Àngel Jové: Bite the Image. Film series

 

The Museu Tàpies, in collaboration with Espai Texas, presents the film series Àngel Jové: Bite the Image, which explores the cinematographic side of one of the most unique creators in the contemporary Catalan scene, an artist who was radical, experimental and interdisciplinary.

Alongside his artistic career, Jové developed a body of work of a potent experimental character the field of cinema. From early pieces done in collaboration with Ton Sirera, like After (1968), to the creation of Primera muerte (1969) with the El Maduixer conceptual group — considered the first piece of video art in Spain) — his audiovisual work became a terrain for radical research on the image. This line of work culminated in later projects like Sidamún, Alamús, Almatret. Viatge a la Franja de Ponent (Sidamún, Alamús, Almatret: Voyage to La Franja de Ponent, 1986), made with Benet Rossell and Carles Hac Mor.

Starting in the late 1960s, Jové would take on regular roles in the films of Bigas Luna, becoming an actor with a cult reputation in films like Bilbao (1978), Caniche (1979) and Angustia (1987), as well as in other productions of Catalan and Spanish film in the 1980s and 1990s. His artistic career has likewise been the subject of film, as seen in the documentaries Gonzalo Herralde made about him over various decades.

The series Àngel Jové: Bite the Image thus proposes an approximation to the audiovisual side of Jové, with three sessions combining screenings and contextual contributions from respective experts, with the aim of polyhedrally placing Jové within this form of register.

Programme

Session 1 — Àngel Jové and Bigas Luna: Catalan Cinema in the 1980s

Screening of Bilbao (1978), by Bigas Luna

This session features an introduction by Jordi Balló, who will address how this film represented an aesthetic and thematic rupture.

Date: Wednesday 20 May, 7 pm

Session 2 — The Documentaries of Gonzalo Herralde on Àngel Jové

Screening of Capiscar la fior de la mà morta (1991) and Altra volta mossego un tros de pa. Cristòfol-Pavese (2007).

A dialogue between Gonzalo Herralde and Maria Josep Balsach, curator of the exhibition Àngel Jové. De intactu, at the Museu Tàpies.

Date: Wednesday 3 June, 7 pm

Session 3 — Àngel Jové and Experimental Cinema

Screening of Primera muerte (1969) and Eco de Primera muerte (2017)

The final session will begin with a presentation by Daniel Pérez Pàmies, Professor of Film History (UdG) and member of the research group GROC, and will close with a presentation by Imma Prieto, director of the Museu Tàpies, who will focus on Jové’s role in the early years of video art.

Date: Thursday 11 June, 7 pm

Image: Àngel Jové. Eco de Primera muerte, 2017