I just discovered Argentinian artist Juan Gatti, and by discovered I mean read about him on another blog. Perhaps ‘happened upon’ is more accurate. At any rate I was struck by his combination of two of my favorite things: drawings of the natural sciences (birds, plants, insects) and drawings of the musculature of the human body (I once made a larger-than-life-size, musculature drawing of Manet’s “Olympia,” and, perhaps as a direct result I received ”Cabinet of Natural Curiosites” by Albertus Seba for my birthday a few years later).
Apparently Gatti frequently works with Pedro Almodovar, hence The Skin I Live In poster. His background is kind of amazing.
“His mother was a haute couture fashion designer and as a child, he spent hours under the drawing table reading fashion magazines.
In his twenties, under the dictatorship of general Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, on a national festive occasion, he stepped out on his
balcony in underwear and protested. He got arrested. During the six months he spent in a maximum security prison, Gatti started drawing. He moved to new york where he worked in the field of photography and fashion and relocated to Madrid in the beginning of the 1980s. At this time, Spain was experiencing the counter-cultural Movida Madrileña.
Gatti collaborated with the frontrunners of the movement, particularily in the culture and fashion scene. After five years with CBS record label designing covers for well known musicians, Gatti opened his own studio in 1985. His collaboration with film director Pedro Almodovar started in 1988, and since then he has been behind the graphic content of Almodovar’s films. During the years of 1989 and 1990, Gatti was the art director of Vogue Italia. In 2002, he was chosen to be the photographer for the Pirelli calendar, confirming his success in the field of photography.”
You can see his retrospective show Contraluz in Canal Isabel II exhibition hall in Madrid.
