50 years of abstract art by Jordi Teixidor at the IVAM

With 'Final de partida' (‘Endgame’), the IVAM once again looks back over Teixidor's 50-year career, after the first exhibition dedicated to him by the Museum in 1997, which gave shape to a project that is far removed from the usual retrospective. The exhibition brings together seventy works by this Valencian creator, winner of the 2014 National Prize for Visual Arts, and one of the leading representatives of Spanish abstraction. They come from the IVAM's collection, from various museums and institutions, and from the artist's own private archives.

The title of the exhibition comes from a work he completed in 2020, 'Fin de partie' (‘Endgame’), a canvas he has spent 18 years working on. It is a large painting that takes Henri Matisse's 'Bathers by a River' and French Window at Collioure,  as references.

‘Endgame' is a term used in chess to refer to a forthcoming outcome, alluding to the culmination of a long journey of reflection, research, and experimentation on the part of the artist, a sort of endgame about which Teixidor has commented that "he does not know whether there will be continuity or not".

The exhibition also traces the sources of inspiration and the keys to Teixidor's research in the field of painting. This is why a Baroque still life by Juan van der Hamen, a genre that continues to fascinate the artist, is included, as well as pieces by two artists who have influenced his work: Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt.

The exhibition ends in a sort of chapel that invites us to contemplate six black paintings, a series to which the artist has dedicated dozens of works, avoiding the tragic connotations projected through him by the artists of the Baroque or Informalism.