Saying Again
MAN
Bernardí Roig
January - May 2025
Closing the circle and returning to the theme of vision and having seen, isolation is never absolute in artistic creation. It always unfolds in dialogue—with the past, with art history, with the references that have left their imprint on the retina and memory. Bernardí Roig works from within this constant exchange: his work establishes dialogues with tradition, with his influences, and with the institutional collections he has the opportunity to reinterpret.
The walls of his studio are filled with images that nourish the daily practice of drawing—lines of flight that break through the cranial cavity to carve out a space, just as a beam of light manages to pass through a wall via a crack. This stratum consists of Bacon, Giacometti, Morandi... a scopic archive that catalyzes processes. When asked when this dialogue with art history begins—whether consciously or unconsciously—the artist recalls a decisive encounter at the age of thirteen or fourteen: a reproduction of Pollock in an encyclopedia.
The encyclopedia, as a vessel of knowledge, leads us to the museum, which is also an Enlightenment artifact. In recent years, Bernardí Roig has carried out numerous interventions in museums and collections. In these, the challenge is precisely to generate dialogues between his work and the preexisting context, assuming the role of archaeologist or archivist—finding the cracks in the museum and slipping through them, but doing so with generosity. In his most recent intervention at the MAN, this gesture of rereading and transformation is articulated subtly. He modifies the space through minimal, delicate interventions, beyond the two large works—the light tower and the gate that cuts through the garden, symbolizing a new entryway into the museum.
Dialogue, after all, is also a kind of soliloquy. Some things must be said again—better, more clearly. This is why it makes sense to continue producing. Once again, the abyss, the distance that longs to be bridged. After every project, as in the moment of conversation in the studio, it is necessary to assess what has been said in order to say it again—even if this means accepting Wittgenstein’s notion of the impossibility of language. Some things escape language, and yet we keep trying to name them. In Roig’s words: "It’s something very simple. You think that what has been said has not been said enough or has been said poorly."[1]
And so, it must be said again.
*Excerpt from the catalogue text.
[1] Roig, Bernardí. Unpublished conversation with the artist, at his studio in Binissalem, on Friday, January 31, 2025.