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Between Goya and Kippenberger: there is no shortage of painterly virtuosity with the Rijksacademie alumnus, Pere Llobera, but this does not say a thing about the confrontational character of his painting.Recently, in his lecture at a symposium on The Artist as Researcher, the German artist Stephan Dillemuth talked about three kinds of research that he had come across in his practice and his trajectory as an artist: ‘pubertal research’, ‘bohemian research’ and ‘institutional research’. If one wishes, these stages can be seen as cycles that you, as an artist, can go through more than once.At the beginning of your career (pubertal research) and in the process of becoming an artist, there is only one approach. A: you must be against those who have the power, and B: you must absolutely know what you do not want. Stephan Dillemuth did not want to be a painter and therefore painted as hideously as he could. During his talk, he showed us a painting from that period, and with witty irony said, ‘believe it or not, at the time, this was the ultimate ugly painting!’ He called the painting Farewell to the Youth Bones. Dillemuth had the whole audience laughing. His compatriot, artist Martin Kippenberger, was a great source of inspiration for Dillemuth. Despite the fact that Dillemuth and Llobera are very different, Dillemuth’s coming-of-age theory proves to be an excellent key to the work of the Spanish painter Pere Llobera, who will be exhibiting at the Fons Welters Gallery in Amsterdam in May. As a young man, Dillemuth had probably preferred to piss into his turpentine before painting with it, whereas Pere Llobera (b. Barcelona, 1970) followed a classic training in painting at the art academy in Barcelona. It was not Kippenberger, but his great predecessor, Francisco de Goya, who counts amongst Llobera’s heroes, and the artist makes no secret of it. Seven years ago, Llobera painted Cinco tigres atacando a una ballena (Five Tigers Attacking a Whale, 2003). It is a powerful and virtuoso specimen of painting. From a dark, raging mass of water rises a whale, which is being assaulted by five Bengal Tigers. As if in a final gesture of desperation, the whale spouts a fountain of water into the air. The free, painterly touch, the alternation between extremely thin oils and heavy, thick strokes, the colour palette, the dramatic expression and the surrealistic impact: all of these are unmistakably reminiscent of Goya. Amongst other things, it was this virtuoso painter’s hand that caused people to take notice of Llobera at the Rijksakademie, where he studied in 2006-2007, that and the associative manner in which he worked. This Catalonian artist paints the way Luis Buñuel made films: without a logical structure, but personal associations, fused together. Llobera’s subject matter can refer to the political situation in Spain, his family, his musical heroes, his youth, art history or his position as an artist. Sometimes, an apparently casual observation is enough. The Package (2007) is a sober, sparse work in which all there is to see is a large package on an empty, concrete floor. The portrayed package contains several of Llobera’s paintings packed in transparent plastic – ready to be sent to his debut presentation at the Frieze Art Fair. When the gallery received a reproduction of the picture, they thought it was part of Llobera’s packing instructions. The ‘mistake’ was as humorous as it was strange. The painting is made in loose, raw strokes and is anything but photorealistic – which gives an idea of how great the illusory power of the work actually is. The Package also expresses the pure delight of a recalcitrant attitude. Llobera brings his participation in the prestigious art fair into perspective by creating a painting of the simple banality of shipping the work, then shrewdly exhibiting the painting again in London. One could consider it as an ironic self-portrait with a slightly conceptual slant, and therefore it appears to be more akin to Kippenberger than to Goya. Lieber Maler, male mir…, for example, is a series of works that Kippenberger had produced by a painter of film posters, by the name of Dr. Werner. In addition to being a statement against the presumed authenticity of the painterly quality of neo-expressionism, it was also a conscious means of bringing into perspective his identity as an artist who operates between art, the market and life. One of Llobera’s most recent works, a self-portrait from 2009, is included in his new exhibition, Tired to be Strong, at Fons Welters. In this work, Llobera painted himself as a bust, in the centre of a large, empty grey plane. His expression is exceedingly introspective, and his upper body is half hidden behind two flesh-coloured shadows of himself, on which, in scrawny blue letters, is written ‘GOYA’ and ‘KIPPENBERGER’. Kippenberger, indeed! The portrait would seem to indicate that Llobera finds himself in a period of transition. He is procrastinating: To whom do I owe it all, to Goya or to Kippenberger, or to both? Or is that not even relevant? In this work, Llobera intentionally abandoned his painting virtuosity. The paint has been so excessively thinned that it looks like watercolour. The image is the epitome of flat, and Llobera has turned himself into a motif. In terms of content, the over-obviously self-reflecting character of this work makes it somewhat Kippenbergeresque, but even this is not entirely real. This work is literally and figuratively close to the skin of the artist. In this sense, it is far removed from Kippenberger’s open, chameleon-like identity as an artist.Another self-portrait shows only Llobera’s reflection, which seems to be going up in smoke. From the beard and the mouth, he has painted himself out. The paint has been applied dry, in brown tints, as if it were yet to be finished. There is also a third self-portrait, in which Llobera turns back to the painting method for which he is known. We are looking at his back as he stands in front of a mirror. Instead of his own face in the mirror, there is the face of John Lennon, as a kind of ghostly apparition, wearing insurance-issue eyeglasses and long, straight hair, the way we knew him as the great hippie legend. ‘I am not cool. Actually, I am a romantic, even if I am embarrassed to say so,’ Pere Llobera once commented. This is a possible explanation for his identifying with the ultimate pop-romantic, John ‘Imagine…’ Lennon. Lennon actually had periods in his own life that were no so ‘cool’. In 1975, when he was just 35 – according to the critics, the quality of his solo albums was degenerating – Lennon secluded himself to be a stay-at-home dad, devoting himself to raising his son, Sean. We picture Lennon at the time of his tragic death in 1980 as being at his most famous, someone actively improving the world, a musical genius and artist, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Lennon was sitting around the house strumming his guitar for his son. He had turned his back on the music industry years before.Pere Llobera has no plans to turn his back on the art world. The best portrait in the Tired to be Strong series is the one in which Llobera seems to take himself least seriously. It is a painting in which Llobera no longer actually refers to Kippenberger, but seems to have internalized the German artist. In the 1980s, Kippenberger painted an entire series of self-portraits in which he stands in the nude, except for oversized white undershorts that, as though they were diapers, have been pulled up far above his waist. The rest of the space in the painting is empty, with the exception of a colourful balloon (or balloons) floating around, connected to his hand by a string. Both paintings, Llobera’s and Kippenberger’s, are shocking images. Kippenberger painted himself as an old man, with a decrepit posture and grotesque belly, which seems to hark back to an inert dotage or second childhood. Pere Llobera painted himself at home, hanging by his hands from the handles of a half-open door. Along the floor drift two pink balloons. It is a total anti-climax, an anti-pose. Llobera is just hanging there, like a child, his back to the viewer and to the art world. No more will to be strong: it is nothing more than that, but it is exactly enough: an exquisite example of pubertal research. Ingrid Commandeur is final editor for METROPOLIS M Tired to be StrongSolo exhibition Pere LloberaGalerie Fons Welters1 May t/m 12 June 2010 translation: Mari Shields