Now we are delighted to be able to host the POPSPORT exhibition here at Galleri GKM.

This series of works of art with its sporting motifs was created by Antonio de Felipe for an exhibition prior to Madrid's candidature to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

The exhibition at the CASA DE VACAS Cultural Centre in Madrid attracted a great deal of interest and attention from the Spanish media. The works themselves have been documented in a magnificent art book together with a large number of Antonio de Felipe's works from previous themes such as Vacas ("Cows"), Meninas (after Velazquez' "Maids of Honour"), Logotipos ("Logos"), Cinemaspop , etc. The book also contains an interesting, in-depth interview with the artist and the prefaces are written by the Mayor of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, and Juan Antonio Samaranch, Honorary President of the International Olympic Committee.

POPSPORT is the latest theme to be developed by Antonio de Felipe and, for us, it is a constant source of fascination to witness how the artist's ingenious world of ideas and his sense of humour are constantly evolving.

Thomas & Karl-Johan Bergström

Sport has been a source of inspiration for artists and scholars since the days of Ancient Greece. Works by Classical Greek sculptors such as Lysippos, Pheidias and Myron with his discus thrower laid the foundations for a genre that not only immortalised the harmony and beauty of the proportions of the human physique, but also the pose and movements of the athletes, bestowing them with a host of physical and intellectual qualities that were regarded as the ideal prototype in Greek society. But it did not stop there. We must not forget that it was the human and cultural aspects of athleticism that forever carved a place in history for the Olympic Games of the ancients, leading to their renaissance in 1896 as the modern Olympic Games. Baron Pierre de Coubertin was adamant that "sport must be seen as producing beauty and as an opportunity for beauty. It produces beauty because it creates the athlete, who is a living sculpture".

The universal spirit that gives birth to both art and sport has not remained indifferent to one of the most significant artistic movements of the second half of the twentieth century, pop art. This catalogue gives us an opportunity to experience a new and highly original side of Antonio de Felipe. Here is an exhibition in which the artist has succeeded in conveying his interest for sport and art in each and every one of the different works and expressions. In the Popsport series our senses are galvanised by the athletic motifs at the same time as the artist violates the rigour and discipline of every branch of athletics by giving a humorous nod to the rest of the composition in which the content as a whole is framed. The originality and heterogeneity of the works encourage us to take part in the elegant irony with which each of the images in this exhibition is charged.

The result is that all the media that the artist employs in his fusion of art and sport – advertising, film, cartoon strips and the works of the great masters – coalesce into a single artistic expression for the Olympic dreams and passion of Madrid, in an idealised scenario that enables us to stop, take stock and let the spirit of tolerance, the sense of community and the joie de vivre that pervades every corner of our city reveal itself in a reality that we have never before been able to conceive.

Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón
Mayor of Madrid

The beauty of physical exertion, the battle for supremacy, the harmony of movement and muscles in motion are aesthetic elements that, in the work of Antonio de Felipe, are transformed into fantastical pop art. For some, Antonio de Felipe's use of a contemporary artistic idiom to reproduce the atmosphere generated by athletic endeavour is heterodox and irreverent. His athletes, the icons of our times, appear centre stage in a medium that occupies the ground somewhere midway between the comic strip, advertising and our global communication culture – a fascinating synthesis of contemporary art forms that this Valencian artist offers us in this magnificent exhibition.

 
Juan Antonio Samaranch
Honorary President of the International Olympic Committee

The lines between the beautiful and the absurd are effaced in the paintings of Antonio de Felipe. Anyone venturing to study his pictures must be prepared for the unexpected, for suddenly you may find Betty Boop dancing hand in hand with Snow White and Superman. Such are his subject worlds – a surprising genre blend, a linking of series characters, classical art, Gothic literature and commercialism side by side with contemporary icon worship.    
 Antonio de Felipe has painted portraits of brilliant actors whose icon status is secure. Two of them are Audrey Hepburn and Greta Garbo, seen against a wide range of backgrounds – Picasso’s brutal Guernica or space figures reminiscent of Miró, as a third, Marilyn Monroe, parts her ruby lips downstage.  
 These film star portraits are frequently stylised, though sensitive, created with a uniform colour scale that shifts between shades of yellow, red and blue.
 Antonio de Felipe was born in Valencia 1965 and attended the Bellas Artes de Valencia school of art. His home of many years is Madrid.
 Together with MariaManuela, Cecilia Cubarle, Philippe Huart and William Sweetlove among others, Antonio de Felipe is one of the members in the group Les nouveauX pop, which has had several exhibitions in Europe and Asia.
 Playing with the stereotypical language of the advertising world is the distinguishing characteristic of his work. One example of this can be seen in the paraphrase on Diego Velásquez famous Las Meninas, Spanish for ‘The Maids of Honour’, painted in 1656. Instead of the glass of cold, perfumed water in the original, he places a Fanta soft drink in the hand of the young Spanish princess Margarita.    
 The princess with the flounce dress. Gold brocade on her bodice. Oranges in her black hair. Always reaching for the ingenious detail. 

Johan Persson 8 January 2008

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