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Gironella, Joaquim Vicens
1911-1997, Espagne
Joaquim Vicens Gironella was born in Agullana, in the Catalonian Pyrenees, a Spanish region abounding in cork trees. Hailing from a family of cork makers, he himself in turn took up the craft. Enlisted in the Spanish army, Franco's victory forced him into exile. Thereupon, he found work in a cork factory in Toulouse. In 1941, he got the idea of carving cork and, reaching the age of retirement, he had time to devote himself entirely to literature, engraving and, above all, sculpting.
An experienced cork carver, what Gironella appreciated in cork was the vividness of its grain, its rich texture, its wide range of tonalities, and the way it resists tools so as to encourage stunning surprises. Often, it was the general shape of a piece of cork that inspired certain figures or motifs with mythological, religious or legendary overtones. Although he did at times sketch his compositions out in chalk, he was not against allowing carving happenstance dictate a piece. Over time, he gradually perfected his technique. He enjoyed drawing out all of cork's expressive potential using the simplest of tools—a file, a slender pocket knife and sandpaper. He brought out the thousand ways this material could modulate light, absorb it, make it vibrate or reflect it.
Joaquim Vicens Gironella belongs to the artists forming the initial core of the Art Brut Collection.
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Joaquim Vicens Gironella
Jean Dubuffet's Art Brut, the origins of the collection (2016) New edition 2020
L'Art Brut de Jean Dubuffet, aux origines de la collection [Jean Dubuffet's Art Brut, the origins of the collection], directed by Sarah Lombardi, with texts by Sarah Lombardi a.o., Lausanne, Paris: Collection de l'Art Brut, Flammarion, 2016, 224 pp, 170 color illus., bilingual French/English.
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Architecture (english version)
Architectures, Lausanne/ Milan, Collection de l’Art Brut/ 5 Continents Editions, 2015, "Art Brut, la collection" publication series directed by Sarah Lombardi, 20.5 x 25.5 cms, 168 pages, 142 color plates. Separate French and English versions.
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Architecture
Architectures, Lausanne/ Milan, Collection de l’Art Brut/ 5 Continents Editions, 2015, "Art Brut, la collection" publication series directed by Sarah Lombardi, 20.5 x 25.5 cms, 168 pages, 142 color plates. Separate French and English versions
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Almanach de l'Art Brut
Almanach de l’Art Brut, Jean Dubuffet et al.Fac-similé [maquette originale de 1948] Edition établie et présentée sous la direction de Sarah Lombardi et Baptiste Brun, en collaboration avec Vincent Monod, Lausanne/Milan, Collection de l’Art Brut/SIK-ISEA/ 5 Continents Editions, 792 pages, 2016, 21 x 28, 387 illustrations en couleur et n/b relié. ISBN est 978-88-7439-737-2
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Visages (in french)
Marc Décimo, Sarah Lombardi and Pascal Roman, Faces, Lausanne/Milan, Collection de l’Art Brut/5 Continents Editions, 2023, « Art Brut, la collection », under the direction of Sarah Lombardi, 153 pages, over 100 color plates, available in French or English.
Faces (inenglish)
Marc Décimo, Sarah Lombardi and Pascal Roman, Faces,Lausanne/Milan, Collection de l’Art Brut/5 Continents Editions, 2023, « Art Brut, la collection », under the direction of Sarah Lombardi, 153 pages, over 100 color plates, available in French or English.
Joaquim Vicens Gironella: le liège & la mémoire (cork and memory)
In my desire to do a film on my uncle—at the core of that desire, at its very source—a "blind spot" existed. Where, I wondered, did my feeling of an invisible and mute presence come from? Gironella carried these forests, this village, within him. He spoke to us about another time, another language. In Gironella's oeuvre, cork is what comes closest to memory ...so paradoxical, so malleable, so tender, but lasting. We ourselves had to still feel the artist's secretly intimate relationship with his material—"that organic, plant-flesh to which he applies his hand," as Dubuffet put it.
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