RocioSantaCruz in Barcelona presents Javier Inés’ exhibition Barcelona Universal KGB.
Javier Inés’ images of the 1980s are the dual chronicle of Barcelona’s transformation, culminating in the celebration of the 1992 Olympic Games. Through the use of portraiture, Inés documents the great urban and cultural change of the city, which in the pre-Olympic period began to become the object of desire of many other cities around the world.
It was a dimorphic transformation, pivoting between institutional modernizing impulse (urban and cultural) and cultural contestation; between official euphoria and subversion.
Javier Inés’ gaze oscillates between these two poles of aesthetic and moral values of pre-Olympic Barcelona, through its protagonists: writers, architects, designers and other post-modern actors; and anonymous characters, alternative artistic collectives and rebels, with their own spaces, on the other.
The Barcelona underground, a vibrant and transgressive underworld, where artists, bohemians and characters of the night who defy the rules of the moment coexist, becomes the main material of her creation, as reflected in this exhibition. Inés captures her protagonists almost always in black and white, in friendly backlighting, in a bold way, with empathy and humor; he speaks to us of the subject and her surroundings in a delicate balance between the intimate and the theatrical.
In this sense, the exhibition brings together a selection of vintage photographs that constitute an archive with a broad cultural value: they show the historical context of pre-Olympic Barcelona, a part of which escaped at the time to the official narratives.
During the photographer’s lifetime, part of the works were exhibited in two emblematic spaces of the Barcelona nightlife scene: El KGB and Universal. It was in 1986 and 1988, respectively. Colita was the one who told us about the great talent of Javier Inés and the existence of the archive, which thanks to Juanjo Rotger, his partner, has been preserved intact since his death in 1991. Now, 34 years later, by the hand of RocioSantaCruz, it is presented to the public for the first time.
Javier Inés (Zaragoza, 1956 – Barcelona, 1991)
When he was a teenager, some friends gave him his first camera, a simple Werlisa Color, with which he took up photography to portray his surroundings. For four years, he attended photography workshop courses at the Spectrum Canon Gallery in Zaragoza. In 1981, he held his first exhibition in Zaragoza, where he photographed many people in the performing arts – especially in the field of dance – and the world of entertainment in general.
In 1985, he moved to Barcelona, attracted by the nightlife and show business. He combined his profession as a photographer with that of a waiter in fashionable night bars, such as KGB or Distrito Distinto.
During this period, he collaborated with various advertising agencies and published in the leading magazines of the time, such as Vivir en Barcelona, Ajoblanco, La Vanguardia Mujer, and Primera Línea, among others. The magazine El Canto de la Tripulación, directed by Alberto García Alix in Madrid, devoted several pages to Javier Inés in its publications.
He combined his work as a creator with other commissioned professional projects. In this other realm of activity, he photographed prominent professionals from the worlds of finance, television, art, fashion, and the performing arts.
At the same time, Inés regularly photographed the underground world and nightlife of Barcelona, exploring the city’s forbidden zones in the lead-up to the 1992 Olympic Games.
As Javier Inés said: “I believe my subjects are happy. I think they accept their fate, and I try to make their faces show humor and be fun. I’m not satisfied with just taking a photograph, a portrait—I want to go further, to bring out a mystery, something magical.”
Javier Inés : Barcelona Universal KGB
Until March 29, 2025
RocioSantaCruz
Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes
627, L’Eixample
08010 Barcelona, Spain
www.rociosantacruz.com
