“I admired his talent for capturing and fixing atmospheres, beautiful bodies, experiences and rhythms, shadowy folds of the urban night, extravagant effusions of dressmaking, effluvia of timid parties, furtive alcohols and residuals from the persistent dictatorship. The fleshy sixties. And, above all, faces.” I would love to summarize the work of photographer Cèsar Malet (1941-2014) from the perspective that the country of the temps gives. These paraules date back to 2007, but the friendship between the two is going to lead to the nits of Bocaccio, the epicenter of the whirlwind that will characterize Barcelona at the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s.
Among that swarm of intellectuals, Malet spoke with the camera, an exploration tool that had accompanied him since he was a teenager. That precocity paid off: in 1960, aged just 19, he opened his own fashion and advertising studio. His gaze was bold and visionary. This is the only way to explain why, in the grayness of the Franco regime, Malet photographed Bagués’ valuable jewels on top of eggs, logs and vegetables, or had the models pose dressed in the barracks of Montjuïc. Ground-breaking, radically modern advertising campaigns that started a joyful and turbulent decade. Images that can be enjoyed at Caesar Malet. self portrait Irony, aesthetics and passionthe exhibition dedicated to him by the Photographic Archive of Barcelona, the guarantor of the city’s visual memory.
Immersion in Malet’s imagination is a delight, especially if you were unaware of its existence. The photographs take you back in time: the military service he did in the former Spanish colony of Sidi Ifni, Morocco (1963); the first jazz nights at the Jamboree (1960); the fabulous portraits of the writers linked to the orbit of Seix Barral — Carlos Barral himself, , Ana María Matute, Marsé, Pere Gimferrer, …— for the book Infamous trouble (1971); the Italian sailors of the ship Stromboli walking through Ciutat Vella (1957)… That’s why the subtitle of the exhibition is so apt: self portrait. Not because he comes out – which he also does and with great style – but because Malet left his soul in each image. He was one of those who did not separate the professional task from the artistic research. This restlessness led him in 1967 to found the Experimental Art Laboratory (LAE), where he collaborated with the painter Josep Maria Berenguer. Together they gave birth to the series Res (1969), an exquisite exercise with a certain erotic background in which the naked bodies of two models play with cork balls. Another example of how irony, aesthetics and passion permeated his visual universe and also his peculiar way of framing. That’s why those words of Marsé from 2007 – dedicated to Malet’s fleeting passage through the Palau Robert – take on even more relevance here, especially for this necessary reunion “with the art of a singular and exceptional photographer, lucid and with a caustic, indomitable gaze”.
Until May 24
Photo Archive of Barcelona
