Josep Renau (1907-1982) wielded art as a weapon for argument and political critique. He achieved this through posters and, above all, photo collages, influencing a generation of artists that followed. After the Civil War, Renau went into exile in Mexico and spent his later years in East Berlin, where his work continued to resonate across borders and generations.
Pepe Calvo, born in 1947 in Alicante, is a professional photographer who discovered a new world as Renau’s influence became clearer. He adopted photo collage as his primary mode of expression, yet his work reflects a different sensibility. While Renau anchored his practice in political commentary, Calvo moved toward a cinematic, personal world that translated visual language into a broader, more intimate narrative.
To confront these two divergent universes, a time-bound dialogue is presented in the loop, opening on Friday at 20:00 in the hall of the Alicante Fish Market. The dialogue is coordinated and curated by Guillermina Perales, setting the stage for a conversation that bridges historical memory with contemporary perception.
IVAM works
IVAM plays a pivotal role in this exhibition, which remains open until 29 October. Eleven works by Renau are drawn from the Valencia museum collection, alongside four of the thirty-five portraits featured by Calvo. The show traces the conversation between two generations and two continents, highlighting how each artist translated conflict, exile, and identity into visual form.
Renau’s Valencian roots come alive in his series American Lifestyle, a body of work produced and published in East Berlin after his exile to Mexico. This collection engages with a critical view of the United States, presenting a nuanced critique of the American Dream and its cultural projections. Calvo’s response to this framework reveals an interrogation of similar themes through a different lens. Perales notes that Calvo uses images from the American system to scrutinize capitalism, militarism, and social marginalization with a sharp, cinematic sensibility.
In the words of curator Pepe Calvo, the chance to engage with Renau’s legacy stems from a genuine love for cinema and the image. Calvo explains that the photocollage technique, while sharing a tool with Renau, serves his own world and narrative, allowing him to speak through a distinct visual language that blends memory and invention.
Calvo’s own words describe a long relationship with analog photography before discovering Renau’s approach, which steered him into a path of collage where his voice found a new form. The result is a language that carries a cinematic texture, inviting viewers to read between frames and uncover stories that lie beneath the surface.
The artist emphasizes technique and perspective, explaining that his work embraces a cinematic point of view because cinema unites the artists in a shared language. What differs is emphasis: Renau often centers on political urgency, while Calvo leans toward narrative mystery and personal exploration. The contrast is not a clash so much as a dialogue, a cross-generational conversation conducted through images and arrangement.
Guillermina Perales highlights the generational and geographical differences that define the era in which these artists operated. She notes that observing the evolution over forty years enriches the understanding of how exile, culture, and memory shape artistic practice. The collaboration with IVAM is celebrated as well, with IVAM lending eleven works from Renau’s series and four of Calvo’s pieces to the exhibition, while the remainder remains reserved for other exhibitions.