Robert Filliou 28 (Comma)

This painting draws inspiration from three pivotal works: “Autoportrait bien fait, mal fait, pas fait” (1987) by Robert Filliou, in which the artist appears wearing his “Galerie légitime”—a paper hat transformed into a mobile art gallery—subverting institutional conventions by turning his own body into an exhibition space; “Comiendo uvas” (1898), a watercolor by Joaquín Sorolla depicting a child with a rural worker’s hat; and “Menino de Brodósqui” (1951) by Candido Portinari, which likewise portrays a child wearing a paper hat. These works are not employed as literal references but rather operate as conceptual echoes structuring the painting’s symbolic architecture.

The piece aligns with a genealogy of artists who founded their own “museums” as poetic and conceptual gestures: from Duchamp’s “Boîte-en-valise”, through Filliou’s “Galerie légitime,” to Broodthaers’ “Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles”. My project, The Davis Museum Barcelona, is situated within this lineage: a readymade sculpture—a miniature museum symbolically established inside a ballot box and disseminated primarily via social media. It functions as an expanded artwork: a digital archive, a collection of small-format contemporary art, and a nonprofit collective initiative officially recognized by the Government of Catalonia since 2010.

This painting belongs to the series “The Paintings Section From Davis Museum Barcelona,” which focuses on two primary genres: portraits of the artists central to this conceptual narrative, and still lifes that reimagine symbols drawn from their most iconic works. The square format echoes the cubic structure of the Davis Museum itself, reinforcing the project’s formal and discursive coherence.