NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona|Madrid
For its fifth participation to ART-O-RAMA, NoguerasBlanchard is happy to present a project that includes works by Belgium artist Alain Biltereyst and the collective Eldital’ull.
Alain Biltereyst (lives and works in Brussels, Belgium).
A first look at the works of Biltereyst reminds us of the geometric abstraction paintings and the hard-edge of the sixties. However, his compositions are inspired by urban visual imagery. What seems to be a reference to a Josef Albers, a Kenneth Noland or maybe more a Helio Oiticica actually refers to logos of transportation companies, banks, traffic signs or exterior decoration on trucks from the eighties. With this mechanism of references and ownership of the surrounding visuals, Biltereyst brings up the controversy about the exchange of references between art and design. Paradoxically his paintings are inspired by the design that was once inspired by art.
Eldital’ull (founded in 2010 by Alain Chardon, Regina Giménez and Rafel G. Bianchi).
It all started with La Casa de la Playa: the idea of making a colouring book came from a drawing of a waiting room. Two chairs and a table drawn with the precision of a draftsman and coloured partially reproduced a b/w photograph of a book of German architecture of the fifties. The beauty of the unfinished picture led to the development of a set of images that invite to be completed on one hand, and on the other they would be powerful enough to be appreciated as they were. The office building was however displaced by the house. Not just any house, but the vacation ideal that could be built from multiple references to the modern architecture design. An architectural collage designed for a family of contemporary art lover. The result was an artists book with a print-run of seven copies, making this edition a true collectible.
The following year FLAGS was produced: as the name suggests, it is a book about flags. All kinds of flags: national, community related, maritime signals, individual flags, even pirate… An approach based on the lack of colour allows for a free interpretation in the moment of colouring- would any kid playing with FLAGS care about the nationalistic connotations of any colours, would he/she care about the darkness of a pirate pennon, would anybody dare to tell the kid what colour is the right one…? Both formally and conceptually the book is indebted to XX Century vanguards, especially of Dada- the first to make art directed to kids.
