Ramon Guillen Balmes Sold at Auction Prices

Sculptor

Ramon Guillen-Balmes - Born in Cornellà de Llobregat in 1954, the artist lived in Font Romeu, in the French region of Languedoc-Roussillon, during his childhood and adolescence. He studied at the Llotja in Barcelona from 1973 to 1978, when he became part of the Experimental Workshop of Plastic Arts, composed of sculptors and painters from Llotja and Massana. The sculpture ended up displaying the interest of some of the artists, among them, in 1980, the Usquam Group formed by Elena Carbonell, Manel Civit, Pedro Saralegui and Ramon Guillen-Balmes. They all had in common a particular way of conceiving the volume in space: they did not clear the material to achieve it, but they built it by assembling various materials.

The artistic beginnings of Guillen-Balmes had been closely linked to the drawing, but soon the flat forms of this one were freed of the paper and Guillen-Balmes began to realize small constructions in wood and paper of white silk. The white color and the natural wood will remain throughout his career. From the small scale models to the wind panoples [see room 2] included in the series called Tools , works of greater format, destined to be moved by the wind. Soon another natural element will break into the artist's work: water. [see room 1: Modifier of waves , 1984; The free buoys , 1983-1987].

While working on these projects, Guillen-Balmes regularly exhibits at galleries and exhibition centers in Barcelona (1980, 1983, 1986), Sant Cugat (1984), Reus (1986) and Cadaqués (1986), among others. At the same time, he has edited graphic works and his work is published in different publications.

A singular work is the ballet-sculpture Eólica (Miratge) , (1987). A wing-shaped sculpture adapts to the back of a dancer, whose action is recorded in video [see room 2]. This dance-sculpture represents the beginning of the progressive incorporation of the body in the work of Guillen-Balmes.

Since 1989, the artist is a teacher at the Massana School of Barcelona, ??and the same year, with Usquam, receives a grant from the Generalitat de Catalunya for the project Artists from Barcelona. Eight Options in Denver, Colorado.

In 1990, he presented the artist's Archeology exhibition at the Àngels de la Mota Gallery in Barcelona and in 1991 he exhibited Objets on the Container Gallery in Florence. [see room 3]. The following year, he produced Small Pollution in Pallars-Jussà , for the Art and Territory Foundation. In the context of the Cultural Olympiad of Barcelona, ??Guillen-Balmes has 11 smooth meters in the gardens of the Palau Robert. That month of April begins his first notebook of black tapas [see room 7]. During this period, the tools and the organic forms without an apparent function that conform the artist Archeologies , coexist with the so-called Models of use that are generated from the proposals that the artist makes to very close people and the orders that An artist receives from friends and acquaintances to elaborate "something" that will help them fulfill a desire or solve any fault. Some of them are performed during their residence in Valence-sur-Rhône and exhibited at the museum of art in this city [see room 5. For the absent angels (Petit Vertigo for Àngels de la Mota) , 1993; Waiting model for Anna Borrell , 1994; Model of use for Ángel Corral , 1998].

In 1994, exhibitions were held in galleries in Valencia, Andorra and Girona and received a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Culture for foreign promotion, thanks to which the Commandes project was carried out in Carcassonne in 1995 .

This year the artist speaks for the first time of the "flames" in his notebooks. These are the 11 Models for Sensi . Your order is made up of eleven wishes [see room 5].

In 1996, Guillen-Balmes performed Small Exercises (projects for twelve women artists whom he admired, such as Jana Sterbak, Rebecca Horn, Louise Bourgeois and Sophie Calle). New Models of use follow each other in 1997, the year in which he presents his work in individual exhibitions at the Pérgamon, Carles Poy, Espai 22a, Colegio de Apartadores de Barcelona and also at the MACBA Gallery, where he participates in the exhibition Introversions. Aspects of the Collection .

Linked to the Models of use , Guillen-Balmes sets up the Provisional Models project [see room 6] from knots from erotic photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries, which are also subject to experimentation with stereoscopic photography.

After a period as an artist residing in Canada, in 1999 he made the exhibition Les invitités in Montreal. Between 1999 and 2000 he carried out a multitude of commissions, models of use and panoples. In 2000 he exhibited Models of use 1999-2000 at the Antonio de Barnola Gallery in Barcelona and in 2001 he participated in exhibitions in Grenoble, Vic and Malmö, Sweden. Among the latest works by Guillen-Balmes stand out Condition of artist. His own model (2001), projected for himself, and Model of use for Gemma Pinedo , which did not come to be proven.

Ramon Guillen-Balmes died too early, at age 47, in December 2001. Since then, his work has been the subject of several monographic reviews and has been part of important collective exhibitions.