VENICE AND BARCELONA

In 1978, Antoni Clavé was one of the first contemporary artists to exhibit at the Musée national d'art moderne - Centre Georges Pompidou, which had just opened in Paris. In 1980, he received a monumental commission (3 x 9 m) for Barajas Airport in Madrid, but his consecration in his native country came in 1984, when the Spanish Pavilion at the 41st Venice Biennale was entirely dedicated to him. This pavilion presented 125 works spanning his entire career, including, of course, his most recent creations, some of which were made especially for the occasion.

Spain, and Barcelona in particular, were at the centre of Antoni Clavé's creative output in the mid-1980s. If red and yellow are the colours of the Catalan flag, blue and maroon are those of Fútbol Club Barcelona, which, for Clavé, as for millions of fans around the world, is ‘més que un club’ (more than a club). The legendary football team is a kind of cement for a collective identity to which the painter belongs.