José Girbent Mora

JOSÉ GIRBENT MORA ( Sóller, Mallorca, 1969).
"Alley".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Presents another work on the back.
Measurements: 67 x 46 cm, 90 x 69 cm (frame).

Girbent was born in Sóller, in the Balearic Islands. In 1986, he enrolled in the Faculty of Fine Arts in Barcelona, although he soon left the university and began to frequent the bohemian circles of the Mediterranean city. During that time, he devoted himself to watching films and reading, especially essays and philosophy. In 1989, he traveled to the former GDR and managed to enroll in the renowned Leipzig Art Academy, where he met Neo Rauch and coincided with M. Weischer and T. Baumgartel. The fall of the Berlin Wall surprised him in Leipzig. In 1990, he presented his first works in the group exhibition The Wall in an alternative space in Berlin. At the same time, he entered the world of comics and illustration, publishing both comics and covers in prestigious international magazines, such as Totem and Zona 84 in Spain, El Eternauta in Italy and Metal Hurlant in the U.S. A year later, he left Germany and moved to Mexico City, where he explored video, filming in places frequented by the Infrarrealists, such as the "Quito" café on Bucarelli Street, where he felt the presence of the spirits of Roberto Bolaño and Mario Santiago. In Mexico, he continued to read voraciously, but his focus shifted from essays to literature, becoming interested in authors such as Borges, Gadda and Joyce. At the same time, his passion for video art and experimental cinema grew. He spent 1992 and 1993 in the Yucatan peninsula, first in Merida and then in Valladolid. After what he considered a period of reflection in Mexico, he decided to return to his native Mallorca to devote himself entirely to painting.