Zaragoza No. 88022

Broto, since his beginnings in the seventies, would strongly defend painting versus 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. At the end of the eighties a significant change in his work occurred. While in previous canvases the imprint of 'Pintura-pintura' could be seen, according to which the only object in the painting should be the painting itself, at this moment, as confirmed by the artist himself, "as I now see myself, references need to be set outside their technical construction." He reduces pictorial dripping and enthusiastic brushstrokes to a limited number of factors. The presence of the blue spiral stroke traveling vertically across the painting, typical of Broto, acquires a totem-like character on the red-dyed fabric, the impulsive brushstrokes now being turned into carefully directed brushstrokes which give the general tone of his painting an appreciable coolness.