Signes 12, 1989

Spanish artist Joan Brossa was an artist known for works that combined poetry and visual art. He was also known to dabble in graphic design and on occasion would act as playwright from time to time. Typically considered a Dada artist, Brossa was also known for producing works that were more of a surrealist or futurist persuasion while often playing with comical or cynical flavors at the same time. Brossa's main goal with most of his work was to find a way to fuse Catalan poetry with visual art, making his pieces often referred to as "poem objects." One of Joan Brossa's earliest claims to fame is the founding of the art movement Dau al Set which translates to "the seventh face of the die" in 1948, which was later accompanied with a magazine of the same name. The avant-garde movement involved other artists such as Juan Eduardo Cirlot, Antoni Tapies and Modest Cuixart. Their goal was to emphasize the important influences that both the conscious and unconscious can have on art, as well acting as opponents to the restriction of formal art forms and movements. Much of Joan Brossa's two dimensional visual art involved playing with letters and their appearances or incorporating words into some kind of imagery. Sculptures often toyed with the appearance of letters and how they form a word, or by heavily altering normal objects and obscuring their original intended purpose. One famous piece of public work is Barcino (the ancient Roman spelling of Barcelona, where Joan Brossa was based) is located outside the Cathedral of Barcelona and consists of quirky depictions of letters to spell out Barcino. He also is responsible for the work Lying A with a fish which is on the outside of city hall of Mollet del Valles, which portrays a giant red A lying on its side. (Artist website)