Masters of Western Painting
2023
Text mural.
Dimensions variable.
Acrylic paint on posters.
Dimensions variable.
Leer en español →
The Best Job in the World (2021) stems from a series of interviews I conducted with Spanish artists who abandoned their artistic careers. These conversations led me to question my own persistence in the art world, and to investigate which conditions —biographical, social, economic, or cultural— have enabled certain artists throughout Western art history to develop a vocation and maintain it over time.
The project materializes as a text mural and a series of poster interventions, created or sourced from museum shops. Both elements critically revisit the figure of the “Western artistic genius,” relating it to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social, economic, and cultural capital as determining forces from birth.
Presented as a large-scale installation in my solo exhibition The Origin of Forms at Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo – CA2M (Madrid, 2023–24), the text mural compiles information from early biographies of one hundred Western painters —from Giotto to Paula Rego— focusing on the environments that shaped their lives. The intervened posters feature iconic artworks accompanied by biographical fragments, inviting viewers to reinterpret these celebrated pieces through personal, sociological, and psychological lenses.
The project materializes as a text mural and a series of poster interventions, created or sourced from museum shops. Both elements critically revisit the figure of the “Western artistic genius,” relating it to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social, economic, and cultural capital as determining forces from birth.
Presented as a large-scale installation in my solo exhibition The Origin of Forms at Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo – CA2M (Madrid, 2023–24), the text mural compiles information from early biographies of one hundred Western painters —from Giotto to Paula Rego— focusing on the environments that shaped their lives. The intervened posters feature iconic artworks accompanied by biographical fragments, inviting viewers to reinterpret these celebrated pieces through personal, sociological, and psychological lenses.
Credits
General installation views and details of the exhibition The Origin of Forms [El origen de las formas], Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (Móstoles, 2023).
Masters of Western Painting (2023) Text mural. Dimensions adjusted to fit. Design: Álex Gifreu.
Masters of Western Painting – Mark Rothko, No. 5/ No. 22 (2023) 89 x 73,5 cm. [Text: ‘He felt bitterness over his lost childhood.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Johannes Vermeer, Het straatje (2023) 70 x 50 cm. [Text: ‘He couldn't feed his large family.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Claude Gellée, Port de mer au soleil couchant (2023) 50 x 70 cm. [Text: ‘He was not the ignorant peasant of the legend.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Giotto, Fuga in Egitto (2023) 70 x 70 cm. [Text: ‘He got along well with both the nobles and the common people.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Edward Hopper, Hotel Room (2023) 57 x 61,3 cm. [Text: ‘He sold his first painting at the age of thirty-one.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Eugène Delacroix, La Liberté guidant le peuple (2023) 50 x 70 cm. [Text: ‘The state continuously sponsored his nonconformist art.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Jackson Pollock, Lucifer (2023) 50,5 x 101,5 cm. [Text: ‘The smell of turpentine came to disgust her.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child (2023) 90 x 70 cm. [Text: ‘She decided that marriage was incompatible with her career.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Elisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun, Madame Vigée Le Brun et sa fille (2023) 70 x 50 cm. [Text: ‘At fifteen, he already had his own studio.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Henri Matisse, La Danse (2023) 70 x 92 cm. [Text: ‘While recovering from appendicitis, his mother brought him painting supplies to the hospital.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Helen Frankenthaler, Provincetown Window (2023) 94,5 x 84 cm. [Text: ‘Poor artists envied her.’]
Images: Roberto Ruiz.
General installation views and details of the exhibition The Origin of Forms [El origen de las formas], Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (Móstoles, 2023).
Masters of Western Painting (2023) Text mural. Dimensions adjusted to fit. Design: Álex Gifreu.
Masters of Western Painting – Mark Rothko, No. 5/ No. 22 (2023) 89 x 73,5 cm. [Text: ‘He felt bitterness over his lost childhood.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Johannes Vermeer, Het straatje (2023) 70 x 50 cm. [Text: ‘He couldn't feed his large family.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Claude Gellée, Port de mer au soleil couchant (2023) 50 x 70 cm. [Text: ‘He was not the ignorant peasant of the legend.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Giotto, Fuga in Egitto (2023) 70 x 70 cm. [Text: ‘He got along well with both the nobles and the common people.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Edward Hopper, Hotel Room (2023) 57 x 61,3 cm. [Text: ‘He sold his first painting at the age of thirty-one.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Eugène Delacroix, La Liberté guidant le peuple (2023) 50 x 70 cm. [Text: ‘The state continuously sponsored his nonconformist art.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Jackson Pollock, Lucifer (2023) 50,5 x 101,5 cm. [Text: ‘The smell of turpentine came to disgust her.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child (2023) 90 x 70 cm. [Text: ‘She decided that marriage was incompatible with her career.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Elisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun, Madame Vigée Le Brun et sa fille (2023) 70 x 50 cm. [Text: ‘At fifteen, he already had his own studio.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Henri Matisse, La Danse (2023) 70 x 92 cm. [Text: ‘While recovering from appendicitis, his mother brought him painting supplies to the hospital.’]
Masters of Western Painting – Helen Frankenthaler, Provincetown Window (2023) 94,5 x 84 cm. [Text: ‘Poor artists envied her.’]
Images: Roberto Ruiz.