TAUROMÍA
Carlos Franco (Madrid, 1951) is one of the most prominent contemporary artists on the current scene, known for his constant exploration of the human figure, myths, and the traditions of Western culture. His artistic career spans painting, sculpture, and printmaking, but it is in painting where he has made a profound impact, blending tradition and innovation, figuration and abstraction.
Since his childhood, bullfighting has been a constant in Franco’s life. He grew up in a family with a strong taurine tradition, where his father, a passionate fan, instilled in him a love for this cultural ritual. However, for Carlos Franco, the art of bullfighting transcends mere spectator engagement; it becomes an aesthetic and philosophical phenomenon that connects him to the great myths of humanity. A personal influence for the artist has been Curro Romero, the legendary bullfighter, whose elegance and grace in the ring inspired in him profound admiration.
The movement of the bullfighters, the dance of the cape, evokes a comparison with the painter’s gesture as he handles the brush on the canvas, both engaging in a sacred rite that unleashes emotion and movement.
The exhibition “Tauromía” brings together a selection of works by Carlos Franco in which bullfighting is not only a central theme, but also a deep reflection on culture, aesthetics, and the human drama. Franco’s relationship with the bull and bullfighting is as old as his own work, but in this exhibit, he invites us to dive into a new visual analysis, with a renewed and contemporary approach. Bullfighting, a subject explored by artists such as Francisco de Goya, Pablo Picasso, José Gutiérrez Solana, Miquel Barceló, and poet Federico García Lorca, finds in Franco’s paintings a space for transformation and reinterpretation.
Like Goya, whose “La Tauromaquia” was a testimony to the duality between beauty and violence, Franco does not shy away from the more brutal side of bullfighting, but elevates it to an aesthetic plane where art and emotion intertwine. In his works, as in Picasso’s, the geometry of the bullfighter’s movement becomes a choreography, a dance where color and form are as important as the gesture. Through a vibrant palette and gestural brushstrokes, the painter transports the viewer to the heart of the ring, but also to the inner space of the creator, where the violence of the struggle becomes a metaphor for art itself.
In 2022, Carlos Franco was commissioned to create the poster for the Goyesca Bullfight in Ronda, one of the most emblematic events on the Spanish bullfighting calendar. While bullfighting has been a recurring theme in his work from the beginning, this commission allowed him to connect even more deeply with the aesthetic essence of the sport, merging past traditions with a personal and contemporary vision of bullfighting art.
In these paintings, the space of the bullring dissolves and becomes a mental, emotional, and symbolic space. The bullfighter’s gesture with the cape transforms into an expression of mastery and freedom, while reflecting the artist’s ability to shape chaos and violence through creation. The bull, on the other hand, becomes a modern myth, an archetype of resistance, passion, and uncontrollable fury, while the bullfighter figure embodies the balance between reason and irrationality, art and destruction.
