When Art Becomes Alchemy

Chemistry is somehow the son of alchemy; possibly a lot of you would like to strangle me for such a reckless affirmation, but even when I truly mean that as a kind of intellectual reflection, alchemy also has in art a second son.

You see, art is mainly a lab where shapes, colors, emotions, materials, strength, anxiety, dreams, and nightmares take place inside the mind and soul of the creator, making him/her an artist, the chemist of light.

Kiki de Montparnasse, Pablo Gargallo, 1928

You can agree with me or not, but you can’t deny it when you pose your gaze in front of Pablo Gargallo’s artwork. His particular experimentation as an artist gave birth to one of the most fascinating and avant-garde visual and sculptural proposals of the 19th and 20th centuries. Another fantastic visionary, not valued enough in his time, even more, a revolutionary artist forgotten and rediscovered from the ashes of years. Let me finish with this statement: if Gargallo had wanted to write his own bio on Wikipedia today, being alive, all the wiki-mafia would say that he was not relevant enough.

When Art Becomes Alchemy