Moisès Villelia (1928 -1994)

A Catalan artist of the AVANT-GARDE - Villelia and his contemplative art

On Moisès Villelia's art

In the catalogue to Moisès Villelia's retrospective exhibit, 'Antológica 1950-1990, Girona Espais Centre d'Art Contemporani, 1990', Jordi Gimferrer writes: 'On the road coming from the north by car, there is a point when this pleasant realization suddenly overwhelms you: coming home. The light in the sky, the olive trees, cypresses, broom and scents which begin to flood into you, dry earth and earth tones. Along the edge of the road, the bamboo which I associate with Villelia. I link this barren land with his art, works which have to do with bamboo, like the continual natural forces of our Earth.' The beginnings of Arte Povera can be recognized in the fact that he turns to simple elementary forms - materials that can be found along the wayside anywhere. He departs from materials which have long found their consecration in art, such as bronze, granite or canvas, and on to a playful and often direct, symbolic placement and constellation arrangement. His sculptural use of bamboo made him one of the foremost representatives of Arte Povera. Villelia belongs to the generation of Tàpies, and so to the second generation avant-garde. Numerous artists of the 20th century had broken with academic art. The most important of these let themselves be influenced by cultures from other continents and other peoples - not least by the cultures of primitive peoples. And so Villelia's early attempts recall figures of African art, and yet in his search he remains Catalan to the roots. In Paris he studied art related to the portrayal of bamboo, in building and garden complexes, but also in the undertakings and ciphering of Dadaism, and modern sculpture, from Duchamp to Calder, interested him - the mobile as a space-developing force and as an emotional temporary round.

In Paris, the 68-year-old Villelia produced lyric prints. On his great trips to South America (ca. 1969-72) he was impressed by Pre-Columbian art. Gradually, cork, enamel and terracotta, cement and ceramic appeared along with the bamboo. Nonetheless, everything had begun in Mataró in the 40's and then in Cambrils in 1960-61. In 1953 Villelia, still together with his father, carried out the inner decoration of the local church, Santa Anna. In 1954, the artist breaks with figurative art. His contacts with Catalan art critics confirm him in his decision. In 1957 begins his work with bamboo. In his sculptures there is an immediately perceptible poetic content and a plastic transition. In 1959 he produces a sculpture of strings and wire: Memories of a Bicycle.

Villelia constructs art as Surrealism understood it, intuitively, additively and interpretable. Much is done in very small format. His fragile constructions of simple elements, the pushing of sticks, a bamboo carving, a rhombus, led him as a graphic artist and painter to the concrete forms of circle, rod, line, plane. The prints available from Grafos are sparsely populated by small and large circles, moons, asymmetrical inner forms which give potential to volume. They display an ascetic consciousness of the painting's surface and discreet color effects. The later years of Villelia's art displayed tranquillity: contemplative cycles and variations, sculptures which fall somewhere between totem and archer. His 70's sculptures are captivating for the constructivist, harmonizing disposition of space from bamboo, cut into small bits and fragments, with a 2-meter high format and characterized by lightly swinging forms. Villelia placed symbols in space. Bamboo, this is the material to which the sky and water as well as the earth are assigned in his works. The nature and art of the coastal region is also made from bamboo, where the sea throws its forms only to move them again an instant later.

Villelia's first collectors were Miró, Tàpies, Brossa, Joan Prats, Tapié, Sweeney and Dupin. His refusal to take part in the Sao Paulo Art Fair characterize him as skeptical, introverted and reserved with the world of commerce with art. Villelia succeeded in incorporating elements of nature in his art, as sculptor, poet and graphic artist. He lived the last two decades of his life secluded in his studio-house in the Pyrenees, where he was to die. ek