Ramón Masats

1953 – 1965. Youth years

06.05.2017 – 07.07.2017

Curated by Laura Terré

Ana Mas Projects presents, at its headquarters in Barcelona, ​​the exhibition Ramón Masats 1953 – 1965. Years of youth. The exhibition gathers 61 of the dozens of photographs that the Catalan took during his beginning years and which go beyond its iconic work of the seminarians. Masats was and one of the greatest figure of Spanish photography, and belongs in an extraordinary generation of photographers who entered us in the 50’s in the modernity through their work. As a self-taught photographer, he developed a work close to French documentary photography, participating in the renewal of this technique through his innovative compositions and, above all, the actualization of his realities in a direct and spontaneous way, without previous studies or retouching. In each of his photographs, the artist, or artisan as he is designated, transforms banality into singularity and provides autonomy to the small details he captures. He is able to isolate them through brilliant compositions and an ironic humor, unique look that could convey the misery of Spain in the fifties. Masats’ s work reflects a large number of topics that, as he says, treats them “in a lateral way, to get them to the point” without focusing on specific themes, except his works in the context of Barcelona, ​​and collecting ingenious snapshots of his most immediate reality .

This particular look led Masats to win the National Photography Prize in 2004 and to set up an endless list of awards and recognitions, among them the Community of Madrid Culture Prize (2002) or the Bartolomé Ros Prize for the Best Professional Career (2011). In addition, his work is part of collections such as the National Museum of Art Reina Sofía (MNCARS), the Royal Academy of San Fernando, the National Museum of Art of Catalonia (MNAC) or the Andalusian Center for Contemporary Art. Ramón Masats was a member of a large number of photographic associations and groups such as the Photographic Association of Catalonia, the AFAL Group or as a founding member of groups such as La Palangana. From 1965, the photographer leaves photography aside and focuses mainly on the video, returning later to color photography in the early 80’s. Since then his work has been exposed in many prominent institutions such as the Círculo de Bellas Artes, MNCARS, the Royal Tapestry Factory in Madrid, the Palau de la Virreina in Barcelona, ​​the Magdalena Palace in Santander or the headquarters of the Cervantes Institute in various cities around the world.

The exhibition at Ana Mas Projects Barcelona intends to show some of the moments captured by Masats during his first years of experimentation with photography, years in which the foundations of his later production were laid and created the work that later would be recognize as the Landmark of the renewal of Spanish photography.

Laura Terré

April, 2017