This exhibition includes a selection of historical works from the 1970s and 1980s that show a key period in the artist’s production, centered on the construction and representation of the Evrugo Mental State, a mental, political and autonomous territory, with its own mythology, alphabet, currency, flag and laws. The creation of an alternative reality derived from the research and deepening of mental states other than the neurotypical ones, which he not only used as a creative platform within the artistic sphere, but expanded to everyday life (both individual and collective) transgressing its limits while using his work as a countercultural strategy and a tool of subversion. The artist, through changes of identity and names –Albert Porta y Muñoz (Barcelona, 1946-), Zush (1968-2001), Evru (2001-)– has articulated a highly subjective, deep and precise visual language.
Zush’s career has been remarkable both in Spain and abroad: in 1967 he participated at São Paulo Biennial; in 1975 he received a scholarship by the Juan March Foundation (Spain) and by the Fulbright Foundation (USA) to study holography applied to art at the M.I.T. (Cambridge, USA); in 1977 he participated in Documenta VI (Kassel, Germany). He has also had solo exhibitions at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2000); MACBA, Barcelona (2000), Museu d’Art Contemporani d’Eivissa, Ibiza (2022) and at Fundació Suñol, Barcelona (2009), among others. He has participated in numerous national and international group shows in museums such as the Guggenheim, New York (1980); the Centre George Pompidou, Paris (1989), the MoMA, New York (1984); the MACBA, Barcelona (2019); the Istanbul Biennial (2019); the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1993); the MUSAC, Leon, Spain (2017); the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla, Spain (2014); the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Spain (2014); or the S.M.A.K., Gent, Belgium (1998), to name a few.
His work is part of collections of institutions such as MoMA (New York); Centre George Pompidou (Paris); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); MACBA (Barcelona); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (USA); Institute of Contemporary Art (Chicago, USA); Artium Museoa, Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain); Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (Paris); Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (Spain); Fundació Suñol (Barcelona); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Andalucía (Seville, Spain); Fond National d’Art Contemporain (Paris); Les Abattoirs-FRAC Occitanie Toulouse (France); Fundación Juan March (Madrid); Fundació Sorigué (Lérida, Spain); Museo Patio Herreriano (Valladolid, Spain); Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts (Brussels); Osten Museum of Drawing Skopje (Macedonia); Ye Um Foundation (Seoul, South Korea); Musée d’Art Moderne (Brussels); Antoni Vila Casas Foundation (Barcelona); Caixaforum (Barcelona); or Fundación Caja Madrid, among others.
