EMBLECAT, Estudis de la Imatge, Art i Societat

Call For Papers 2025

Editorial — 2025-02-01

Call For Papers 2025

Hashish, Maghreb and Orientalism: Cannabis and the Painters of the Catalan Countries (1860-1909)

Albert Arnavat Carballido — 2025-02-01

A vision of the consumption and culture of cannabis in Morocco between the years 1860 and 1909 based on graphic testimonies of painters from the Catalan Countries (Catalonia, Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands) that reflect the tradition of use in Maghreb society. The works of these artists, who traveled to the Maghreb and embodied their personal visions, became important witnesses to the consumption of cannabis - and also opium - in the 19th century as a central component - neither anecdotal nor marginal - they participated in a decisive way in shaping the image of Maghreb society in Spain. This pioneering study also shows the integration of the paraphernalia used to consume it as props of a «salon orientalism» practiced by painters who never traveled to the Maghreb, but who integrated this tendency into their work.

Villa Casa Trinxet. Living in a masterpiece: art, society, family and history.

Sílvia Martínez-Comín Trinxet — 2025-02-01

The modernist chalet Casa Trinxet (1904-1967) by the architect Puig i Cadafalch (1867-1956) was considered by the press to be a masterpiece of art. From the family version and their direct testimonies, I propose to present a brief history of what it meant to live there for the Trinxet - family of the most important protagonists of the Catalan textile industry that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century XX- and its ethical-aesthetic contribution. A synthesis based on my research book on the Trinxet.

The first Chinese abstracts in Barcelona. The Ton-Fan group.

Aitor Quiney Urbieta — 2025-02-01

Study on the presence of the Ton-fan Group in Barcelona from the exhibition at the Palau de la Virreina in 1958. The Ton-fan group is considered the first group of Chinese abstract art from Taipei and, therefore, dissident of the policies of the government of Chiang Kai-shek. Find out more about the presence in Barcelona of the artist Hsiao Chin, a member of the group. Analyse the works of the group's components that are preserved at Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA).

Photographing models: the relationship between photography and painting in the late 19th century.

Rafel Torrella Reñé — 2025-02-01

Since the beginning of the photographic technique, its relationship with other forms of representation has had influences, disagreements, rivalries and annexations, but one of the most fruitful forms of relationship has been the use of photography as a tool by of plastic artists. In this article, we want to give voice to two forms of the plastic artist's relationship with photography occurring in the work of the draftsman and painter Josep Lluís Pellicer i Fenyé and the painter Enric Monserdà i Vidal, whose photographic backgrounds are preserved in the Photo Archive of Barcelona.

Fortuny i la pràctica del dibuix

Francesc Quílez Corella — 2025-02-01

The article discusses the relationship that Marià Fortuny (1838-1874) had with the discipline of drawing, where he achieved highly iconic results. The artist maintained an idyll with works on paper, both in the practice of drawing and engraving, to the point of activating a dynamic process of exchange of proposals between the different disciplines: painting, drawing and engraving. Therefore, in addition to confirming Fortuny's relationship with drawing, the aim is to vindicate and give visibility to a work that has remained hidden, with the aim of highlighting the value of a decisive contribution to the history of drawing. Broadly speaking, the text focuses both on the group made up of the more canonical works of an artist who was a virtuous and perfectionist, whose work was highly conditioned by the demands of the clientele of the time, and on the freer, more spontaneous and unusual productions that channelled his creative drive.

The Affirmation of Gender in Byzantine Art through St. Mary of Egypt

Elisabet Trulla Serra — 2025-02-01

Byzantine pictorial cycles in churches follow a strict, well-planned theological symbolism. Not everyone can be a painter, nor can a painter paint whatever they wish. Nevertheless, orthodoxy gets questioned with paradigmatic figures such as Mary of Egypt: a woman saint represented in Byzantium as any other male anchorite saint. Her figure conveys questions of gender and sainthood, subverting the wrongful idea of Catholic binarism, which orthodoxy seems to dismantle with Mary of Egypt. Although the legitimacy of her figure is under scrutiny, Mary of Egypt is a significant subject of study for both artistic and social purposes. As Jeannete Lindblom states: “even the lives of purely fictional saints reveal a lot about society, religion, culture and so forth, and about the social and political history of the period”.

Afrofeminism and Caribbean ethnoracial identity in the creative work of La Flor del Tamarindo

Felip González Martínez — 2025-02-01

This article aims to problematize the connections of the world of art and contemporary design with the survival of an embodied ethnocentric cultural logic, based on the creative work of Elizabeth Montero, Afro-Dominican artist known as La Flor del Tamarindo. Her production is an afrofeminist, decolonial and anticolonial turning point. On the one hand, it denounces the assimilationist bias of a white and bleaching culture that, from Western artistic and aesthetic criteria, legitimizes a series of values and validates works of art, establishing a system of canonical values. And on the other hand, taking the role de “producer” in Benjamin terms (Benjamin, 2003, 39-40), she questions the neocolonial professionalizing discourse, which she does not hesitate to otherize and discredit other imaginaries, work methods and design languages, far from the narrative parameters typical of Western Assimilationism. Starting from these logics, it analyzes the artist’s production and Afro-descendant creation by other exponents residing in Barcelona.

Una troballa insòlita en el mercat de l’art: l’Àlbum postromàntic de Ramon Romaní Puigdengolas (c. 1879-1895)

Santiago Mercader Saavedra — 2025-02-01

This paper introduces an unpublished work that appeared on the art market still unknown: a post-romantic album made and compiled between 1879 and 1895, owned by Ramon Romaní i Puigdengolas (1846-1898), a prominent Catalan businessman, innovator of the paper industry and leader of industrialization in Catalonia in the second half of the 19th century. He was a member of the Board of the Barcelona Universal Exhibition in 1888 and related to influential personalities such as politicians, businessmen, artists, writers, etc. The text collects information from its owner, but above all it focuses on the graphic part of this piece where we find drawings by artists like Marià Fortuny, Eusebi Arnau, Ramon Casas, Josep Masriera, Josep Maria Tamburini, Laureà Barrau, among others.

Harun Farocki, the video-essay and the use of the conflict imagery.

Anna Pérez Milán — 2025-02-01

This paper analyses the work of Harun Farocki (1994-2014) in the context of the documentary turn, exploring how his video-essays question the power of images and their political instrumentalisation through case studies focusing on war conflict. Through critical montage and the use of the video essay, Farocki unveils the structures of surveillance, war and capitalist production, highlighting media manipulation and its effects on collective perception. Case studies such as Inextinguishable Fire (1969), Eye/Machine (2000-2003) and Serious Games (2010) are addressed, where the artist investigates the relationship between technology, representation and reality. His work engages in dialogue with theorists such as Walter Benjamin, Jean-Luc Godard, Hito Steyerl, Georges Didi-Huberman, and Okwui Enwezor, approaching the concept of ‘politics of truth’ in documentary art in the contemporary sphere. Through soft montage and the use of operative images, Farocki reconfigures visual narrative, prompting a critical reading of the power of images in the global age.

Credits - Index

Editorial — 2025-02-01

Filiberto Montagud, visto y no visto

Francesc Fontbona de Vallescar — 2025-02-01

Cecilio Pla: the same rural atmosphere in two of his works

Mireia Berenguer Amat — 2025-02-01

12 horas con Alfredo Jaar

Anna Pérez Milán — 2025-02-01

Nous principis, reptes i enfocaments

Anna Pérez Milán — 2025-02-01

Restituir poder y vivificar el mausoleo

Claudio Alvarado Lincopi — 2025-02-01

Reflexions a l’entorn d’una commemoració

Francesc Quílez Corella — 2025-02-01