Childhood that conforms a life

Agustí Viladesau was born in Barcelona to a republican family. After the Spanish Civil War his father was sent to a concentration camp in retaliation. He died when Agustí was thirteen. His mother was a very religious person in contrast to the secular mentality of her husband, so Agustí was used to see the world from different points of view. His brother, 15 years older, was a violinist, and Agustí’s most persistent childhood memory was a daily “eight hour concert” at home; so to him, because of his early age, music was emotion first. Later, when he was ten he learned musical theory and since then music became structure too. Music is a combination of sounds that, played in a certain order, rhythm and intensity, moves the listener. Just like music, paintings are colours and shapes which, placed in a certain order, generate the magic that moves the viewer. Thus, Agustí Viladesau conceives painting as “matter that moves”, “material that causes emotions”.

 

Background and Training

As a teenager he lived in an electric atmosphere in Barcelona where people were struggling to overcome Spain's gloomy recent past, longing for democracy. Young artists in Barcelona were looking outside the borders and paying attention to events like May 1968 in Paris, UK’s music and fashion and the socio-cultural movements in the US which represented the emergence of a new post-World War II generation. At the same time these young artists never forgot that they were living in the once vibrant city of Barcelona, were Picasso was brought up and Joan Miró was born and lived in. At that time Picasso lived in Mougins not far from Barcelona and was still alive! When he was sixteen Agustí Viladesau joined a local fauve painter´s workshop where he mastered Colour. He studied Cubism as well and how Baroque masterpieces were related to it through structures, and he studied Simultanism as the synthesis of fauve-cubism paintings marrying colour and structure: again the binomial “emotion-structure” appears.
In his twenties he studied Fine Arts at Barcelona University. During this period he produced dozens of drawings, sketches and paintings, as he thought that only when one masters Technique can one allow Inspiration to come back. But years later he set fire to all his works and built a garden shed for his sons with the stretchers of his paintings. It was as if he and his sons were starting new lives.
Although his initial background was “French Tradition”, he soon looked for new ways of understanding in American Modern Art such as Abstract Impressionism, as well as in British modern tradition through artists like Howard Hodgkin. While keeping his links with the tradition of modern painting, he is charting his own path.

 

Conception of Art

“I make no distinction between representational and abstract paintings. Structure, colours and brushstrokes are elements present in any composition either representational or abstract. They are the moving part of the painting. They are just like music and they are abstraction as well. A representational painting is just music with lyrics.”
To him, in paintings, "lyrics" –figures, letters or symbols– are meant to reinforce the message of the "music" –colours and shapes– and not vice versa.
After years of painting he believes that the painting has value in itself, independently of other considerations such as representation; he thinks that paintings speak for themselves and language is what really speaks in art. He considers that the purpose, the aim, the intention or the concept are only a small fragment of our knowledge, and the painting should be more on the experience that a declaration of intention. Therefore when painting he may begin with an idea and then it may become something else, because the painting itself dictates what it wants to be. He considers the painter himself as an assistant of the medium that reveals the enigma hidden in his own brain.

Latest artistic events in his biography

2018
The ArtBox.Projects New York 1.0 - USA
Colorida Art Gallery - Lisboa - Portugal

2017
The ArtBox.Projects Basel 1.0 - Switzerland
The Other Art Fair presented by Saatchi Art - London - UK
Parallax Art Fair - London - UK

2016
The ArtBox.Projects Miami 1.0 - USA
Echevarne-Agora3 prize winner, Sitges - Spain

2015
Solo exhibition at Comas Art Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
Echevarne prize winner, Barcelona

2014
Group Exhibition at Plaumann Art Gallery, Milano, Italy
Exhibition at Edinburgh Art Fair, UK
Exhibition "Our Artists" at Comas Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
Selling Artist at Saatchi Art

2013
Exhibition at Santa Fe Art Fair, USA  
Group exhibition at Gaudí Gallery, Madrid, Spain
New Trends exhibition at Comas Gallery, Barcelona
Group Exhibition at Agora3 Gallery, Sitges, Spain
Finalist at Florenze Shanghai Prize 2013

2012
Solo exhibition “How to make a riddle out of the solution" at Comas Art Gallery
Group exhibition Agora3 Gallery

2011
Group Exhibition at Comas Gallery. Group exhibition at Agora3 Gallery

2010
Group Exhibition at Comas Gallery. Group exhibition at Agora3 Gallery

2009
Solo exhibition at the Comas Gallery
Solo Exhibition at the Agora3 Gallery
Group Exhibition at the Miramar Palace of Sitges
First Prize at the XXIII edition of the Painting Competition Sitges

2008
Group Exhibition at Comas Gallery
Group exhibition at the Agora3 Gallery
Solo exhibition, Deutsche Bank, Barcelona.
Group exhibition at the Miramar Palace, Sitges
Group exhibition, Sala Montcada City of Culture
First Prize at the XXII edition of the Painting Competition City of Sitges

2007
Group exhibition at Valentí Gallery, Vilanova, Spain,
Group exhibition Old Market Gallery in Sitges
Honour Mention in Painting Prize “Juan Ramon Masoliver”
Second Prize XXVII Edition of Valentí Painting Contest
Second Prize at the XXI edition of the Painting Competition City of Sitges

More...

1999
Solo Exhibition, Caja Madrid Foundation

1996
Group exhibition San Pedro Gallery, Madrid
Group exhibition CC22 Gallery in Madrid
Solo exhibition, Jacomart Gallery in Madrid
Solo Exhibition, Art Studio Gallery, Barcelona
Group exhibition, Barcelona Circle Equestrian
Selected Mutual Group II Award

1995
Group exhibition, Maremagnum Barcelona
First Prize Selected Mutual Group Barcelona
Group exhibition, Vielha
Group exhibition, Romantic Hotel, Sitges
Solo exhibition, Dubé Gallery, Barcelona

1994
History of Art at the University of Barcelona

1993
Group exhibition, Agora3 Gallery

1992
Group exhibition, Agora3 Gallery

1986
Group exhibition, Royal Shipyards of Barcelona
Selected in the Barcelona Biennial

1984
Group exhibition at Viceroy Palace, Barcelona
Selected in the Barcelona Biennial

1982
Group exhibition at Viceroy Palace, Barcelona
Selected in the Barcelona Biennial
Group exhibition, Angoulême, France

1980
Eina School with Albert Rafols Casamada

1979
Group exhibition, Joan Miró Foundation
Selected in the International Drawing Prize Joan Miró

1978
Group exhibition, Joan Miró Foundation
Selected in the International Drawing Prize Joan Miró

1973
Fine Arts at Barcelona University

1969
Join the studio of the painter Ramon Sanvisens