GONZALO ORQUIN
Seville 1982
Cuando and Cuantunque, 2015 from Il barone rampante, by Italo Calvino

Pencil, ink, cutout and embroidery on paper, 15.75 x 11.81 in
Titled at bottom Exhibitions: G. Orquin, Librografie, curated by G. Calò e M.I. Gaeta, Casa delle Letterature, Roma, 26 october – 26 november 2015 G. Orquin, Librografie, Italian Cultural Institute of Washinton, Washinton (USA), 30 october 2017 Literature: G. Orquin, Librografie, curated by G. Catalli, Dfrg Press, London 2015 p. 75 Focusing on the dialogue between visual art and literature, this work is one of twenty 40x30 cm portraits created by the Spanish artist Gonzalo Orquín, born in 1982, inspired by some of the greatest authors of 20th century Italian literature: Italo Calvino, Natalia Ginzburg, Tommaso Landolfi, Carlo Levi, Giorgio Manganelli, Elsa Morante, Alberto Moravia, Anna Maria Ortese, Cesare Pavese, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Over the course of his lengthy period of study for this exhibition, the artist selected a series of contemporary faces to present in relation with texts and themes from the chosen literary works by way of the painted word. The subjects depicted are therefore friends, acquaintances, or people encountered randomly, whose faces are placed in relation with the selected novel. It is precisely to underline the importance of the word that Orquín chooses paper as the medium for his pieces, the quintessential medium of the writer, along with words themselves, which are literally stitched, at times clearly legible and at times in the form of some more abstract image, onto the canvas.