Questions

1. What made you choose art as a profession?
I don’t see art as a profession, but I chose this path because I like to think about problems - and mathematics was never one of my strengths.

2. How would you define your work?
I’d always define it positively.

3. What subjects are you interested in?
I’m interested in the greatness of banal things, our closest environment and social squandering.

4. What resources – formal or otherwise – do you use in your work?
For each project I use the best method for getting my ideas across, without ruling anything out. In general, though, I usually work with existing material, either by working on other people’s work or any other material to give it a new meaning. I don’t like working from scratch. It’s collage in its widest sense.

5. What relationship does your work have with reality? What are your raw materials?
My work is closely bound to reality; it revises reality, stressing and altering the popular and collective memory that sometimes makes us ashamed of ourselves.

6. What, according to you, is the point of art?
It’s a highly addictive hallucinogen. Art lets you see and feel things you’d never be able to see or feel in your everyday routine. It’s the opposite of boredom. It fascinates and sometimes hurts. It’s pure communication.

7. How do you hope the public will receive your work? What audience are you aiming at?
I’m aiming at all audiences – experts and laypeople. Some people will read one things; others, another. But I try to reach out to everyone. It’s a bit like The Simpsons: my nieces laugh at things they don’t understand, but they enjoy it all the same. Since I work with popular iconographies, everyone recognises something in my pieces, but only a few really stop to think seriously about them.

8. What qualifications have you got? What do you value most from your time in education?
I took a higher course in Illustration at the Art School in Valladolid, studied Fine Art at the University of Salamanca, and then continued my education thanks to courses, workshops, bars, drinks, openings with free food and drink, fleamarkets, YouTube, festivals, the TV programme Cuarto Milenio, and other fascinating things around me.

9. How would you define your current professional situation? And in the future?
Professionally, my life is a fiasco, because my profession (‘a regular activity done for a salary’) is just a series of rubbish jobs. But you either do this or you can’t do art. I’m very proud of my art career, though, because I’ve managed to make my work visible and get my ideas across. If no one were on the other side, there wouldn’t be any point.

10. Many artists say it’s difficult to make a living from their work; how do economic considerations affect you when it comes to work? Do you think this has a bearing on your work?
A year and a half ago I left the comfort and stability of an indefinite contract and risked everything to do what I thought I ought to do. I currently live a precarious life as an artist with no patrons in the family and no promoters to back me. I get by doing rubbish jobs and falling back on the time-honoured resort of grants and awards, and hope that I’ve managed to get ahead by the time I’m 35 (after which this path is no longer open to me). You pay a high price to be an artist.

 

Money obviously interferes with the work, but it’s not a relevant factor – although if an artist hasn’t got the money to live on, they can’t produce much. My recent pieces come from rubbish and limitations, with minimal expense, such as Street Fighter (www.diariostreetfighter.blogspot.com) and G.E.F. (Grupo Empresa Falagán), which makes direct reference to artists’ precarious social status.

11. What do you look for or expect from your relationship with promoters and curators? What advantages and difficulties have you found with these relationships? What? Who are you talking about?
I think a friend of mine had coffee with one once. That’s all I know – as far as I’m concerned, they’re an urban legend.

12. What do you think sets the arts scene in Madrid apart from elsewhere? What would you say are its pluses and minuses?
I suppose people will say it’s a difficult circle to get into, but I’m from Castilla y León, which really has an insuperable wall in terms of contemporary art. I think there are lots of opportunities for getting your work seen, but it’s not so easy to get it across in the best way. I think institutions and other cultural promoters are only interested in doing things to give themselves a medal, rather than making the work productive and raising its visibility – apart from the odd honourable exception.

Interview

Curriculum vitae

Julio Falagán 
Valladolid, 1979. 
Vive y trabaje en/Lives and works in: Madrid. 

Formación Académica/Education 
2005
C.A.P., Universidad de Salamanca. 

2004
Licenciatura en Bellas artes, Universidad de Salamanca. 

 

2000
Título de Grado Superior de Ilustración, Escuela de Arte de Valladolid. 
 

Exposiciones Individuales/Solo Exhibitions 
2009
Madrid Procesos 09, Artistas Visuales Asociados de Madrid, AVAM, Madrid.
El día de la hecatombe, Domus Artium 2002, Da2, Salamanca.
Le touriste, Le Château de Trévarez, Saint Goazec, France.
Cómo sobrevivir a una hecatombe, Casa de Velázquez, Madrid. 

 

2008
Broza fetén, Galería Carmen de La Guerra, Madrid.
Despojos ilustres, Galería Caracol, Valladolid. 

 

2007
Obras íntimas, Sala Unamuno, Salamanca. 

 

2005
Morralla exquisita, Galería Artificial, Madrid.
Espléndida exhibición, Centro Cultural Casa del Cordón, Caja de Burgos, Burgos. 

 

2004
Julio Falagán, Galería Raya Punto, Salamanca. 

 

2002
Jaulas, Casa Rancia, Salamanca. 
 

Exposiciones Colectivas/Group Exhibitions 
2009
The Iron Decision Machina, Artendencias, Festival Artes Visuales del Noroeste, Pozuelo, Madrid.
Paint it… red, Sala Borrón, Oviedo.
ARCO 09, Galería Adhoc (Vigo), Madrid. 

 

2008
Aptitud para las armas, Sala Amadís, InJuve, Madrid.
BIAM O8, Biennal d´art Ciutat d´Amposta, Museo del Montsià, Amposta, Tarragona.
10 x menos de 100, La Noche en Blanco, Galería Mad is Mad, Madrid.
AAAAA, Anti y Garabat, Bilbao; Galería Ras, Barcelona; Subaquatica, Madrid.
ARCO 08, Perugi Artecontemporanea(Padova), Madrid. 

 

2007
Enciclopedia gráfica (horror visual) (con Colectivo Satélite), Sala Municipal de Exposiciones del Teatro Calderón, Valladolid.
Espacios compartidos, Casas del Águila y la Parra, Santillana del Mar, Cantabria.
ARCO 07, Galería T20 (Murcia), Madrid. 

 

2006
Muestra InJuve 2006, Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid.
InterZon@s 06, II Encuentros Internacionales con el Arte Joven, Palacio de Vástago-Cuarto Espacio, Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza. 

 

2005
Artisima, Torino.
 

Performances
2004
Terror Sonoro, No lo llames performance, Domus Artium 2002, Da2, Salamanca. 
 

Proyectos Curatoriales/Curatorial Projects 
2007
Enciclopedia gráfica (horror visual) (con Colectivo Satélite), Sala Municipal de Exposiciones del Teatro Calderón, Valladolid. 

 

2005
Exposición Atómica, Medina del Campo, Valladolid. 

2002
Programa cultural anual de La Casa Rancia, Salamanca. Esto lo hace mi niño (con Colectivo Satélite), Sala Municipal de Exposiciones del Teatro Calderón, Valladolid. 
 

Becas y Premios/Awards and Grants 
2009
Beca Casa de Velázquez, Madrid. 

 

2008
Premio Nacional de Pintura Pancho Cossío, Santander. (Premio de pintura)
Propuestas_08, XII Convocatoria de ayuda a la creación visual, Fundación Arte y Derecho, VEGAP, Madrid.(Premio Ilustración)
Premio Nacional de Pintura Caja España. (Mención de Honor) 

 

2006
Muestra de Arte InJuve 2006, InJuve, Instituto de la Juventud, Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, Madrid. 

 

2005
Beca de Artes Plásticas Diputación de Valladolid. 

 

2004
XX Concurso Regional de Pintura, Jóvenes Artistas de Castilla y León 2004, Caja de Burgos. (1er Premio)
Beca de Proyectos Artísticos Junta de Castilla y León.
Generación 2004, Obra Social Caja Madrid, Madrid. (Mención de Honor) 

 

2003
XV Certamen de Pintura Rápida del Parque Buen Retiro, Madrid. (2º Premio) 
 

Obra en Museos y Colecciones/Works in Museums and Collections 
Caja Madrid.
Junta de Castilla y León.
Universidad de Salamanca.
Gobierno de Cantabria.
Junta Municipal del Distrito de Retiro de Madrid.
Caja de Burgos.
Winterthur.
Ayuntamiento de Valladolid.
Diputación de Valladolid.
Diputación de Badajoz. 
 

Bibliografía/Bibliography 
Falagán, Julio; Lebrato, Julio; Martínez, Ginés, El día de la Hecatombe, Salamanca, Domus Artium 2002, Da2, 2009, Cat. Exp.
VV.AA., Aptitud para las Armas, Madrid, InJuve, Instituto de la Juventud, Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, 2009, Cat. Exp.
Falagán, Julio; Sobrino, Alberto, Kit del No, Valladolid, 2009, Cat. Exp.
Rubén, B. Un artista como la copa de un pino, Pasajes Diseño nº5, Madrid, IX/2008.
Sanz, Pilar, Julio Falagán santifica la basura y la convierte en arte en 'Broza Fetén', www.20minutos.es, 26/XI/2008.
Falagán, Julio; Panera, Javier, Morralla Exquisita, Madrid, Galería Artificial, 2005, Cat. Exp.
VV.AA., Bartleby / AAAAA Nº6, Madrid, Picnic, 2008, Cat. Exp. 
 

Contacto/Contact 
(+34) 660 087 339 
elhombremutante@hotmail.com 
www.juliofalagan.com 
www.juliofalagan.blogspot.com

Images