jean arp, werner berges, joseph beus, jakob bill, lanfranco bombelli, beppe bonetti, joan brossa, mary callery, rafael canogar, tom carr, hannah collins, ivan chermayeff, xavi déu, marcel duchamp, adolfo estrada, peter fillingham, dario grossi, richard hamilton, marine hugonnier, sol lewitt, alfredo jaar, jasper johns, r.b. kitaj, richard paul lohse, joan miró, oliver mourgue, bruno munari, perejaume, jaume plensa, dieter roth, francesc ruiz abad, giuseppe santomaso, albert serra, philippe stark, antoni tàpies, rosa tharrats, jordi vayreda, lluís ventós, laura white
Primary colors are almost like the prime numbers of our visual and life experience.
If blood were not red as it is, if the essential fluid of the body and of life did not have this color, could we consider red a primary color? Let’s put it another way: if the sky were not blue as it is, and if the puddles that miss the celestial vault of the oceans were not blue, with all the gradation that corresponds to the depth of the sea and the incidence of light on the skin of the water, what would we say about this color? Would we dare to proclaim its primary status?
And what would happen if the fire appeared to us with a color other than yellow? Or if the sown earth did not burst, months after having patiently rained the seeds on it, into the blond nourishment (the proud and haughty ear of wheat, the more servile and meek of barley)?
These three colors are primary -first and primordial- because, before the others, they already took pleasure in speckling the world with their festive shades. Before the alloys between colors, these three would already pretend to emulate the nakedness of white. Let us think of the gaze projected in the distance, which is painted all blue: mountains that are azure, the spirit that, as the English language says, also feels blue.
Let us consider the incarnation of so many delicious fruits, which first quench our eyes and then our thirst: cherries and blueberries, watermelon and strawberries. Red and, many of them, vaguely heart-shaped.
Let us imagine a light that did not depend on the sun, and that, thus, would still appear to us with a faded, milky yellow, like the sickly light of a cloudy morning. That same irreducible yellow of the light that endorses and procures the clarity of our consciousness.
And what would Jasper Johns’ art be without this triad of colours?
Cesca Castellví Llavina
installation views
