Gabriel Cualladó (Massanassa, 1925 - Madrid, 2003) is a decisive photographer who documented his time in a quiet way and whose work reflects without stridency the evolution of Spain between the mid-fifties and the end of the twentieth century. His photographic production moves lightly between the close-up portraits of family and friends, the places where he spent his life and the landmarks of some of these spaces, such as Paris or Madrid, in contrast to the rural scenes of Asturias, the Albufera, the Safor or Massanassa. Considered himself as an amateur, his contribution lies in the non-urgency of his photographic work, an aspect that makes him an important and necessary author. The pause of his gaze is reflected in a few hundred photographs that evoke a lost time and a transition from dictatorship to democracy and from a provincial town to the capital of Spain, in a momentous period of our country. People and places appear as great themes, and this exhibition prioritises the thematic before the chronological; the polysemic content of his images, to the formal structure that compose them; the direct looks, above the panoramic views.

 

People and places. Gabriel Cualladó in the IVAM’s collection brings together about two hundred photographs - all of them gelatin silver on paper- belonging to the extensive collection of the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, which this year is celebrating its 30th anniversary.  This showing also commemorates the Gabriel Cualladó exhibition. Fotografies, which took place between October and December 1989 in the IVAM itself. Unlike other exhibitions on his work, this time he wanted to contextualize his images through documentary materials and four films that link relevant aspects and decisive series in his extensive production.