This first image is a self-portrait by Gustav Courbet. Gustav Courbet defined Grace as the capacity to sketch a portrait of someone jumping from a fourth floor. THIS TALK IS AGAINST GRACE This is Pere Lluís Pla Buxó, possibly the most influential artist in my career. For a while he was interested in conceptual art. He is presently interested in natural therapies. His Curriculum Vitae: Born in 1954 1968  He started to draw and paint, influenced by Miró, Picasso, Dalí and Ponç.  It is important to note his lack of reticence naming the artists he liked. 1972  He started his studies of Fine Art 1975  After finishing his military service, intending to live life as life and not as art, he completely abandoned his artistic practice. 1981  As a consequence of a nine month trip  to India, he made a series of sculptures influenced by Orientalism, and returned to painting; with a style related to action painting, after which he started following the canons of the neo-expressionistic style 1986  He abandoned painting to study a doctorate in Fine Arts, starting then his epitomes: pedagogical diagrams about the creative fact as well as the neo-conceptual productions of performances and photo-montages. 1991  He started his project on imaginary ideas that can be explained verbally. 2001  He started to paint these imaginary ideas.  I Insist, his aim is  the representation of verbal images. Personal gesture, despite the appearence is not what interests him. He clarifies that in the following sentence: “The egocentric imposition of the personal gesture is the worst disease in art.” This sketch is a ‘work’ I own. I paid 800% more than the price that was asked for it; I was overvaluing his work.  He is quite interested in capitalizing his work even though he has no clue of how to do it. The projection of value I caused with such a purchase is uncovered by the fact that for him it was not a finished art work, It was just a tool to use for the formalization of his subsequent  painting. “The egocentric imposition of the personal gesture is the worst disease in art.”  This sentence could seem inadequate given the formalistic outcome of hiswork  where the gesture appears openly.   This is a concession to introduce his work in the market: It is not originality, it is not grace; it is strategy.  Perhaps not  the right one. Pere Lluis is the fire-fighter artist. Domingo Sanchez Blanco the bullfighter  artist. Domingo, as an artist, is interested in exploring the figure of the macho in his performances; by having sex with two women at a time, or in his recreation of singing in the rain, where he dances under a “golden shower”. Fernando Castro Flores, the curator responsible for Domingo not being a complete outsider, explains: This “activist of the bizarre” has created a version of the famous scene from singing in the rain.  In it, he moves pathetically wearing clown shoes, performing a tap dance. With an umbrella he protects himself from the ongoing rain, caused by the urine of incontinents peeing. . At the same time, Domingo opens the mind of the spectator to a meditation on the absurd story of a subject who, almost childishly, splashes in a puddle. Fernando Castro Flores, who appears behind Dominingo, continues: 500 performances a day. We are convinced that the circus and the gladiators have returned. We are all, consciously or unconsciously, more or less performers, more or less pathetic. , We all are obliged to follow any event, even if strange, ridiculous or self destructive. It is the time to replace the quality by the quantity, correctness by incorrectness and the concept by the pure triviality.  We are not scared to reclaim an absolutely idiotic art, singular, unique and incomparable.  Domingo Sanchez Blanco, art sniper, intends to carry out five hundred performances a day, not just to enter into the Guinness book of records but also to arrive to an epic tiredness. This is the battle.                            I admire Domingo and Pere Lluis’, capacity to admire someone else. Their capacity to point out themselves in the other, their lack of concern for originality, while pointing out their icons, Domingo with Nick. Antonio with Yola. Yola with Aznar and his wife. At the same time, the firefighter bullfighter, always respecting his sources, constructs a replica of a real bullfight, as he professes an honest worship for this art. The story: The reply to art Although comical bullfighting is as old as the sense of humor and the capacity to satirize the human condition, the buffoonish bullfighting, known as charlotada, was born at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the businessman Eduardo Pagés had the idea to announce the intervention of  ‘Charlot’ in a benefit festival.  It was 1916 when the famous Londoner, director and actor, Charlie Chaplin, created the universally famous charlot character, so the young Catalan bullfighter Carmelo Tusquellas appeared in the bullring dressed and acting as ‘Charlot’, copying his movements and expressions. Immediately successful, ‘Charlot’ started to reappear, accompanied by his peculiar gang, of ‘Charlot, Chispa and Botones. A year later, the Cantabrian Pablo Celis Cuevas created another character in the history of buffoonish bullfighting. The firefighter bullfighter, playing this role, enjoyed an enormous popularity around all of Spain and Hispanic countries.  When he added dwarfs to his company, applauded as much for their grace as for their courage, the stereotypical tragic figure was confirmed. The greatness and the grotesque nature of the performance was more appropriate for the Court of Austria than for the sensitivity and taste of the new millennium. The bizarre Spain. When I referred to artists who are looking for originality, those artists who renounce all types of references, going against rules…here we have some examples. On Monday June 14th 2004, the t-shirt that the Basque painter Dario Urzay had designed to be the outfit for the Bilbao Athletic soccer team in the UEFA CUP competition was presented in the Museo de Belles Artes in Bilbao. The design was innovative, shocking, audacious and even aggressive.  The artist wanted to merge Art and Sport in his work ‘the essence of Althletic’ merging art and sport, and defined the t-shirt as “one of these crazy ideas that occur to artists sometimes”.  The t-shirt is a transformation of the traditional outfit of the athletic team, where the traditional red stripes have been reconverted into 3-dimensional stains and splashes of a red paint. This project did not convince the directors of the club from Bilbao, and the UEFA made fun of it showing the t-shirt on its web page and alluding to it as the “ketchup top”.  In the first match of the European competition, the team used the classical outfit with white and red stripes instead of the newly designed t-shirt, making a pretty clear statement that the club was not interested in using it. Dario Urzay took back his rights over the t-shirt  from the Basque Club. Sometimes artists let originality impulses take them, and in these occasions they can create works that escape from common sense. If that originality is fundamentally a tribute to the artist’s own ego, pointing to himself as a special being, it may be natural that public might not want to adore him. The public, instead, is captivated by originality as long as it is not a pure occurrence. There is another example. The poster of the Mercè 2004 is a piece by Perejaume. The artist reflects on the future of Barcelona in a picture full of question marks. Placing it, as he says, “between metaphysics and humour”. “Tourism has become a central phenomenon in our city and in our country”, says Perejaume.  He proposes a reflection on the agrarian origins of our culture, in contrast with the urban forms of the contemporary way of life, which is less engaged and more influenced by the media.   “Shall we artists turn into peasants? Is a peasant a planted tourist? Can a former tourist turn back into a peasant? From a Hindu pedestal –sign of the multi-cultural spirit of the Mercè-, the artist carries out a deep reflection upon the society in which we live. Perejaume was invited to provide answers the questions posed by the poster. “I do not have them” -said the artist. A week later a new graphic design was presented to advertise the festivities of the Mercè 2004, produced by an advertising agency. The concept of “what one wants” was addressed in a documentary about musical films.   The narrator explained that “what one wants” has to be presented at the 20th minute of the musical. The Little mermaid pleads in the minute twenty of the musical that she wants to have legs. In West Side Story Natalie Wood makes clear in the minute twenty that she wants to make peace between the rival gangs in order to save her romance.  The efficacy of putting “What one wants” in the minute 20 is quite clear. Anyway there are some different possibilities. Not to know the concept.  It is sad but possible. To know it  and to apply it. To know it and improve it. To know it and to not apply it, but to find something different, original. This position is the one that I despise the most. It is as though someone, when jumping the bar of the high jump, decided to pass under the bar instead of jumping it scissor-style or improving the technique, just because he felt too original to follow the rules. www.usethiskindofsky-project.com