Valencia,
It is difficult to resist considering the extensive trajectory of Eduardo Urtulo as a trip in which the artist contemplates both his own existence and that of others: in addition to his frequent suitcases, hats or jackets, for his suggestion of the secrets and uncertainties that many of those transfers promise and for their approximation to a number of no less styles; From an academic root classicism to abstraction and pop, whose referents conjugated greatly.
From that perspective, the Bancaja Foundation in the anthology that dedicates to this author until June, “a cosmopolitan traveler”, curated by Alicia Vallina and composed of paintings, linagrabados, drawings and sculptures dated between the sixties and 1999; he defined himself as a painter who makes sculptures And the latter, who usually share themes with their fabrics, could not be missing in this review. Due to their compositions, since the absence of the face of their characters -which is still another favorable resource to freedom -, popular life, pain and suffering, sexuality and desire and many backs undertaking trip, surrounded by luggage towards the unexpected, towards the possibility of a find -new metaphor of the path of all artists. The real was always a very powerful source for him, but not the only one: we will read some of his images from the cinema memory (explained in certain titles), advertising and even the press.
The pieces that have traveled to Valencia, to this institution whose programming will always be enjoyable for those interested in the Spanish pop art, come from the funds of the only son of Urtulo, Yoann Urtulo, of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Madrid and other private collections , and are structured in a three -stage vertebrate chronological journey. The first recalls that this author approached, soon and only briefly, to the abstraction to abandon it in favor of the typisms and pain known by whom, in their near environment, they worked hard in the mines in an economic context still marked by the postwar difficulties.
The tone of these works links with his palette, dominated by the dark, brown and gray tones; At that time he portrayed individual, lonely figures, desperately, ultimately inserted into the drama.
The end of the 196 that linked to consumption and modern life; His nudes make the spectator into voyeur by introducing the ingredient of mystery and anonymity.
And the last stage of this exhibition, The trip of lifeit is explained in that matter of yours: hats, luggage and umbrella become emblem of the ephemeral and those migrants, or simple travelers, whose life in transit implies the exercise of emotion and nostalgia. As in the first protagonists of their creations, it also detects in them the tear and melancholy, although sometimes it also took its interest to objects in silence or the streets, mestizas and cosmopolitas, of New York.
Throughout his career, this author of the media economy never wanted to move away: his frequent raw linen funds sometimes are not covered and taken as one more color, providing texture, which is usually as rich in ultle as its forms.
In parallel, the samples “in the Sorolla Sea with Manuel Vicent” can be visited at the Bancaja Foundation, which is extended until April 21; and “Picasso and the model. Jacqueline’s profile “, until March 2.
“Eduardo Urtulo. A cosmopolitan traveler “
Bancaja Foundation
Tetuán Square, 23
Valencia
From February 21 to June 8, 2025
