Manolo Laguillo: The freedom of the one who is an artist

"Forty years ago it was frowned upon to claim that photographers are also artists". Leaning on the bar, Manolo Laguillo sips a first mouthful of his Dry Martini, letting Erik Satie's Gymnopédies envelop the sunset on the front line of Bar. "In fact, when I think about it, I always remember a phrase by Miserachs who said that photographers are like circus artists: a little below clowns and a little above seals." He laughs.

He got his first Reflex from his father, as a gift for his degree in Philosophy. "Until then I had dabbled, but when I had that camera in hand it was non-stop, because when I like something I get deeply involved," recalls the man who, today, rightly defines himself as "an artist whose medium is photography." In addition to having contributed, and greatly, to dignifying and elevating the profession, training generations of photographers.

To speak of his life is to speak of photography in this country. With a body of work as extensive as it is influential, mostly focused on the treatment of urban landscape, the regular tends to focus on buildings, exploring the soul that the mix of light and shadow and the urban context confers upon them. An architectural approach that has led him to work with major names such as Josep Llinàs, Josep Lluís Mateo or Eduard Bru, "but without ever quite adjusting to the standards, going a bit freely." That freedom that is breathed in his past production ---"like those images we captured between the late 70s and early 80s with my dear Humberto Rivas, in neighborhoods like Poble Sec, Poble Nou or that then abandoned Estación del Nord--- and, as it could not be otherwise, in the projects that are underway.

Of these, he highlights "the photographs of a couple of buildings made by Josep Vendrell in Sant Just and Montgat", a project of eight Galician cities underway for the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporáneo and Manolo Laguillo 1986-2023, the exhibition that opens at the Moisés Pérez Albéniz gallery in Madrid, his hometown, on May 24.

With one foot between two worlds

"There are two types of people, those who are more visual and express themselves better with images, and those who are more verbal, more capable of expressing themselves with words. I have one foot in both worlds." The work and legacy of Manolo Laguillo cannot be understood solely from the point of view of his photographic production or books with technical content on light measurement. The regular has also delved into theoretical questions such as the purpose of photography and has translated works by Walter Benjamin into Spanish or, thanks to his knowledge of Germanic Philology, Siegfried Kracauer.

This intellectual solvency led him to be one of the first two professors of the Chair of Photography at the University of Barcelona (UB), along with Joan Fontcuberta. "Until, in 1979, Juan José Gómez Medina introduced photography to the Faculty of Fine Arts of the UB, this discipline was not studied at university level in Spain." At that time, Manolo had passed competitive examinations and taught at a vocational training institute, "where he earned a good salary, about one hundred thousand pesetas of the time." For a while he combined both jobs, but in 1981 he had to make a decision: leave his civil servant position to teach at the faculty.

--- The salary was approximately half, but I didn't care, I didn't even think about it, I said yes. And that changed everything in my life, of course.

He obtained his doctorate in 1988 and, from 1995, he served as a full professor. By then, photography was, indisputably, one of the Fine Arts. Few were still able to deny it and the regular had had much to do with this change of mentality.

Today, among the many recognitions he has received, he is especially satisfied to be part of the Reial Acadèmia de Ciències i Arts de Barcelona, an institution founded in the 18th century that brings together astronomers, mathematicians, physicists, scientists and, of course, artists.

Love of neighborhoods

"I came to live here at 19, because my father had found a good job in Barcelona. Much of my work portrays this city with projects like Una ciutat desconeguda sota la boira that I did for MACBA and, very especially, its fringes, its peripheral places, which is what interests me most about cities," says the artist.

"What fascinates me about Barcelona is what Vázquez Montalbán said about the Barcelonas, in plural, because each neighborhood is a world in itself. And to that, I add the margins, the Vallès, the Baix Llobregat, which also seem very interesting to me." Words supported by a consistent knowledge of the subject, because since his arrival in that distant 1972, he has lived ---and loved--- almost all of Barcelona's neighborhoods until settling, four years ago, in the Raval "which measures, however, how this city has been going to waste in recent times," he laments regarding a process of depersonalization, massification, and deliquescence that affects a Barcelona that is expelling its inhabitants. And, in uttering these words, he cannot help but let a grimace of sadness appear on his face, while he finishes his Dry Martini and observes, with a photographic eye, the lights of dusk through the windows of the Bar.

--- What has not gone to waste is our exquisite gastronomic offer, and since it's already dinner time, perhaps you can be tempted with a menu, a portion, or some tapas…

With a recovered smile, Manolo Laguillo takes less than a second to respond.

"Menu, menu! With its first course, a second course of meat and, of course, dessert," he determines, visibly satisfied, to the rhythm of Satie's phrases.