Site-Specific Conversation’s collaboration with Barcelona Gallery Weekend continues with a series of conversations that will be published weekly over the summer.
Once again, the event centres on a novel this year: Just Kids, by Patti Smith. In doing so, it highlights the process of ‘growing together’ and delves into artists’ beginnings, professionalisation, coexistence with the art market’s demands, and collaboration dynamics, among other elements.
This week, we talk to Ignasi Aballí and gallerists Pilar Carbonell and Anna Rovira, directors of Palmadotze. First in the town of Vilafranca del Penedés and now in a rural setting, the gallery has made a name for itself in the Spanish gallery sector by highlighting the importance of taking art beyond the main urban centres, like Barcelona. Throughout their careers, Carbonell and Rovira have received support from artists thanks to the care and closeness they show. Now, with Aballí’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, both gallerists and artist express their excitement at their wish to work together again finally being fulfilled.
SSC
How did you meet and how long have you been working together?
Pilar
We’ve known Ignasi for a long time. He was introduced to us by Toni Estrany, another gallerist, who was also one of the first people we met in the art world, when we first opened the gallery, and we became great friends. Ignasi came and visited the gallery in ’91 or ’92. Do you remember, Ignasi?
Ignasi
I wasn’t sure of the year… But yes, it was around that time. I think it might have even been before working with Toni, in ’93.
Pilar
We started working together on collective exhibitions, but we hadn’t done a solo exhibition until now. I remember we were talking about it before the pandemic, but it kept being postponed. So we’re delighted it’s finally happening.
Ignasi
When you proposed the idea last year, I was just working on the opening of the Venice Biennale, and I said yes, but then I thought it was all a bit too hurried. Not long after, I suggested waiting a year, so we decided to make it coincide with BGW. And now the time to open it is almost here.
SSC
Ignasi, what attracted you to doing this solo exhibition at Palmadotze?
Ignasi
Working with them seemed like fulfilling a wish, something I really wanted to do, and a historical debt. It’s a really special gallery, because it’s outside of Barcelona, in a rural, country environment, surrounded by vineyards, and part of it is still used for agricultural activity. I think all of that gives it a very special character. I had worked with them before and I was familiar with the setting and the gallery.
Anna
For us, Ignasi a very interesting, very complete and profound artist, and we are really satisfied to have him here. Apart from that, there is a common thread with the rest of the season, and that’s very interesting, because it has emerged almost coincidentally.
SSC
You are a long-standing gallery that has resisted centrality and managed to become a landmark. In your case, there is a degree of risk in setting up in a rural environment. How did the idea to open the gallery come about?
Pilar
At that time, my kids were already grown up, and I’d been an art lover from a young age.
There are no galleries in Vilafranca, only some exhibition rooms runed by banks. On trips to Barcelona, I would visit a lot of galleries, and I started to think: ‘Why not open one in Vilafranca?’. I got talking to people and they encouraged me, even though I was scared to death. None of it was conscious, because I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Of course, I was very excited and enthusiastic. We faced a lot of difficulties, but bit by bit, with the artists’ help, we made things work. One of the artists who supported us the most was Albert Ràfols-Casamada. He really believed in disseminating art outside of the usual circuits.
SSC
Did being far away from the hubs where art is the most present make you decide to do other initiatives outside of the first gallery?
Pilar
I always said I wanted to be a local, village gallery that crossed borders. In 1994, we went to the ARCO fair for the first time. We attended for many years. The fact that there were young, local artists was good for us, because we wanted to promote them, and at the same time, we wanted to work with the great masters. So, bit by bit, this story started to take shape. In the beginning, not many people came into the gallery, so we decided to exhibit art abroad and in a public space in the town. For many years, we did a project Temporades Temàtiques [Themed Seasons], where we invited different artists to take part. This enabled us to weave a network around us, of our artists and collectors.
Anna
In 2013, we moved premises. We had been in the centre of Vilafranca del Penedès for 23 years. Our family had a fifteenth-century farmhouse, which had acted as a warehouse for the art, and we converted it into the current gallery. We turned the central space, which used to house farm equipment, into an exhibition space.
The new space marked a new era, a new project and a new way of working, but we knew we wanted to continue in the same direction. The surroundings are unique and that gives us a lot of options when putting together the exhibitions, as they don’t have to stay inside: they
can go outside, too. That has also enabled us to do some site-specific projects and provide another different readings and another way of viewing the exhibition that goes beyond the four walls, the white cube.
SSC
How did you two start working together?
Pilar
I started the project, with two other people. Anna Rovira is my daughter. In 1993 she had finished her studies and was weighing up several options, but she couldn’t decide. I said, ‘While you think about it, come and work at the gallery’. Now, she does most of the heavy lifting and I’m starting to retire. We make a great little team.
SSC
You must have got a taste for it. You’ve been going for a long time now!
Pilar
Yes, it’s a passion… I’m always nervous on opening days. I tell myself: the day I’m not nervous, I’ll retire for good. Sometimes colleagues say, ‘After all these years…’, and yes.
Every new exhibition always gets the adrenaline pumping.
SSC
As you mentioned, this is the first solo exhibition you’re doing with Ignasi. What’s the process been like? Some gallerists follow the artist’s research closely, while others let them do their thing. What’s it been like in this case?
Anna
Working with Ignasi is really easy; he’s very professional. Our dynamic involves gradually working on different points, which are dealt with at different times. Usually, we let things flow. We let the artist think about and prepare the exhibition.
Ignasi
The process and the relationship between us have been really natural. When Pilar was talking about the gallery, I was reflecting on the artist’s work… Both are high-risk professions: you’re never guaranteed that it will work out well. There are times when you would pack it all in, but there’s always something that makes you come back, despite the difficulties. Running a gallery also has this creative aspect relating to the project you want to build and the artists you want to exhibit. I’m not surprised that, when they open exhibitions, they are also nervous. When I’m nervous at an exhibition of mine, I know there’s something not quite in my control. When I’m calm, it means that I’ve accepted it in some way, so there’s probably not the risk there would be if I were restless or anxious. Being nervous means I’m proposing something and not even I really know what will happen or how the public and critics will react. They are activities that go hand in hand. In fact, we need each other. I always talk about my work as teamwork, with a lot of different people involved. There are galleries, of course, but then there are collectors, curators, designers, the public…
SSC
What’s your relationship with the gallery like?
Ignasi
When you’ve been working in a gallery for many years, there are a lot of things that almost don’t need to be said any more, because they are already clear. With galleries you’ve not been working with for long, there might not be as much trust yet. It’s different if you work with a gallery from here or abroad: in every one you have a different story, type of relationship and special bond.
SSC
Can you reveal something about what you’ll present? In your case, as you often change things up in your practice, we’re intrigued to find out more about the project, especially as you say you’re restless, trying new things, exploring formats…
Ignasi
Every project, every situation calls for a type of proposal, not just because of the place in itself, but because of the knowledge the context has of your work, the gallery you’re working with, etc. In the case of Vilafranca, I’ve taken painting back up, and brought it to a theme I’ve used previously: the relationship between painting and language, or the relationship between image and language. I think there’s a step further here, in that I’ve recovered the pieces made from the newspaper, which I’ve been developing for 25 years, bringing it closer to painting. I don’t want to say too much because I like the surprise factor!
I can add, though, that it will be a seemingly very simple, austere, sober but conceptually loaded exhibition, with a lot of different possible readings, approaches and ways of reading it. Apart from the paintings, we will publish something in parallel that has to do with what you will se in the paintings in the exhibition. It’s a new proposal, and I’ll be nervous about it on the opening day.
Pilar
It’s an exhibition that needs to be seen.
Ignasi
True! There’s no substitute for the experience of seeing it physically, of walking through the space and among the pieces, however much it might be explained to you. An explanation can put across very clear key elements that help understanding, but there is no explanation that can replace the face-to-face visit to the exhibition.
SSC
I remember the project you presented at the Blue Project Foundation: there was this conceptual work around language and multiple meanings, and in that case too, you had the experience in the place itself. It was a site-specific concept, and even the exhibition walls were built with certain proportions. Here, we understand that you are working with a space again: a very particular space that offers a different context to explore.
Ignasi
The paintings will be echoed in the scenery around the gallery, even though this was not the original intention. Perhaps, here, the relationship with the space is not as important as in the case of the Blue Project or the Venice Biennale, though it is still thoroughly thought-out. But
whoever comes to visit the exhibition will add the final meaning to the whole proposal.
SSC
To finish off: what do you think makes relationships between artists and gallerists last?
Ignasi
Mutual understanding, a common goal, working in the same direction to achieve a series of things like art sales, but not just that: also circulation, dissemination, explanation. On a more pragmatic level, I think both the artist and the gallery have common goals – for these two
projects to be viable – and this mutual understanding is what makes the relationship last. Apart from that, for the relationship to last, there must be personal factors and you need to get on on a human level.
Pilar
Ignasi has summarised it really well, I don’t know if there’s anything we need to add. I must say that the human, affective part is very important for us. I treasure the friendships the gallery has brought me for so many years and with so many different artists.
Barcelona Gallery Weekend (BGW ) seeks to reinforce and make visible the rich and varied artistic scene of Barcelona, promote art collecting and highlight the work of the galleries, as culture generating spaces open to citizens, and the artists they represent. From 14th to 17th September 2023, BGW celebrate your 9th edition in 32 galleries, presenting the work of more than 60 artists.