Robert Filliou 15

Davis Lisboa, Robert Filliou 15, 2017. Oil on canvas, 40 × 40 × 3.5 cm (15.7 × 15.7 × 1.38 in).

This painting is based on a historical image of Robert Filliou presenting his Galerie légitime in London, in the context of the Festival of Misfits, and adopts a pictorial language akin to Gerhard Richter’s blurred photo-paintings. The softly diffused image hovers between record and reconstruction, with painting introducing a measured distance from its documentary source.

The work belongs to The Paintings Section from Davis Museum Barcelona, a body of works centered on key figures in postwar conceptual and institutional art. Within this framework, portraits of Marcel Duchamp, Robert Filliou, and Marcel Broodthaers are articulated alongside still lifes of works such as Boîte-en-valise, Galerie légitime, and Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles, forming a coherent reflection on the artwork as device, archive, and exhibition form.

Integrated within The Davis Lisboa Mini-Museum of Contemporary Art, the painting operates within a structure that functions simultaneously as artwork, collection, and system of circulation. Its condition extends beyond the image itself, situating the work in a context where painting and institution are mutually defined.

Within this framework, the work asserts itself with clarity: an autonomous painting that also forms part of a broader construction in which image, archive, and museum converge.