Cómo escribir de pintura sin que se note. Quico Rivas, art critic

15 december, 2011 - 7 p.m.
Place
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
Diego Lara, 1980
Diego Lara, 1980

Perhaps now, a time when art criticism has lost its relevance and been replaced by other figures of the art field, from curators to cultural managers, is the best occasion to remember an art critic. This is the first book by Quico Rivas (1953-2008). Published posthumously, it brings together the writings of one of the most independent, asystematic and socially-engaged authors to ever write about art, and these qualities are the ones that define the task of criticism. In the context of the activity carried out by Museo Reina Sofía's Documentation Centre, which has recently acquired the critic's archives, this presentation by Ángel González, Eva Rivas, José Luis Gallero and José María Parreño explores the life and work - inseparable from one another - of Quico Rivas.

Cómo escribir de pintura sin que se note [How to write about painting without anybody noticing] is the name of a collection of critical texts written by the critic in the final years of his life. With the intention of writing about painting with the same attitude as when visiting a friend, Rivas transforms art criticism into its own literary genre, one in which poetry and politics, philosophy and novels, ethics and humour, all blend together. The best of the pages that the critic dedicated to recreating the work of countless artists take the form, in this anthology, of different episodes of a single, unpredictable story: his own life. The life of Quico Rivas, full of surprising adventures, often had the undesirable effect of eclipsing his writings, which were dispersed, until now, in numerous publications, journals and catalogues. Cómo escribir de pintura sin que se note inaugurates, after his death, the bibliography of an author who, over his entire existence, did everything he could to remain unpublished.

Speakers:

José Luis Gallero. Art critic, poet and editor of Cómo escribir de pintura sin que se note
Ángel González. Art historian and professor at Universidad Complutense. Author of El resto. Una historia invisible del arte contemporáneo, which won Spain's national essay prize in 2001. 
José María Parreño. Poet, writer, critic, art historian and exhibition curator. He has worked as deputy director of the Esteban Vicente Museum
Eva Rivas. Daughter of Quico Rivas, she is in charge the art critic's legacy.