All the world's a stage - Artur Ramon Art

The magic of the theatre, present in the costumes, the iconography, the nature of the characters and the scenes, in this exhibition takes on a new reality through the iconographic world and the object. A round trip in which the theatrical performance has been the creative source of certain images, and these, at the same time, have inspired scenic solutions.

There are different ways of establishing links between plastic arts and theatre. The most obvious is to look at the sets and stage designs of renowned artists: Pablo Picasso and his works for the Ballets Russes, Joan Miró and the sets and costumes for the Diaghilev company, or Oskar Schlemmer and the costumes he created for the Triadic Ballet, when he was director of the theatre department of the Bauhaus. But what if instead of exploring the influence of art on theatre, we look at the influence that theatre has had on art?

All the world’s a stage includes works by renowned artists in an extensive timeline that goes back to the 18th and 19th centuries with Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Mariano Benlliure, Eugenio Lucas Velázquez or Ricard Urgell; and more recently to the 20th century with Nicolau Raurich, Joan Ponç, Modest Cuixart, Mariano Andreu, Antoni Clavé, among others. The interest of the proposal lies in recognising how the artist, consciously or not, has used theatrical elements to create his work, to find his own voice, which has inevitably led us to find a new reading of some pieces. Likewise, this exhibition encompasses different languages: painting, sculpture, engraving, photography and objects -such as the masks of the Noh theatre of Japan- and is organised around three thematic axes: costumes, characterisations and scenography. The selection also includes works produced as part of theatrical projects: drawings, specific plans for staging, sketches of sets and costumes which, in addition to their artistic value, stand out for their historical-documentary content.

“For us, simple spectators, to whom the world itself is sometimes presented as a theatre, it is necessary to discover that behind the subject there is always a way of seeing, a dramatic, narrative, creative intention, an object of art.”
José A. Aristizábal, curator