Chair

Since his beginnings in the seventies, Broto would strongly defend painting against Conceptual Art which had exiled traditional media. He joined the Conspiracy Group (Grupo Trama) with Xavier Grau and Gonzalo Tena as a result of his deepening interest in abstraction, in which color and expression prevail in large-format paintings. In doing so, Broto became one of the greatest exponents of what was known as 'Pintura-pintura,' the consideration that the two dimensions of the canvas constituted the ideal space for artistic representation. In his works during the 1980s—particularly from 1984 to 1987—he dispensed with the greatest number of elements, creating extraordinarily synthetic compositions with a series of overlapping, highly gestural abstract symbols and other items reminiscent of real objects. In this piece, these elements come from the natural environment (mountains, river) where man-made elements have been inserted (chair, fence). The importance given to space and the use of an intense chromatic spectrum—red and black in this case—creating contrasts and harmonies are characteristics present throughout his work.