EQUIPO REALIDAD, Jorge Ballester (Valencia, 1941... Lot 14

EQUIPO REALIDAD, Jorge Ballester (Valencia, 1941 - 2014). "Happy Holidays". Mixed media on paper. Signed in the lower right corner. Size: 20 x 22 cm; 25 x 30 cm (frame). Jorge Ballester founded Equipo Realidad with Joan Cardells in 1966, in the context of Franco's developmentalism, and they would dissolve it amicably ten years later, due to the change of scene brought about by the transition to democracy. The artistic duo formed part of the Valencian movement Crónica de la Realidad, a pop aesthetic, figurative and highly critical movement, developed around the theories of Vicente Aguilera Cerni. Equipo Realidad's trajectory was determined by its commitment to the social, political, economic and cultural situation in Spain in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as by the application of Marxist ideas on subjects such as consumerism, political oppression, the mass media, the social role of women and the function of art. Likewise, his was an anti-mercantilist version of criticism, which did not seek to please but to provoke, following his maxim "what interests us is not reality but its image". Ballester and Cardells met at the School of Fine Arts in Valencia in 1964, and it was precisely at the university where they met the artists of Estampa Popular, as well as the precursors of Equipo Crónica. Although Equipo Realidad was founded in 1965, it was not until 1966 that they began their artistic career, with the painting "El entierro del estudiante Orgaz". In these early years the duo combined painting with making posters and magazine covers. Somewhat later they made two visits to Paris where they discovered new trends, as well as spending a year working in Milan. They finally returned to work in 1972 when they signed a contract with the Punto gallery in Valencia, which gave them the financial stability they needed to concentrate on their pictorial production. This marked the beginning of a new stage in Equipo Realidad's production, characterised by a greater informative potential of the images and a flight from indiscriminate satire. His work would now be more subtle, and the acrylics and flat colours of the first stage would disappear in favour of oil and degraded colours. In 1976 Cardells left the group and, although Ballester continued to work under the same name with the photographer Enrique Carrazoni, Equipo Realidad finally disbanded in 1977. During this ten-year period, the duo held more than a hundred exhibitions, including solo and group shows. Works by Equipo Realidad are currently held in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the IVAM in Valencia, among other collections.