BANCAJA FOUNDATION. Pl. Tetouan, 23
Jorge Ballester's political commitment was so deep that he relegated aesthetics to the background.. Ethics above all, also in art. Ballester formed the Reality Team with Joan Cardells in the last decade of Franco's regime, militating in an unbreakable critical spirit with social reality. They touched the pop art more harmless (Superman brings Puf detergent to the Virgin Mary in a porch similar to that of Fra Angélico in The Annunciation) and they dared with the readymades (although Ballester had a complicated relationship with Duchamp), but they also manipulated images of the Civil War to raise their voices against the dictatorship. In full Regime! Besides, In this first exhibition of the artist after his death we can see works on the leaden years of our gruesome Transition., with ETA and the Grapo in full boiling, cubist paintings and prospective portraits of figures such as Piccabia and Marat. Paradoxically, with the death of the dictator, the art world became unbearable for Ballester, who called himself “hartist”, because of how fed up he was with the marketing of art and the lack of commitment that democracy brought with it. The saying “against Franco we lived better” was fulfilled” that Manuel Vázquez Montalbán stated in his day and Ballester decided to seclude himself in his studio with his ideas and obsessions, without ever stopping working. S.M.
