Luis Claramunt. El viatge vertical

La Rambla, Plaça Reial and Barceloneta were the first places on the personal map that Luis Claramunt (Barcelona, 1951 – Zarautz, 2000) began to explore as he set out to discover the world after leaving his bourgeois family home. When he left Barcelona in the eighties, Seville, Marrakesh, Bilbao and Madrid became the new backdrops for his artistic practice. Although Claramunt travelled towards the south, he did not share earlier travellers’ thirst for romanticism and exoticism. His quest had nothing to do with symbolism or paradises. In his confrontation with reality, he spent endless hours roaming the streets, leaning on the counter at bars and cafés, always looking and allowing the places and human situations to speak for themselves.

Although Claramunt is known almost exclusively for his work as a painter, the exhibition Luis Claramunt. El viatge vertical presents a broad selection of works ranging from paintings, drawings and photographs to the self-published books he made from the early seventies to the late nineties. The catalogue includes texts by Nuria Enguita Mayo, curator of the exhibition, Ángel González, Carles Guerra, Teresa Lanceta and Francisco Rivas, and lavishly illustrates each stage of the artist's work.