Memòries de fum

Antoni Llena

For the second edition of One Book a Month, Martina Millà has chosen Memòries de fum by artist Antoni Llena. The choice arises from a personal and long-standing connection with the author and his texts, a relationship that has built over the years. Martina Millà is Head of Exhibitions at the Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), where she curates and oversees temporary exhibitions, Espai13 and photography exhibitions related to the Fons Joaquim Gomis, as well as coordinating the Premi Joan Miró. 

Memòries de fum collects the memoirs of Antoni Llena, a book that the author initially was hesitant to write. The narrative follows his life journey in the context of the postwar period in which he grew up, and explores aspects such as his family environment, his discovery of art, his interests and concerns, his relationship with other artists and figures who influenced him, as well as the process of producing his work. 

Antoni Llena is, for Matina Millà, an inspiration and a menthor. The connection between them dates back to the 1980s, when she was still a student and Llena put her in contact with the artist Zush (later known as Evru). That encounter opened the door for her to curate her first exhibitions. Since then, their relationship has endured, and she has closely followed his artistic and literary trajectory, finding in his writings a constant source of inspiration.

Martina Millà considers Antoni Llena a major thinker and an artists’ artist, who has contributed to fostering generations of young creators who are emerging strongly today. She shares him with us with the excitement of someone offering a long-awaited discovery, convinced that Antoni Llena has not yet been fully understood. Llena belongs to a generation of outsider artists, visionaries and ahead of their time, who avoided clichés and impositions and created an art so authentic that it is not always easy to digest or fully take in. Working on the margins of hegemony has allowed them to preserve a certain timeless freshness despite the passing decades, and it makes that, to this day, his artistic and personal perspective continues to surprise us and resonates with a singular force. 

“Antoni Llena is a great observer and shaper of the human condition, as disconcerting as it is paradoxal, as well as of the tragic yet light impossibility of obtaining any degree of certainty in anything. Hence his uncomfortability within the world and his dubitative mastery, which can lead us to places of crude and exquisite poetry, outside of this world, without ever ceasing to address it in its materiality and its fragile soul” – Martina Millà