LipanjePuntin artecontemporanea is proud to present presentForbidden City, a solo exhibition by Antonio Girbés (Tabernes de Valldigna, Valencia – Spain, 1952) curated by Antonio Arévalo.

Girbés uses fragments of the Forbidden City’s photographies as bricks to build new geometrical compositions where the structural element becomes formally esthetic and generates other autonomous images trough his personal manipulation. During past years Girbés developed his own and personal philosophy of photography. Those works have serial elements reflect and permeate each other, image close in  and the architectonic element, barely recognizable, get lost in the tangled arabesque. By using the loaded shapes of Oriental culture, Baroque and repeated images, the artists tells us the reality in its obvious shape without revealing it completely since he wants us to pick-up the messages: a kaleidoscope of fragments in witch nothing is casual. It is every spectator’s privilege to understand the magic of this symbology: as a mirror that reflects who look in it. The labyrinths and mysteries are therefore necessary to reach the road to the Forbidden City.

Engaged as photo reporter since the Eighties, Girbés realizes the Untitled series in the Nineties. Those works are flower compositions, inspired by Flemish art where the precious colors stand out of dark backgrounds, very much like hand painted antique photographs. With Cabezas Cortadas, in the second half of the Nineties, the subject of Girbés works becomes the body, and more specifically, the head. Cut heads are transformed in still marmoreal fetish. The photographies from the Somewhere Nowhere (2000-2005) project prepare for the art works showed in his solo exhibition in Rome. With images taken from different geographical and cultural realities, Girbés goes from digital still life to universal landscapes.

From 1980 Antonio Girbés has shown in many important galleries and museums in Europe, North and South America and Japan. He participated to the “Festival dei Due Mondi”, Spoleto 1998, to the “Cuerpo del Arte” show curated by Achille Bonito Oliva during the first Valencia Biennale in 2001 and to the last Architecture Venice Biennale. His art works are exhibit in many prestigious international collections such as: Deutsche Bank Frankfurt, Estée Lauder New York, Giovanni e Marella Agnelli Torino, Musée de l’Elysée Lausanne.

Forbidden City by Antonio Girbés has been organized in collaboration with a.c. viadimontoro 10, artport1 and with the support of Casa dell'Arte di Trieste.

LIPANJEPUNTIN artecontemporanea
via di Montoro 10 – 00186 Roma
Tel. + 39 06 68307780
Fax + 39 06 68216758

Gallery hours: Monday – Friday, 12.00pm - 8.00pm or by appointment