Whoever expects four panels to pay homage to the pianist, composer, and playwright from Vinaròs and that's it, will be surprised. This is a big exhibition. Long, vast, ambitious. An important exhibition, which occupies a large space in the Fundació Joan Brossa (Espai Ç, Espai B, and the bar) and which grabs us by the lapels until we finally understand why Carles Santos was important and what remains not of his work, too theatrical to be archived fairly, but of his attitude. We start from what Joan Brossa himself told him when he was young: "You already know how to play the piano. And now what?" If we understand the question, we understand the provocation it produced in Santos and we understand why he started doing everything he started doing. Because, as for playing the piano, too many people already know how.
And now, an artist like a piano who has a talent like a farmhouse and who speaks truths like temples. And now, to begin, Ona Balló (the exhibition's curator) presents us with a bar with prepared tables: classic checkered tablecloth, now an empty plate, now some mussels, now a prawn, now some grapes: behind a score, a text by Santos that wonders why we know how to pair food with wines so well and yet we don't know how to choose what music goes with that food (and vice versa). Consommé Czerny, egg à la Mendelssohn, chicken à la Haendeliana. Oranges on the bar between wigged Bachs (and manipulated) and a heel stepping on Santos's tongue (and key), the prawn fishing through the trammel net, present as well as the rudder. This as context, as placenta, the material from which we start. After going down the stairs, the Universe.
More stiletto heels, but crucified, and crucifixes on underwear and lipsticks and orifices, shortly after Easter a sensual kiss with the figure of Christ becomes more Passion than ever. Then, the biography: communions, family concerts, Jeunesses Musicales de France, Juventudes Musicales de Madrid, a leap towards textos escabetxats (with a prologue by Altaió) and a passage through scores made into visual poems (including, of course, Mestres Quadreny), as well as through visual poems about the avant-garde (is the avant-garde happy?). The screens in the room show exceptional documents, some unpublished, such as the trip to New York with Pere Portabella in 1972. Videos of anti-Franco protests with a toccata and fugue by Santos, the program handbill that Joan Miró made for the Concert irregular (and its delirious score), and the comical scene where Santos's interpretation always appears free from what a filled or blank staff says.
Santos is human, deeply human and visceral, and committed to the here and the hereafterI didn't understand Santos and now I understand that it wasn't necessary to understand him, like Picasso's famous fried eggs. I didn't understand him but now I have seen him, and I don't know if it's age, and I don't know if it's the solidity of the character. Schönberg is also said to be very solid, but I don't know how to get into him and I don't want to get in. I prefer Santos, I prefer John Cage or Brossa, or above all Miró, there are avant-gardes that humanize and others that kill me.
That's why I smile when I see the poetry festival transformed into a boxing ring in the filming of Portabella's Poetes catalans, with Gabriel Ferrater or Pere Quart or Salvador Espriu, or Bartra, or Brossa himself. Or when I see the physical destruction of the piano, with a sledgehammer, Miró-esque and wild, or John Cage in the church of Cadaqués in memory of Duchamp. Santos is human, deeply human and visceral, and committed to the here and the beyond. Admitted to La Modelo prison, along with Portabella, for a clandestine meeting of the Assemblea de Catalunya. Renegade from the piano, returned to the piano, married to dance and performance. Cesc Gelabert, Mariaelena Roqué, Frederic Amat. And the famous fanfare of the Barcelona Olympic Games, with the unforgettable Hola, conducting musicians dressed in barretinas and Dalinian jackets. Oh, I forgot. It was you. Hola.
And now, what else? Well now, downstairs, player pianos and costumes, set designs and dildos. An entire room for Portabella's films (absolutely fundamental) and one for Mariaelena, alma mater of the Companyia Carles Santos. Posters of Nocturn 29 (Joan-Pere Viladecans presents Santos, Lucía Bosé, Màrius Cabré, Antoni Tàpies…), Informe General (Santos, Portabella, Pelliza), Cuadecuc (with Cristopher Lee, Brossa, Santos), Umbracle (Miró presents Lee, Santos, Brossa…), Pont de Varsòvia, El silenci abans de Bach… And now, what remains? And now we remain, and the secrets hidden in the Born, and the attitude that is worthwhile. There are people who go through life like an elephant in a junkyard, like lightning, with a gargantuan appetite and a healthy irreverence. All of this accelerated by a provocative question. We should all ask ourselves what is our turn now, when we have already learned to play the usual.