Miquel Figueras
Mayor of Cadaqués
The different manifestations taking place in Cadaqués are due to the great number of artists who either live or spend some time there; artists, by the way, of a qualified prestige and thanks as well to the reputation obtained by the city since Salvador Dalí, the grand myth of the XX century, worked and gestated the greatest and most important part of his work there, a polemic man, and even more polemic after his death, surprising “many” for the content of his will.
Among these different manifestations there is one that started nine years ago with little means but great will. This is the Mini Print International of Cadaqués. Pascual Fort’s “Mini-Gravat”, which has turned such a great and qualified showing of international contemporary prints that it has become the most popular and renowed event of this kind in the world.
The exhibition, which each summer is shown in the Taller Galeria Fort in Cadaqués, at the old “anchovies factory”, with a number of participating countries, superior to the one in the Olympics, where the polychromy and the ways of artistic expression come close to excellence, makes us think that this is more than a “Mini-print”. It seems and it is the biggest giant among “Mini-prints”.
This characteristic and interesting manifestation has worked with the different institutions, whether Generalitat, County Council or Municipal Council. However, Cadaqués’ Council has been the first one to give serious support to the Mini Print International of Cadaqués.
In order to give content to the remodeling of our “Cadaqués Municipal Museum of Art” and according to the General Direction of the Plastic Arts Department of the Catalan Government, we are going to found and to set up the first and unique Monographic Mini Print Museum.
The good will and friendship of Mr. & Mrs. Fort, their wishes, and the reputation of the institutions, altogether will give form and content to the future Museum Foundation.
This Museum will start its day’s run with the patrimony provided by Pascual Fort and the works already purchased by the Council to create the main body of the collection. We already have at our disposal the ninety-six Mini Prints prize winners of the first eight years.
We have no doubts and we are convinced that this decision will help both to give more cultural content to our Cadaqués and to realize the slogan “Cadaqués, even more”.
For many years to come.
Pascual Fort
Taller Galeria Fort
The answer which artists from all over the world have given to our call since the first exhibition held in 1981, has meant a rise of participation of 320 per cent.
Each year during April and May we receive daily registered-mailed entries in our P.O. Box placed in the Gran de Gràcia street in Barcelona, as from a miraculous fountain, in the most different shapes, colours and sizes, embellished by the diverse, colourful and numerous stamps, which exoticism allows us to imagine both the art works each entry may contain and the long trip they have made until their arrival at our hands.
Once opened, each entry for the first time, shows us the works that aspire to be admitted to participate in the Mini Print International of Cadaqués. It is such a visual impact that it forces us to feverishly open all the rest of the entries. Meanwhile we search and discover the work, the technique used, the type of paper, its contents, etc., and our thought travel to the person who, being far away has printed the work we have in front of us and who, we feel sure, thought also of the moment in which his works reached our hands to be accepted and exhibited in Cadaqués later on.
Most of these artists and their works are completely unknown to us until this moment. However, some names are familiar to us since they have participated in other occasions which allow us to follow their artistic evolution. Some others are friends or so become, either by having visited the exhibition during summer in Cadaqués or our workshop during winter in Barcelona, or also by being the artists awarded the year before who come to attend their solo shows in our Gallery in Cadaqués, while being members of the Jury of the Mini Print International of Cadaqués hanging in the Gallery at that time.
This human factor we consider very important and our wish is to reach a true communication among both the artists who are part of our association and the public that visits the exhibitions each year as well as the numerous print collectors who, year by year, are acquiring works at the Mini Print by which they keep a permanent souvenir of the event in their homes.
We do thank all these artists for their participation without which to call the 10th Mini Print International of Cadaqués would be impossible.