The Multiple Self of Vicenç Altaió

“We searched endlessly, like a God searching for the existence of art with his tongue hanging out.” This is how Vicenç Altaió evokes the spirit of a cultural generation: that of the poetic and political revolt of the 1970s. More than an autobiography, the story of the poet and trafficker of ideas is presented as an expanded or refracted memory, which speaks in the plural. Therein lies the inestimable value of a story that, while taking the author's life as its thread and pretext, is, in reality, a hymn to the soul that propelled our culture out of darkness and lethargy. Today we receive the first volume of these memoirs: the one that traces Altaió's history until his thirties; the one that recalls and celebrates the emergence of the literary and artistic landscape in Catalonia during and after Franco's regime; the one that follows and dissects the aesthetic revolution that arose from it; which stops in the mid-eighties, a moment in which art and culture, absorbed by liberalism and the information society, become a commodity and an identity ingredient of modernity.

In the 1970s, in a dawning Barcelona, ​​the police denied a driver's license to the young university student, a poet-activist, assemblyman, and subversive. He never obtained it: he moved with the others. Convinced that free thought is generated outside of structures, he became a leftist without acronyms, turning literature and the arts into a form of politics: as a reader, poet, editor, thinker, visionary, and transformer of language and culture.

⁄ He forged a nourishing friendship, of absolute founding value, with poets such as Foix, Vinyoli and Brossa

Altaió's prismatic memory atomizes the Self in others. With the conviction that one must always be attentive to the meaning of an era and that "the avant-garde is not destruction, but observance and openness," he recounts the friendship, of absolute foundational value, that he forged before coming of age with poets such as Foix, Vinyoli, and Brossa. He distills their lessons, offers precious intimate portraits; he also explains the nourishing value of these exchanges for already established poets who willingly devoted themselves to the attentive listening of youth. At the same time, Altaió built a universe of elective affinities with his contemporaries, of readings and references; and, open to the world, he drew constellations with Europe, where modernity already reigned.

He makes politics of poetry, and always collectively: it is with his elective affinities that he organizes Gespa Price, which conquers the Espai 10 of the Fundació Miró with radical and transdisciplinary proposals, which traffics ideas from one side to the other. Convinced that "to be a writer of the time in which you live, you must also be an editor," and with the desire to connect new poetic voices with the avant-garde of art, he took editorial and poetic creation to an unprecedented peak. This is attested by the Cristalls collection and three of the most groundbreaking magazines that have ever existed in the country: Tarot de quinze (the initiatory one), Èczema (published in diverse formats/artifacts), and Àrtics (which translated the European poetics of postmodernism. John Cage would draw for its cover). His program: to forge, in Catalan culture, "an ultra-local identity in an open European system."

⁄ Recalls and sings the emergence of the literary and artistic landscape during and after Franco's regime

His train journeys across Europe were vital, transforming them into a driving force and a method: he immersed himself fully in art and also became involved with the south of France, advising art collections along the southern axis. In Paris, following an anecdote with Antoine Laval and Derrida in the background, the concept for the series Tràfic d'idees was born, the essayistic aspect that would allow Altaió's ideas to germinate in parallel with his poetry.

The work of the poet and trafficker is based on transdisciplinarity: his is a writing of conceptual and artistic aspects that flees the orthodoxy of disciplines and asserts itself as a manifesto with the gesture of publishing poetry in art publishing houses.

The historical and programmatic sense structure Altaió's work and life: he systematically notes appointments and encounters, plans which books and how many he should write, reflects on the meaning that writing and editing take and should take, always ensuring that his work reflects the spirit of his time.

⁄ Experiences and anecdotes coexist in the book with sharp historical and philosophical observations and beautiful reflections

Conversations, experiences, anecdotes, excerpts from letters, art reviews, books; keen historical and philosophical observations, beautiful reflections on the work of their contemporaries. All of this builds the story of a collective that, devoid of acronyms, from the margins and without money, sowed the ideal for an aesthetic freedom that flourished fully.

The recognition of others and of others underpins this portrait of an era that leaves out none of those who contributed to sowing light and change. “Listening to poets has been the best and most rewarding job I've ever had. I've tried to ensure that this privilege reverts to the Community, to which I owe myself.” Culture must constantly reinvent itself, but, given that the avant-garde is observance and openness, it is necessary to connect with the masters, to listen, recognize, and be grateful. Today, we are grateful to Altaió for assuming the poetic responsibility of passing on to us the legacy of a generation that nourishes our own.

Vicenç Altaió The shadow of subversion Galàxia Gutenberg. 456 pages. 24 euros