He studied at the Eina School in Barcelona and collaborated with different artists in the city. A sculptor artist who has participated with the group G of T (Working Group), in different exhibitions and publications:
1972 – Kassel Documents
1975 – Barcelona College of Architects
1976 – Venice Biennial
1977 – Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona
1999 – Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA)
INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS
1971 – Sala Vinçon, Barcelona
1972 – 4 Gats Gallery, Palma de Mallorca
1980 – Gu Gallery, Barcelona
1988 – Felipe de Paco, Barcelona
1994 – Cascais Gallery, Santa Eulalia des Riu (Ibiza)
1995 – “Homenatge als animalers”. Barcelona City Council
1996 – “Platos de artista”. Llorens Artigas Foundation, Gallifa (Barcelona)
“Homenaje a Francesc Català Roca”. Valls Museum (Tarragona)
1997 – Alter Ego Gallery, Barcelona
Contrast Gallery, Barcelona
1998 – ARCO, stand Ediciones Ming, Madrid
New Art, Barcelona
“Comer y beber”. Alter Ego Gallery, Barcelona
2000 – “Saltamartí. Homenaje a Joan Brossa”. Llorens Artigas Foundation, Gallifa (Barcelona)
2001 – Shatevin Gallery, Barcelona
2002 – “Laberinto circular” (bullfighting). Casa Leopoldo, Barcelona
2006 – Can Nobas. Elsa Peretti Foundation
2015 – Lo Spazio. Ceramic sculptures. Nando Peretti Foundation, Catalunya Delegation
“As an early spectator, I witnessed the advance of an unusual garden, which had first germinated in Manel’s mind and which, now cultivated by his hands, was growing under the roof inside the farmhouse, a display of botanical or entomological elements and motifs, of forged or worked plants or insects, braided, or warped, painted or drawn. Manel’s garden is alive. «
Josep Maria Muñoz Rodriguez
Writer
“An art that recognizes the heritage of Joan Miró and Joan Brossa, a fresh and festive art but of total coherence, an art that breathes authenticity and deter-mination while combining nature and artistic creation in a single poetic breath.”
Maria Lluïsa Borràs
Art criticism
«Manel, who resembles Albert Camus’s first man, and who carries the Platonian stigma of working with his hands, makes a sculpture that at first sight might seem brutal, but never naive. Manel Rovira, tireless, independent, unquestionable, is one of the few sculptors who works on his pieces entirely from beginning to end, without the intervention of other workshops. It is precisely in this exercise of mechanical work where he subdues his ghosts, but allows the idea to live in his hands, without drowning it in the process of realization, something which in others would be artisanal.”
Medina-Campeny
Sculptor
«The objects drawn, forged, carved, modeled and polished by Manel Rovira make us rediscover the magical and most intimate value of what is artisan. It is an art that, without renouncing the influences of the great masters of modernity, avoids the spectacular and torn gesture of so many expressionist abstractions.
Manel Rovira treats the materials like a child who has been training his technique for more than forty years. His drawings are sketches that will later lead him to model the sculptural material.
We are in front of the most subtle art of sculpture, both for its simplicity and manual precision and for its own imprint. “
David Broggi
Writer
