Joaquim Gomis i Serdañons (Barcelona, 1902-1991) was a man of many talents: promoter of the arts, businessman, art collector, photographer and the first president of the Fundació Joan Miró. For over five decades his photographic output was prodigious and had close links to the ground-breaking currents of the time. He exhibited at the Galerie Maeght in Paris, the Milan Triennale, the Saló del Tinell in Barcelona and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among other venues.
His commitment to promoting avant-garde art began when he was a young man. He was a founder member of ADLAN (Friends of the New Art, 1932-1936) and of Club 49 (1949-1971), two of the groups that were most active in promoting the new art in Catalonia, and it was there that he came in contact with artists such as Joan Miró, Josep Lluís Sert, Paul Éluard, Man Ray, Joan Prats and Antoni Tàpies.
Oblique Gaze to Visual Narration exhibition, curated by Juan Naranjo, includes a selection of almost 200 photographs and features one of the most interesting yet least known aspects of Gomis’ work: the fotoscops.
The exhibition is divided into two sections that show some of the most important and less well known facets of his work. The Oblique Gaze shows photographs produced in the period 1922-1939, in which Gomis anticipated the visual experiments of photographers who were considered pioneers of the New Vision. Visual Narration includes the series of photographs that formed the basis of the fotoscops, the name Gomis gave to a collection of photobooks that he produced in conjunction with Joan Prats. The fotoscops were his main medium of discourse and one of the most fascinating photographic publishing ventures of the post-war years in Spain.
A catalogue with texts by Juan Naranjo and Rosa Maria Malet has been published in 2012 as part of the exhibition project held at the Joan Miró Foundation from April 20 until June 03, 2012.
Oblique Gaze to Visual Narration
Fundació Joan Miró
Parc de Montjuïc s/n
08038 Barcelona
Spain
tel +34 934 439 470
