Carlos Berlanga, the painted Movida

'Carlos Berlanga with glasses', photograph from 1982 on display at the exhibition 'Carlos Berlanga.

The eternal return'.ALBERTO GARCÍA-ALIX

It could be said that Carlos Berlanga (Madrid, 1959-2002) was a genius despite himself.

An innate talent for creation, which sprouted spontaneously and which, however, contrasted with his self-destructive tendency and a hypersensitive and insecure character that stopped him from delving into his multiple artistic skills.

This is exactly how the film director Pedro Almodóvar defined him, for whom he signed the poster for his film

: “That incredible facility prevented the idea of ​​discipline that every artist needs to scratch his limits from growing in him”.

More information

Carlos Berlanga, pop figure of the eighties, dies at the age of 42

If he didn't scratch them, he did know how to get close to them, to look out over the abyss from the edge of the cliff.

Founder together with Alaska and Nacho Canut of referential groups in the Madrid Movida such as Kaka de Luxe, Alaska y los Pegamoides and Alaska y Dinarama, Carlos Berlanga expanded the artistic limits of his father, the filmmaker Luis García Berlanga, towards music with lyrics that he wrote in one go, almost distracted, sometimes on napkins in a bar, until turning those improvisations into timeless hymns like

,

,

...

'Zebras' (ca. 1983). Carlos Berlanga

However, everyone who knew him —and he himself recognized this— knew that he was always more of a painter than a musician, although this last facet catapulted him to a glory that did not fade with the passage of time and his premature death at 42. years.

"He drew compulsively on any paper, while we chatted," says the artist Pablo Sycet, friend and owner of a legacy of more than 200 works of the ill-fated creator.

exhibition .

, which can be seen these days in the convent of Santa Clara in Seville (and until March 5, 2023) in what is a tribute to "his multidisciplinary talent, capable of painting fascinating works and composing a

in 10 minutes with a guitar that was missing a string, or give life in comics to characters as unrepeatable as Elena Nito, Paul Vazo, or Nylon de Kooning”.

In

there are several examples of this immediacy: "For example, when he would come to have a snack and spend the afternoon with me and other friends, I would take the invitations to exhibitions of other artists that had arrived by mail that same day and intervene them" , says Sycet, also director of the Olontia Foundation for Contemporary Art, which guards the plastic work of Carlos Berlanga along with other referential plastic creators of the effervescent decade of the eighties in Spain.

“I started collecting his work practically from the moment we met,” recalls the curator, “because I really liked that very talented and particular way of drawing inspiration from his devotions —Dalí, Picasso, Cocteau, Stuart Davis, Matisse— to incorporate them into his works” .

'Fatal fan', 'collage' by Carlos Berlanga from 1989.Carlos Berlanga

Among the oldest pieces on display in Seville, the unpublished —and unfinished— painting

stands out, half-painted with her father in the mid-seventies, or a precious painted and varnished stone from 1977, which she made “To sell it in the stall that he put up every Sunday with Nacho Canut in the Madrid flea market, where they met Alaska”, recalls Sycet.

His journey reaches a quarter of a century later with his last paintings and

, made in the last months of 2001, the last winter of his life, for what would be his presentation at the 2002 edition of the Arco Fair in Madrid, inside the stand of the Palace de Granada gallery.

"It was an activity that he never abandoned and it lasted until the end of his days."

The exhibition is completed with contributions from the private collection of Pedro Almodóvar, who has donated some acrylic colorists on canvas and pieces on paper, and recovers his only known sculpture, from 1995, made on wood.

But Carlos Berlanga, as a member of that great family, that collective project that was the Movida, does not walk alone in this exhibition.

His works are accompanied by two large thematic blocks: on the one hand, a set of portraits starring Berlanga himself and made by the best-known photographers of his generation: Alberto García-Álix, Javier Vallhonrat, Jaime Gorospe and Pablo Pérez-Mínguez, among others;

and on the other, a selection of more than 30 works by a group of artists who shared moments of his personal and creative life: Alaska, Pedro Almodóvar, Nacho Canut, Juan Carlos Eguillor,

Carlos Berlanga photographed by Jaime Gorpospe.Jaime Gorospe

As a curiosity, a small-format square signed by Guillermo Pérez Villalta that should have served as the cover of the album

(Alaska and Dinarama, 1984) but which was finally excluded and is now exhibited for the first time.

“The album was originally going to be called

, so Guillermo was inspired by that motif.

The change of title made it necessary to change the graphic art and leave the illustration unpublished”, explains the curator.

'The Chanel spirit', 1994 painting. Carlos Berlanga

El cartel de

, a portrait of Alaska titled simply

(1994), canvases with such pop titles as

and the serial work

, from November 2001, his latest production, manage in this exhibition to “win a battle more after his departure" in claiming the status of Carlos Berlanga as a visual artist.

"Finally, it seems that his last dream is beginning to come true: that his work as a painter and illustrator would be recognized with the same power of conviction as his talent for composing unforgettable melodies."

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