'The uncertainty stimulates me'
Artist Antoni Llena’s studio in Vallvidrera, with the greenery of Collserola natural park as a backdrop, is the ideal place to give in to one’s creative impulses
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Sculptures and paintings in Llena’s studio. Arxiu. -
Antoni Llena,in his studio in Vallvidrera. ANDREU PUIG. -
Sculptures and paintings in Llena’s studio Arxiu. -
Sculptures and paintings in Llena’s studio.. Arxiu. -
Some of his drawing materials. Arxiu. -
Llena’s studio Arxiu. -
Llena’s studio. Arxiu. -
Llena’s studio, Arxiu.
The greenery of Collserola natural park can be glimpsed through the windows of Antoni Llena’s studio in Vallvidrera. It is a space that is full of light, built on three levels, with an inner room that is used as a storeroom for large artworks. This is a privileged space, surrounded by nature and ideal for drawing, singing, dancing, studying or writing, in short, a space that is perfect for giving in to your creative impulses. It was 30 years ago that the artist found this group of three buildings in Vallvidrera, now interconnected by stairways, which became his home and his workshop, the latter shared with photographer, Antoni Bernad.
Llena is now 75 but he still begins his working day in a dark, hidden corner of the studio, where he has a chaotic desk piled high with pencils and crayons. This small space is where he feels most comfortable, despite always standing, and at the moment working on one of his largest ever projects, called SOS: senyals de fum des d’un subsòl. While the artist sees it as a single artwork, it is in fact made up of thousands of drawings that Llena has produced on an almost daily basis for the past 10 years. He admits that in recent days, thanks to the uncertain political situation in the country, he has felt the need to create more than ever before. “The difficulties and uncertainties stimulate me. When I wake up, even if it is in the middle of the night, I come into the studio and draw,” he says. The proof of this creative fever is that in September he finished 180 drawings, many more than usual.
At the end of each month, Llena puts the drawings he has done in the previous 30 days into their own box. This gives his ongoing monumental project a chronological element, as if it were a sort of artistic diary he has been keeping for a decade. At the beginning of the summer, Llena received a wonderful surprise: one of these boxes, from June 2016, with 109 drawings, was bought by the MOMA modern art museum in New York. Now, a piece of this “diary that never ends” is on display in Manhattan.
“I need this chaos”
Compared with the chaos of his desk, the boxes containing the drawings are neat and tidy, as is the rest of the studio. “I need this chaos to work but I hardly ever get dirty, and I try to make sure that the work I produce is very clean,” he says. In the middle of the studio, on a table, Llena shows us the drawings from the summer. In these recent boxes there are tributes to other artists he admires, such as Blinky Palermo and Lucio Fontana. In fact, there are books about these artists piled up on a nearby table. “In these tributes there are no direct allusions to the artists, it comes through the aesthetic impact they have on me, it is like going back and remaking the emotions,” he says. Thanks to the MOMA purchase, the artist has announced that next year he will put on an exhibition in a New York gallery, as well as the annual exhibition he always puts on in his own gallery in Barcelona, the A34. Meanwhile, he says that all of his energy is focused on drawing and painting in the dark corner of his studio. With no timetable, and despite a bad back from working upright all the time, he says that thanks to this corner “I need nothing else.” It makes one think of that moment in the 1960s, when art critic Alexandre Cirici Pellicer discovered some small paper sculptures in the cell of a young capuchin monk in Sarrià. They were by Llena, who, even today, needs little more than a small table and enough material to work with.
Large public sculptures
Yet, not everything he does is small. Llena is also known for his large scale works, especially his public sculptures. The best known are David i Goliat, in Barcelona’s Vila Olímpica, and Homenatge als castellers, in Sant Miquel square in Barcelona, one of the most popular sculptures in the city. Llena, who basically considers himself to be a painter, nevertheless has a series of medium-sized sculptures in the highest part of the studio. These figures, which have never been displayed in public, maintain a silent dialogue with the surrounding greenery visible through the windows. On a lower level of the studio, Llena reveals another spot, a small and cosy space, which serves as an office, a library and the place where he writes. Around him are, among others, works by Tàpies, who was a great friend of Llena’s, as was Evru, when he went by the name Zush. “An artist is an artist because he does not know how to do what everyone else does, because he is someone full of contradictions. I can only live from conflict. This is my nature,” he says.