Exposition

Opera Gallery Geneva is proud to present a solo exhibition showcasing Spanish artist Juan Genovés (1930–2020), featuring just over fifteen paintings from the 2000s, including several works from the artist’s estate.

Seen from above, Genovés’ world gathers into crowds: small figures scattered across open grounds of colour, caught mid-motion as if time had briefly stalled. There is rarely a setting or horizon, no story to resolve what we see. Only a quiet choreography of approach and retreat, momentum and pause.

Shaped by life under the Franco regime, Genovés developed a figurative realism capable of conveying force, vulnerability, and collective will without rhetoric. From afar, the compositions are built through spacing and rhythm. Up close, the surface turns tactile: each figure is built in dense paint, thickened to the point of relief, and anchored by sharpened shadows. At times, Genovés embedded tiny fragments of fabric, stone, wire, even miniature portraits into the bodies themselves, puncturing anonymity and insisting on the individual.

These paintings do not impose a single meaning. They invite us to observe longer and find ourselves within the many. However tense the movement may feel, the crowds never become faceless. Each figure holds its place, its weight, its direction. For Genovés, the crowd is not only a measure of pressure, but also of possibility, proof that even in uncertain times, people still gather, endure, and move forward together.