Ramon Guillen-Balmes

Cornellà de Llobregat, 1954 – 2001

Born in Cornellà de Llobregat in 1954, the artist lived in Font Romeu, in the French region of Languedoc-Roussillon, during his childhood and adolescence. He studied at the Llotja art school in Barcelona from 1973 to 1978, the year in which he joined the Experimental Workshop of Plastic Arts, made up of sculptors and painters from Llotja and Massana. Sculpture eventually captured the interest of some of these artists, from whom, in 1980, the Usquam Group emerged, formed by Elena Carbonell, Manel Civit, Pedro Saralegui and Ramon Guillen-Balmes. They all shared a particular way of conceiving volume in space: they did not clear away matter to achieve it, but rather constructed it through the assembly of diverse materials.

Guillen-Balmes’ artistic beginnings were closely linked to drawing, but soon the flat forms of his drawings broke free from the paper, and he began producing small constructions in wood and white tissue paper. The colour white and the natural wood tone would remain throughout his career. From these small maquettes he moved on to the Panòplies eòliques, included in the series known as Eines, larger-scale works designed to be moved by the wind. Soon another natural element would enter his work: water.

While working on these projects, Guillen-Balmes exhibited regularly in galleries and exhibition centres in Barcelona (1980, 1983, 1986), Sant Cugat (1984), Reus (1986) and Cadaqués (1986), among others. He also produced editions of graphic work, and his practice began to appear in various publications.

A distinctive work is the sculpture-ballet Eòlica (Miratge) (1987). An wing-shaped sculpture is fitted to the back of a dancer, whose movement is recorded on video. This dance-sculpture marks the beginning of the progressive incorporation of the body into Guillen-Balmes’ work.

Since 1989 the artist had been a lecturer at the Escola Massana in Barcelona, and that same year, together with Usquam, he received a grant from the Government of Catalonia to carry out the project Artists from Barcelona. Eight Options in Denver, Colorado.

In 1990 he presented the exhibition Arqueologia d’artista at the Ángeles de la Mota Gallery in Barcelona, and in 1991 he exhibited Objets trouvés at the Container Gallery in Florence. The following year he produced Petita pol·lució in Pallars Jussà for the Art i Territori Foundation. In the context of the Cultural Olympiad of Barcelona, Guillen-Balmes presented 11 metres lisos in the gardens of the Palau Robert. That April he began his first black-covered notebook. During this period, the tools and organic forms without apparent function that make up the Arqueologies d’artista coexisted with the so-called Models d’ús. These were generated through proposals the artist made to people close to him and commissions he received from friends and acquaintances to create “something” that would help them fulfill a desire or remedy a need. Some of these pieces were produced during his residency in Valence-sur-Rhône and exhibited at the city’s art museum.

In 1994 he held exhibitions in galleries in Valencia, Andorra and Girona, and received a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Culture for international promotion, thanks to which he carried out the project Commandes in Carcassonne in 1995.

In that year, the artist spoke for the first time about flames in his notebooks. These were the 11 Modèles pour Sensi, a commission composed of eleven wishes.

In 1996 Guillen-Balmes produced Petits exercicis dedicats (projects dedicated to twelve women artists he admired, such as Jana Sterbak, Rebecca Horn, Louise Bourgeois and Sophie Calle). New Models d’ús followed throughout 1997, the year in which he held solo exhibitions at the Pérgamon, Carles Poy and Espai 22a galleries, at the Barcelona College of Quantity Surveyors, and also at MACBA, where he took part in the exhibition Introversions. Aspects of the Collection.

Connected to the Models d’ús, Guillen-Balmes launched the Models provisionals project, based on knots derived from 19th and 20th-century erotic photographs, which also became a subject of experimentation with stereoscopic photography.

After a period as an artist in residence in Canada, in 1999 he held the exhibition Les invités in Montreal. Between 1999 and 2000 he produced numerous commissions, models of use and panoplies. In 2000 he exhibited Models d’ús 1999–2000 at the Antonio de Barnola Gallery in Barcelona, and in 2001 he took part in exhibitions in Grenoble, Vic and Malmö, Sweden. Among Guillen-Balmes’ final works are Condició d’artista. Segon model propo (2001), designed for himself, and Model d’ús per a Gemma Pinedo, which was never put to use.

Ramon Guillen-Balmes died far too young, at the age of 47, in December 2001. Since then his work has been the subject of several monographic reviews and has been included in significant group exhibitions.