PRESENTATION: LA CIUDAD A LO LEJOS BY ALBERTO PINA Y ANDRÉS BARBA
On 16th May Ivorypress hosted the launch of La ciudad a lo lejos, an artist’s book by Alberto Pina and Andrés Barba, the fourth portfolio created in collaboration with the publishing house Cañón de Garibaldi. Through the use of Japanese-style horizontal landscapes, this work shows a tragedy that took place in a remote city, with a tiny column of smoke as the only reference. The contradiction between the landscape’s stillness and the distress we sense in the distance is also the basis for the text, a psalmodic poem on all that was lost in this tragedy.
The piece comprises seven original prints on brass sheets (300 × 420 mm), printed on Velin Arches Black paper 250 gr in one colour, a print run of 20 copies, 2 artist’s proofs and 1 b.a.t.
Andrés Barba (Madrid, 1975) became known in 2001 with La hermana de Katia (Herralde Prize finalist, turned into a film by Mijke de Jong), followed by two nouvelles entitled La recta intención and Ha dejado de llover (awarded the Nord-Sud Prize), and six more novels that consolidated him as one of the most important writers of his generation in Spain: Ahora tocad música de baile; Versiones de Teresa (Torrente Ballester Prize); Las manos pequeñas; Agosto, octubre Muerte de un caballo (Juan March Prize); En presencia de un payaso, and República luminosa (Herralde Prize). He has also written the essays Caminar en un mundo de espejos, La ceremonia del porno (cowritten with Javier Montes and awarded the Anagrama Essay Prize) and La risa caníbal. He is the author of the poetry book Crónica natural. As a translator, he has published versions of authors such as Herman Melville, Henry James, Joseph Conrad and Thomas De Quincey, among many others.
The prestigious Granta magazine selected him as one of the best young storytellers in Spanish. His work has been translated into twenty languages.
Alberto Pina (Athens, 1971)
Alberto Pina graduated in Fine Arts from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, with a major in printmaking (1994). He received a scholarship to attend the Academia de España in Rome (2003). He has exhibited his work regularly since 1999.
His paintings, which include portraits, still lifes and landscapes, capture a strong interest to show reality in its broad and conventional normality, using a thoughtful and personal language where metaphysical intent coexists with a calm melancholy realism.