Montserrat Minobis i Puntonet
Journalist
Time Passes In Cadaqués
This title adopted from the first book of poems by the Cadaqués poet Quima Jaume (Cadaqués, 1934 – Barcelona, 1993) seems perfect for speaking about the 37th edition of the Mini Print. Thirty seven years since one day “Pascual Fort, artist, printmaker and extraordinary person with an innate open sense of curiosity about the world that surrounded him and continued to change” decided in 1980 to create the first Mini Print International of Cadaqués prize that survives (even though Time passes in Cadaqués) thanks to the tenacity of his widow Mercedes Barberá and the cooperation of all of her family.
This entrenchment in Cadaques is not alien to what Cadaqués has meant and continues to mean for the world of art. Joan-Josep Tharrats (Girona, 1918 – Barcelona, 2001) explains it with these words: “All of Cadaqués is like a garden of delights for painters and poets. A land of great contrasts, it can just as well stimulate as calm… Every moment is different in Cadaqués.” (*)
I have no doubt that the artists who fill the walls of the Galería Fort in Cadaqués each year participate not only because they are attracted by a proposition open to all printmaking tendencies and techniques – digital art, etching, lithography, photoetching, drypoint, mezzotint – but they do so because the prize has acquired an international name and prestige beyond all doubt and because Cadaqués is still renowned in the global artistic world. Every year the number of participating artists is greater (659) as is the number of countries (56 this year) and the all-time total of participating artists has now reached 9,600.
In this exhibition that every year unites so many artists from around the world, we can find, without fear of exaggeration, small but great works of art that satisfy the taste of average people and that often have artistic and technical details of great sophistication.
Whoever dares to stroll through Cadaques will fall in love with the Mini Print if they also have the curiosity – as did its creator – to experience new artistic proposals by means of a diverse and multidisciplinary technique. Someone has written that here we can find “a maturity made of singular experiences since the distant 15th century which saw how the invention of the printing press demanded new types of images“, and the Mini Print had and has the wisdom to make history within the history of printmaking.
Victoria Combalía, in last year’s prologue, noted that the Mini Print can provide, for anybody who loves art, the possibility of enjoying a collection within dimensions and prices affordable to everyone. And this also is one of the virtues that the Mini Print has been able to maintain throughout this long 37 year trajectory.
As Mercedes Barberá says, “Looking educates sensitivity”, which we all need.
(*): “Cent anys de pintura a Cadaqués” Tharrats, Joan Josep. Edicions del Cotal, 1981.
Mercedes Barberà
Director of the Mini Print International of Cadaques
The 37th Mini Print International of Cadaques again shows us an immense field of images and possibilities of the new experiments in the world of printmaking.
On a sheet of white paper all ideas are possible using the precise technique of the burin or drypoint, the gradations of etching, the trace of the lithographic crayon, the joy of serigraphic colors, the strength of linoleum and woodcut, the compositions of photogravure, and the visual creations of the new technologies as well as embossment, perforated or compressed paper, chine collée and collage.
This year the media have taken a special interest in the Mini Print. Catalan public television TV3 and the newspaper La Vanguardia have dedicated informative and very well done reports on the exhibition. El Punt Avui, El Setmanari de l’Empordà and Hora Nova have faithfully commented on the solo shows as well as on the 37th Mini Print.
The presence of the Mini Print International in the Taller Galeria Fort of Cadaqués unites local and foreign visitors. Many participants of this and previous exhibitions visit us due to the interest aroused by the exhibition. We are extremely pleased to note that the exhibitions of last year’s winners have constant admirers. They deserve this because of the effort they make in coming to Cadaqués for their openings and for acting as jurors for the current show.
This year Iñaki Elosua Urkiri of Spain, Graznya Kulikowska-Antczak of Poland, Kumi Obata of Japan, Lanfranco Lanari of Italy and Janne Laine of Finland came. We had pleasant moments of friendship with all of them. The Bulgarian winner Veselin Damyanov-Ves could not visit us for unavoidable reasons but his works were very much admired. We regret his absence.
After showing in Cadaqués, the exhibitions of the Mini Print prize winners travelled to Igualada (Barcelona) where Lluïsa Avante received them in her gallery Artèria as she did last year.
The Mini Print exhibited in Wingfield Barns (UK) was well received and admired. Ian Chance, its perennial guardian is planning a new Art Center which under his sponsorship will surely be a great success which we sincerely desire. The Tharrats Graphic Arts Foundation in Pineda de Mar exhibits the Mini Print every year as a cultural and didactic event attracting the interest of many visitors. The gallery L’Etang d’Art in Bages (France) near Narbonne and directed by the enthusiastic and efficient Sophie Cassard, showed the Mini Print which was awaited and well received by a cultivated and heterogeneous public. The French press collaborated with relevant and enthusiastic articles.
As always we are grateful to the faithful participating artists as well as those participating for the first time. Without them the Mini Print would not be possible. Thanks also to our many collaborators. We are counting on them for the next edition which is already underway.
With enthusiasm and hope,