FONS AUDIO #8 Pep Duran

Pep Duran belongs to a generation of Catalan artists that emerged in the mid-eighties after a long period in which pictorial representation had prevailed. In contrast, Duran upholds the poetic potency of the everyday object and the influence of theatre in creating new fictions in contemporary art.

He studied Stage Design and Costume Design at the Barcelona School of Dramatic Art and made his professional debut working with Fabià Puigserver. Hence, it is not surprising that he should declare, with regard to his influences, that he is more indebted to playwrights such as Tadeusz Kantor or Antonin Artaud, and architects like Paolo Soleri than to his contemporaries in the plastic arts.

In 1978 he had his first exhibition in the Galeria Adrià and barely a year later he exhibited his famous "Sabates" (Shoes) in Espai 10 at the Miró Foundation, thus attracting the attention of the critic Alexandre Cirici i Pellicer, who reviewed the show in Serra d’Or. Art and theatre have continued to alternate in his career ever since. The more strictly objectual pieces of his beginnings have been giving way to increasingly architectural compositions.

Duran addresses an active viewer-actor who is willing to walk through his works bestowing on them personal, non-transferible meanings. Again, his artistic production is inextricably linked with the use of materials that are discarded or found in containers, as he tends to affirm. Duran is a passionate collector of objects to which he tends to turn in the creative process.