Because Agustí likes people. The people of the neighborhood where he keeps his roots. He is like a true neighborhood entomologist: he observes and listens to popular culture and then expresses it with the same understanding and love for the characters that Woody Allen has for his own.

And so, it is impossible not to establish a relationship with the story Agustí is telling us.

And, going back to the beginning, all this is possible because he is a Libertarian Free Spirit and a wild naïf, who has created a style of overflowing humanity, warmth and complicity that you cannot escape.

His works attract at first, because of the exuberance of his colors and the composition, generally loose and dynamic, but when you approach and read the aphorisms or, for example, the incredible lists of recommendations for imagined situations, and his advice are delicious.

I would like to emphasize, because I think it is a key element of the style, that the typography, although profusely used, is always an active part of the picture, never as a separate epigraph or headline. 

I could go on listing reasonable reasons to explain why Agustí’s painting makes my day, but this kind of experience cannot be transmitted. You have to be in front of it and get into his game. 

And then you have a good time. That you will remember.

In short to share with all that magical world, that kind of neighborhood attractions; to understand the encrypted messages that are out there or to participate in their metalanguage reminds me of the motto that defines the reason for being Harley Davidson fans:

“If I had to explain it to you, you wouldn’t understand”.

Carlos Rolando.