Lisa en Buenos Aires – Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani de Palma

Alberto García-Alix, a chronicler who is faithful to every era and moment he has lived through, is – as defined by himself – a person who takes photographs. An advocate of analogue, he takes his photos by shooting without contemplating composition, gesture or theme. Self-portraits and portraits of unknown characters, outsiders, and recognised names, those who are very close to him or people he empathizes with, his own environment has always been his most direct source and formed the main body of his work. And also the search for settings, as well as intangible moments outdoors that are a way of expressing his interior. Recently he has included the urban landscape of cities or the natural environment, like that of Formentera, but without straying from his constant searches. A reflection of situations and mirrors of internal emergences and breakdowns as revealing as the direct gaze of his subjects.

Lisa en Buenos Aires, a photograph taken during a trip in 2005, captures Lisa, the partner with whom he lived in Paris, at the furtive moment of their stay in Buenos Aires, a city held dear by the artist and one which recurs frequently over his career. Lisa, one of the important women in his life, has been portrayed by García-Alix on numerous occasions but it was at this exact moment that the soul and character of the person is reflected for him. This black and white image, captured precisely during the earliest hours of the dawn, impacts the shot of the protagonist’s face, the result of the photographer’s exercise which observes from a stance of objectivity and the depth of having evidence of the being, beyond physical appearance; a sincere portrait which freezes the strong presence of the person portrayed, his vision of her and the intensity of moments that are fleeting, yet absolutely real.

E.B.

Artist biography

Alberto García-Alix

Leon, 1956

Lives and works in Madrid. In 1976, at the age of twenty, he left his family home and university to mount his first laboratory with his friend Fernando Pais in Madrid. Self-taught, he created miniature portraits of his most immediate surroundings between 1976 and 1986, which became a chronicle of his generation, marked by the democratic transition, and included intimate autobiographical references. He moved to Paris in 2003, where he faced a personal crisis while battling a severe illness. In the French capital, García-Alix explored a new format – video – with the work Mi alma de cazador en juego, which is part of the “Tres videos tristes” trilogy.

He returned to Madrid in 2005, where he founded the production company No Hay Penas. On the occasion of a group photography exhibition organised by the Seacex in 2007, he first came into contact with China, and Chinese society affected him so deeply that the following year he decided to settle there for a time. In 1999, he received the Premio Nacional de Fotografía awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and has also won the Premio Bartolomé Ros at Photoespaña (2003), the Premio de Fotografía de la Comunidad de Madrid (2005) and the Premio PhotoEspaña 2012. His work has been displayed in Madrid, London, Havana, Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Beijing, Lisbon among other cities, and has been the object of various retrospectives, the most recent at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2008). In 2010, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma organised the exhibition “Lo más cerca que estuve del paraíso”, dedicated to the photos the artist took in the Balearic Islands. His work is present in important public and private collections such as that of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), Colección Fundación Coca-Cola, Fundación Rafael Botín, Fundació Foto Colectania (Barcelona), Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, Museo Patio Herreriano (Valladolid), Speed Art Museum (USA), Fonds nationales d’art contemporain (France), and others.

E.B.