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Morceau d'art pas encore reconnu, 1967

Slice of Not Yet Recognized Art, 1967
Assamblage, 74 x 63 x 7 cm

Jaume Xifra’s ties to the world of the object go back to his early works. But it was in the early 1970s, upon his return to Paris after a stay in Chile, that he undertook a number of series of object paintings, some ritual, some irreversible or impossible and others understood as “acts of exorcism.” Morceau d’art is among the latter.

Morceau d’art or Morsel of Art frames the action of hanging a painting. On the surface of a framed canvas, a piece of brick hangs from a cord tied to a nail. Tying in with Arte Povera and unsigned art, Xifra awards the status of work of art to this scrap material. More than the aesthetic result, Xifra focuses the interest in his object paintings on reflecting on le regardeur or the person looking at the painting and on values such as work of art, posterity and others tied to artistic practice. They represent the radicalization of an artist who balances humor, play, poetry, criticism and parody. Years later, in 1992, Jaume Xifra judged these works as “a way of radicalizing (his) position. A way, too, of involving the spectator.” One of his other object paintings shows an open and empty suitcase titled Le vide de Klein or Klein’s Void. It makes reference to Yves Klein, a French artist who proposed his works be represented by the mark they had left: the image of their absence. Like Klein, Jaume Xifra understands artistic practice as an exorcism.


Technical details

Original title:
Morceau d'art pas encore reconnu
Registration number:
3149
Artist:
Xifra, Jaume
Date created:
1967
Date acquired:
2008
Fonds:
MACBA Collection. Barcelona City Council long-term
Object type:
Assamblage
Media:
Brick and iron mounted on canvas and wood structure
Dimensions:
74 x 63 x 7 cm (height x width x depth)
Credits:
MACBA Collection. Barcelona City Council long-term loan
Copyright:
© Jaume Xifra, VEGAP, Barcelona
It has accessibility resources:
No

The MACBA Collection features Catalan, Spanish and international art and, although it includes works from the 1920s onwards, its primary focus is on the period between the 1960s and the present.

For more information on the work or the artist, please consult MACBA's Library. To request a loan of the work, please write to colleccio [at] macba.cat.

If you need a high resolution image of the work, you must submit an image loan request.