VIVID [RADICAL] MEMORY

Francesc Abad (Terrassa, 1944) studied at the Escola d'Arts i Oficis de Terrassa and the Centre de Documentation Pédagogique in Paris. He entered the world of art by way of painting, with work that is characterized by an extreme simplification of the forms and an almost total reduction of the colour and the graphic elements. In 1972 he went to New York, where his visits to museums, his contacts with other artists living in the city and his direct experience of the works of the minimalists, then in vogue, were to have a great influence on his own subsequent practice. On his return to Barcelona a few months later he became an active member of the Grup de Treball. Abad's evolution as an artist is grounded in a Utopian desire to transform reality by means of art. On the Catalan scene in the seventies, within the framework of Conceptual Art, there was a mix of various different tendencies then present on the international scene, such as Body Art, Land Art, etc. Of all of Francesc Abad's works of this period were conceptually centred on nature, one of the most significant ones was dedicated to the four elements, air, water, fire and earth, produced in 1972 and exhibited in 1973 as part of the series Documentos, that grouped together the works of artists such as Jordi Benito, Antoni Muntadas and Francesc Torres, among others, which were similary engaged with natural elements.

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