Francesc Tosquelles :
Like a Sewing Machine in a Wheat Field
The gallery loaned four artworks by Léon Schwarz-Abrys on the occasion of François Tosquelles: like a sewing machine in a wheat field, until August 28, 2022 at the Centre Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona - CCCB.
The exhibition takes a look at the avant-garde practices that the psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles carried out in the therapeutic, political and cultural field. Tosquelles transformed psychiatric institutions during the Republic and in fascist Europe. Today, he is an inspiration when addressing mental health policies in times of extreme crisis.
Francesc Tosquelles. Like a Sewing Machine in a Field of Wheat highlights the figure, the work, and the political and artistic environment of a psychiatrist who revolutionized the medical practices of his time and passed on an innovative and surprising cultural legacy that is unknown to most. Francesc Tosquelles set out to address the social root of mental illness and transform the psychiatric institution.
Curated by Joana Masó and Carles Guerra.
Born in Catalonia, Gironella (1911-1997) followed at an early age in his father’s footsteps in cork craftsmanship. Engendering a lifelong history with cork, unbothered by the exile to France forced by Franco. Thus, in 1948, Jean Dubuffet and André Breton dedicated an exhibition to him. Then, in 1967, Gironella is included in the exhibition L’art brut at the Musée des Arts Décoratif (Paris), hosted by François Mathey, then chief curator. Since 2021, he has been part of the traveling exhibition Francesc Tosquelles. Comme une machine à coudre dans un champ de blé, which will end its road at the New York American Folk Art Museum (after Les Abattoirs, Toulouse ; The Reina Sofía Museum , Madrid ; Contemporary cultural center Barcelone).