Todo lo envuelto conserva una cierta temperatura emocional. – Highlights Contemporary 29.
~~~
Everything that is wrapped retains a certain emotional temperature. – Highlights Contemporary 29.
@rafaforteza@coaibperfiloficial
📸 Rafa Forteza, Espacios primarios 1991-2022. Photo: @document_art_lebedelab
#highlights #newsletter #rafaforteza #contemporaryart #sculpture
With the closing of this first edition of ArtCologne Palma Mallorca 2026, we would like to thank everyone who visited and supported the project. It has been a pleasure to share this experience with you.
We look forward to seeing you next year, see you at ArtCologne Palma Mallorca 2027!
——
Con el cierre de la primera edición de ArtCologne Palma Mallorca 2026, queremos agradecer a todos los que nos han acompañado y han formado parte de esta experiencia. Ha sido un placer compartir este proyecto con vosotros.
Nos despedimos hasta el próximo año, nos vemos en ArtCologne Palma Mallorca 2027!
Photos by @anapiruphoto
Meet the Artist Rafa Forteza
Born in 1955 in Mallorca, where he lives and works. His career, developed since the 1980s, positions him as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Spanish art. He has held numerous solo exhibitions at institutions and galleries such as CaixaForum, Fundación Joan Miró, Museo de Pollença, Es Baluard Museu (which dedicated a retrospective to him in 2016), Kunst Station Sankt Peter in Cologne, the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
His work has been regularly presented at international fairs such as Art Basel, ARCO Madrid, and Art Cologne, and is included in public and private collections such as Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid), Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Deutsche Bank Collection, the “la Caixa” Collection, and the Münchner Künstlerhaus Stiftung in Munich, among others.
Forteza has published numerous artist books in collaboration with poets and creators such as Joan Brossa, José Carlos Llop, José Ángel Valente, Antonio Saura, and many others. In 2016, the monograph Más cara was published by Printer Fault Press. In recent years, he has continued to show his work in both national and international contexts and has received recognitions such
as the Estampa Prize 2021, consolidating a career marked by formal experimentation and the persistence of motifs such as the circle and the face.
Photo 2: Exhibiton “Ofrenes”, convento de Santo Domingo, Museo Pollença, Mallorca, 2025
Photo 3: Exhibiton “Etimologías”, BALAZSI, Palma de Mallorca, 2024
Photos 4: Retrospective Exhibiton “Temblor de la Máscara”, museo Esbaluard, Palma, 2016
Photos 5: Exhibiton “Ritus I” Kunst Station Sankt Peter, Cologne, Alemania, 2008
Art Cologne Palma 2026
9 - 12 April
Booth P226
For the first edition of ArtCologne Palma Mallorca, a new format launched by ART COLOGNE in collaboration with the Art Palma Contemporani association and local institutions, Balazsi presents a solo show dedicated to Rafa Forteza.
The presentation brings together recent works—primarily paintings—with earlier pieces, including bronze sculptures previously exhibited at Sankt Peter in Cologne. Despite the more than three decades that separate these works, Forteza’s visual language remains remarkably consistent, revealing a deeply coherent practice across different creative periods.
The exhibition is structured around verticality as both a formal and conceptual axis. The bronze sculptures, arranged as a small forest at the front of the booth, establish an ascending rhythm that resonates with the paintings of varying formats and the wall-based works. This continuity creates a dialogue across media and time, where form becomes the guiding thread, leading the viewer through different layers of the work.
The presentation offers a transversal reading of Forteza’s practice, where repetition, variation, and formal persistence construct a perceptual space in constant balance across time.
Photo 1
Detail of “Un espacio para lo valioso I” (2026)
Oil on canvas
160 x 130 cm
Photo 2
“ST” (1998)
Oil on canvas and acrylic paste
21 x 24 x 5 cm
Photo 3
“Triedro” (2010)
Wood, acrylic resin, and fabric
73 x 18 x 15 cm
Photo 4
“ST” (2026)
Acrylic on paper, silicone, and acrylic paste
24 x 14 x 2.5 cm
Photo 5
“ST” (1995)
Bronze
35 x 10 x 12
Photos: @document_art_lebedelab
En realidad, envolver no es cubrir: es abrazar la forma para hacerla aparecer de otro modo. Como si el gesto quisiera guardar algo del mundo antes de que se disuelva o cambie demasiado.
– Highlights Contemporary 29. 🗞️
~~~
In fact, wrapping is not about covering; it is about embracing form so that it can appear differently. As if the gesture sought to preserve something of the world before it dissolves or changes too much.
– Highlights Contemporary 29. 🗞️
@rafaforteza@coaibperfiloficial
📸 Rafa Forteza, Cámara de ecos. COAIB. Photo: Natasha Lebedeva.
#highlights #newsletter #rafaforteza #contemporaryart #mallorca
And that’s a wrap!
Cámara de ecos llega a su fin. Gracias a todas las personas que la han hecho posible y a quienes la han visitado en estos últimos meses 🤍
“Todo lo envuelto conserva una cierta temperatura emocional.”
~~~
And that’s a wrap!
Cámara de ecos comes to an end. Thank you to everyone who made it possible and to those who came to see it in the last months 🤍
“Everything that is wrapped retains a certain emotional temperature.”
@rafaforteza@coaibperfiloficial
📸 Exhibition views by @document_art_lebedelab
#exhibition #rafaforteza #mallorca #catalogue
Premis ACCAIB 2025 🧡
Recientemente recibí la noticia de que la exposición Ofrenes de Rafa Forteza, presentada en el Museu de Pollença en el 2025, ha sido nominada a los premios de comisariado de la ACCAIB que se celebran esta tarde con la colaboración de la Fundació Miró Mallorca y Es Baluard Museu.
La exposición partía de la semilla como eje conceptual, desplegándose como un campo de relaciones entre formas, materiales y procesos, en diálogo con la arquitectura de la antigua iglesia del convento dominico.
Gracias a ACCAIB y enhorabuena al resto de finalistas!
~~~
ACCAIB Awards 2025 🧡
I recently received the news that Ofrenes, Rafa Forteza’s exhibition curated at the Museu de Pollença in 2025, has been nominated for the ACCAIB Curatorial Awards, whose ceremony takes place this afternoon in collaboration with Fundació Miró Mallorca and Es Baluard Museu.
The exhibition took the seed as its conceptual core, unfolding as a field of relations between forms, materials, and processes, in dialogue with the architecture of the former Dominican convent church.
Thanks ACCAIB, and congratulations to the other finalists!
@rafaforteza@museu_ajuntamentdepollenca@accaib_@miromallorca@esbaluardmuseu
📸 Ofrenes, Rafa Forteza, 2025. Photos by @document_art_lebedelab
#rafaforteza #accaib #curatorial #awards #mallorca
Últimos días para visitar la exposición “Cámara de ecos” de @rafaforteza en el @coaibperfiloficial ! 🩶
“En el corazón de la sala se alza una cámara. Es una estructura contenida, un refugio mínimo donde el tiempo se condensa. En su interior, las esculturas se organizan como en un archivo, sobre estanterías o bien sobre las propias cajas que las contienen. Tanto en las envolturas como en las cajas hay un gesto de protección y ocultamiento parcial.
En realidad, envolver no es cubrir: es abrazar la forma para hacerla aparecer de otro modo. Como si el gesto quisiera guardar algo del mundo antes de que se disuelva o cambie demasiado.”
~~~
Last days to see the exhibition “Cámara de ecos” by Rafa Forteza at @coaibperfiloficial ! 🩶
“At the heart of the gallery rises a chamber. It is a contained structure, a minimal refuge where time seems to condense. Inside it, the sculptures are arranged like an archive, placed on shelves or on the very boxes that contain them. Both the wrappings and the boxes share a gesture of protection and partial obscuring.
In fact, wrapping is not about covering; it is about embracing form so that it can appear differently. As if the gesture sought to preserve something of the world before it dissolves or changes too much.”
📸 @document_art_lebedelab
#exhibition #rafaforteza #mallorca
Ahir el COAIB va acollir la presentació del catàleg de l’exposició “Càmera de Ecos” de l’artista @rafaforteza .🎨
Una publicació que acompanya i amplia la mirada sobre aquesta mostra, comissariada per @highlights_em , i que recull l’univers creatiu de Rafa Forteza a través d’un recorregut per les seves obres. 🖼️
L’acte va reunir professionals i amants de l’art per compartir aquest projecte editorial vinculat a l’exposició, que es pot visitar a la seu del COAIB Mallorca fins al 19 de març. 🗓️
#COAIB #RafaForteza #CameraDeEcos #ArtContemporan
