Roberto Mangu Quesada

Roberto Mangú Quesada, also known as Roberto Mangú, and Roberto Mangou, is a Franco-Spanish painter, draughtsman and sculptor. His career mainly developed in Italy. Deeply influenced by Bonnard and Chagall, his successive workshops in Paris, Milan, Seville, Madrid, Brussels, Genoa are all stages where, starting from "the need to take up the question of being" dear to Martin Heidegger, he has gradually developed a work centered on the adventure of man based on the long term and on the invariances of the world which he calls Permanenza. According to him, Permanenza "is none other than a second age of modernity built on the epiphanies of the invariances of the world - is a response to post-modernity and to decline, a second age which proclaims that the world will be saved by beauty, a second age of modernity which proclaims the need to connect man to nature and the living”.

His work is essentially distinguished by an unclassifiable and very marked pictorial style, strongly influenced by Assyrian and Persian sculpture and bas-reliefs.

From its origins, his painting has developed in the spirituality of these two converging axes: first, the return and the presence of being in the invariances of the world where as he says under the pseudonym of Jean Exekias, "everything changes but nothing changes”. By the timeless dimension of his vision, his painting presents itself free from all the standards of Contemporary Art according to the definition of Aude de Kerros and is defined as an oracular, heralding painting based on the idea of global nature, of continuum, inspired by Diderot. According to him, faced with the need for a paradigm shift – generated by indicators of the ongoing exhaustion of modernity – his painting offers the exact opposite of Cubism. He says: “This path of global nature that Bonnard carried is radically opposed to all the painting of the beginning of the 20th century which carried the announcement of the triumph of modernity. It is up to the splendid Cubism not only to have announced modernity, but above all to have given it its form: fragmentation; which is the exact opposite of the continuum”. Mangú specifies “the work of art, a reality in the making”.

His most emblematic work is embodied in the form of a zoomorphic, anthropomorphic, mineral, vegetal and magnetic being that he named Mintak. Mintak is a formal emanation of the vital force which seems to draw from the sources of life. Mangú did not consciously paint the first Mintak. His painting preceded him. It was while observing his San Francesco, completed in 1992 and which intrigued him, that, years later, he became aware of a presence struggling in the body of the Saint. Mintak himself invited himself into Mangú's painting. The appearance of Mintak, between mythical figure and magical spirit, since then, has inhabited his paintings as a testimony that they are at the source of all things in the world materializing the simultaneous presence of the spirit of Man in the invariances of Real and Time.

Biography

The eras of Mangú's work are inseparable from the path that saw them born and correspond to the evolution of his pictorial thought.

In 1962, at the age of 14, he entered the statuary workshop of Mario Luisetti and attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. In 1968, he entered the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, architecture section from which he graduated as a DPLG architect in 1976. From 1976 to 1979, he traveled to Iran, Turkey, Greece, Spain and Italy.

In 1979, he was in Paris, and associated with the architect Michel Écochard whom he met in Tehran, he participated in the first competition of the Institut du Monde Arabe. This invitational competition, reserved for six teams, was ultimately never judged. The second competition took place on another site and was won by Jean Nouvel.

These years were marked by the increasingly irresistible call of painting - nevertheless, although having ceased to practice the profession of architect, he completed the work on Villa S in Asnières, which was his ultimate built project. Villa S - selected by the French Institute of Architecture in Paris for the exhibition Private houses - Selected examples in 1987 earned it significant international recognition.

From the end of 1981, his former architectural agency in Paris was emptied of everything that constituted it and became his workshop.

In his first period, from 1981 to 1986, he settled in Paris where he painted monumental paintings, Aldébaran, Bételgeuse, Dolce Vita which were exhibited at the Georges Lavrov gallery and published in the magazine Artforum in 1983.

From 1987 to 1995, Roberto Mangú lived in Milan where he notably painted the series Gli Uomini in piedi (Standing Men) exhibited among others by Philippe Daverio and at the Cantini Museum in Marseille. The paintings Corpus Mundi, San Francesco or Gracias y mucha suerte para todos (inspired by Le Bateau ivre, a poem by Arthur Rimbaud) are representative of this Milanese period.

In 1995, Roberto Mangú returned to Spain where he lived in Seville and then Madrid. It is there, in his painting San Francesco (inspired by Zurbaran) that the shadow of Mintak arises in his consciousness, coming from what Mangú calls "the Jaguar spirit", and which for him represents the force of life and its concept of Permanenza .

From 2001 to 2004, Roberto Mangú settled near Toulouse where his art underwent a profound renewal. Inspired by landscapes and a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, he developed new series including hollow-drawn houses or paths that tear the canvas (Camino de Santiago, Via Natura, Les Blés à la Cadiscié).

After living in Brussels, Roberto Mangú returned to France where he worked around new colors: the orange of his Permanenza period (illustrated by the paintings Le Visage d'une Eve, La suite du Temps, Salvador) then the calmer blue from his Mar Adentro period. He also develops the series of the previous period (his Houses were extended by Codexes, the Mintak started to haunt new series like Ombra dell'Inizio or Rivage).

In 2013, he returned to Italy and settled in Genoa. It is there that he begins to develop a synthesis of his pictorial approach which combines Mintak, dance, kinesics and the idea of continuum. Cinesica magica, La Suite du Temps, La Grande Bellezza, L'Uno and Grand-Vivant from 2019 are emblematic paintings of this approach.

Works

Formal Aspects

Because of the vitality shown in his earlier paintings notably "Virée sur la côte" or "Taureau mécanique", his extraordinary knowledge and skillful use of colours especially intense reds (cf Lola), his work is sometimes mistakenly cited as belonging to one of the following movements: neo-expressionism, or Transavantgarde. Some have also wrongly likened his work to that of the nouveaux fauves. Mangú's work is far too original and personal to be so easily classified. Over time, he has shifted to darker colours and used a variety of techniques, working notably sometimes in negative: the object is drawn by taking off (rather than adding) colour through painting large surfaces in white on a coloured background (the "Pan y Vino" series). Later Mangú returned to colour, especially with the intense orange of his Permanenza period before coming back to calmer blues in his Mar Adentro period.

In 2023, Aude de Kerros cites him several times in her book Hidden Art Finally Unveiled, sees in this the expression of "an ancestral pictorial tradition, primordial, rooted in the religiosity of origins."

Philippe Daverio wrote: "tu per me rappresenti una Spagna pittorica che non ha nulla a che vedere con i libri di storia dell’arte e ancor meno con i musei di Madrid. Ciò che mi ha colpito, la prima volta che ho visto i tuoi quadri, è lo spirito feroce, ribelle e indomabile che li animava. Ciò che mi ha convinto della loro autenticità, era quanto essi corrispondessero al tuo aspetto medesimo. Tu non hai ricominciato a dipingere. Tu hai sempre dipinto. E persisti nel dipingere a modo tuo, con tanto vigore. La tua visione fisica e corporale, la tua visione metafisica, è come le tue radici lontane nelle vie di Parigi, quelle dei gitani".

In the 1980-90s, these themes include standing men, monoliths, saints, which all seem to converge in his large masterpiece, a dark picture of a "Saint George" In the 2000-10s, according to Gwen Garnier-Duguy in Le Sens de l'Épopée, three central themes run through Roberto Mangú's paintings: Mintak, seen as an Aleph by Santacreu, Permanenza and La Refloraison du Monde.

1st period [1981 - 1987] - series Les Etoiles / Les Cyclistes / Women on the Terrace The Stars series – Antares, Altair, Aldebaran, Rigel, Trip to the Coast. – his paintings present themselves as a manifestation of an immutable and timeless dream of the human adventure, that of man, the keystone, rooted between his cave origins and his time.

Subsequently he painted the entire series of Standing Men : Matador, l'Uomo in piedi nello scuro, l'Uomo in piedi nella luce … 3rd era [1997 - 2000] - The revelation of Mintak Mintak first manifests itself unconsciously in the painting of Roberto Mangú in 1992, in a canvas named San Francesco, painted in Milan. A second canvas representing the Saint painted in 1997 in Madrid later revealed on the surface of the painting the form which lived at the heart of the first version. This radically changed Mangú's life. by François Cheng which evokes his spiritual encounter with Francis of Assisi .

His painting Grand Vivant is exhibited at the Bonnard museum in Le Cannet in 2022 in the exhibition Les Enfants de Bonnard and at the Gaillac Museum of Fine Arts the same year.

Main individual exhibitions 1983, Galerie Georges Lavrov, Paris 1984, Galerie Catherine Macé, Cannes. 1984, Galerie Georges Lavrov, Paris 1985, Galerie Catherine Macé, Cannes 1988, Galeria Ontiveros, Madrid 1989, Galerie Catherine Macé, Cannes. 1989, Galeria Ontiveros, Madrid 1990, Galeria Ontiveros, Madrid 1991, Galleria Philippe Daverio, Milan 1992, Galleria Philippe Daverio, Milan 1995, Galleria Philippe Daverio, Milan 1998, " Saint Georges ", Galerie Georges Fall, Paris 2001, Palazzo delle Stelline, Centre Culturel Français, Milan 2003, " Regard ", Centro Mostre per l'Arte Contemporanea Venti Correnti, Milan 2005, " Roberto Mangú ", MUDIMAdrie (Fondazione Mudima), Anvers 2006, " Fuego ", Centro Mostre per l'Arte Contemporanea Venti Correnti, Milan 2007, " Permanenza ", Galleria L’Archimede, Roma 2008, " Permanenza ", Galerie La Trace, Paris 2008, " Permanenza ", Galerie Stella & Vega, Brest 2011, "Itinérance I, « Autour d'un tableau » de Roberto Mangú", Stella & Vega Production, Galerie Janos, Paris 2012, "Mar Adentro", Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia 2013, " Mar Adentro ", Galleria Carifano, Fano 2013, " Mar Adentro ", Institut français Milano 2014, " Soleil ", Galerie Sélective Art, Paris 2022, " Mintak ", Musée des Beaux-Arts de Gaillac, 15 october - 18 december 2022 (postponed from 2020) Musée de la Poste, Paris 1992, "Arthur Rimbaud et les artistes du XXe siècle", Musée Cantini, Marseille 1993, Galleria Philippe Daverio, Milan 1994, "Alternative", Galleria Philippe Daverio, Milan 1994, "Il Corpo", Galleria Philippe Daverio, Milan 1995, Coll.priv, Palazzo delle Stelline, Milan 1995, "Art Tabac", sous la direction de Pierre Restany, Scuderie di Palazzo Ruspoli, Rome 1996, Coll.priv, Palazzo delle Stelline, Milan 1996, "Anni’90 a Milano", Sala Napoleonica, Accademia di Brera, Milan 1998, "Accrochage", Galerie Georges Fall, Paris 1999, "Babelia", MiArt (Galleria Philippe Daverio), Milan 1999, Fiera d’arte contemporanea di Milan 2001, Galerie Antoine Ranc, T.S.F. Paris 2002, Linéart, foire d’art moderne & contemporain (Galerie Antoine Ranc), Ghent 2004, "De leur temps : collections privées françaises", ADIAF, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tourcoing 2004, Art Paris, foire d’art moderne & contemporain (Centro Mostre per l'Arte Contemporanea Venti Correnti), Paris 2005, Art Paris, foire d’art moderne & contemporain (Centro Mostre per l'Arte Contemporanea Venti Correnti), Paris 2005, Centro Mostre per l'Arte Contemporanea Venti Correnti, Milan. 2006, "Figures et Portraits", Stella & Vega Production, Brest 2007, "Papiers d’artistes", Stella & Vega Production, Brest et Paris 2007, Centro Mostre per l'Arte Contemporanea Venti Correnti, Milan 2008, "Collection privée", Stella Collection, Brest 2010, "10 sérigraphies", Sérithèque, Montpellier 2011, "10 Artistes, Galerie Janos", Paris 2012 "4 hispaniques en noir et blanc +une", Galerie Janos, Paris 2015, Gœthes Farbenlebre, Institut Français de Mainz Allemagne 2015, Creval Contemporary 30 anni di comunicazione visiva per l’arte, Fondazione del crédito Valtelinese 2017, "Au fil de la Méditerranée ", Bogéna Galerie, St Paul de Vence 2022, Les Enfants de Bonnard, Musée Bonnard, Le Cannet 2023, Rédemption, 3e Biennale d’Art Sacré de Menton