Performance

Artist: Antoni Xaus

Title: «Performance»

Year: 1993

Media: mixed media directly on the wall

Location: room 105

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Performance was the first artist room at the Hotel del Arte.

Everything arose as an act of protest that the artist Antoni Xaus wanted to carry out without having the permission of the hotel. The artist wrote a manifesto that he left in the room, pointing out his reasons for performing such an act.

Xaus wanted to protest against the lack of vitality in the art world. In his manifesto, he writes that the modernist spirit had to be recovered, according to which art should be something vital that impacted the observer.

The hotel owners initially reported him to the police, but later they decided to keep room 105 as Xaus had painted it. This fact was decisive in the history of the hotel, since from that moment on, the hotel started to contact other artists to paint rooms. Today the Hotel Estela has 15 painted rooms.

In the room there are two well-defined areas: one figurative and the other abstract. The figurative part shows characters wandering the famous Calle del Pecado in Sitges. On the other hand, the entire area of the ceiling and the head of the bed was composed in a totally abstract way.

Both the figurative and the abstract parts show great gestures and spontaneous lines. This way of painting is one of Antoni Xaus’ hallmarks and appears in many of his works.