The Unicaja Foundation Joaquín Peinado Museum in Ronda hosts the exhibition 'The Poacher of the Stars' by the artist Xavier

Ronda/The Unicaja Joaquín Peinado Foundation Museum in Ronda inaugurates the exhibition of the artist Xavier, 'The Poacher of the Stars', which displays a series composed of more than forty works, including paintings, drawings, ceramics, engravings, and a sculpture reflecting the poetic universe of the Franco-Spanish creator, great-nephew of Pablo Picasso.

The head of Visual Arts, Emilia Garrido; the professor of Painting at the University of Málaga and curator, Salvador Haro González, and the artist Xavier have presented this exhibition which, after its debut at the Unicaja Foundation Cultural Center in Antequera, arrives at the Ronda museum where it can be visited until April 26, 2025.

The exhibition travels through the characters and representations of the artist, among which abound references to celestial bodies, especially the moon and the stars, in a series started about ten years ago that constitutes a tribute to his workmate, the poetess Andrée Chedid, on the centenary of her birth.

Among the characters that populate Xavier's creative idearium we find the protagonist of the exhibition, the braconnier des étoiles (the poacher of the stars), a collector of stars dressed in a kind of robe who captures and keeps in his sack stars or rays of light, a very characteristic theme of the Xavierian universe. Xavier's art is based on execution, confronting materials, in a process in which the artist travels through his imagination to meet the characters that populate his works, among which we find "the Fisherman and his fish friend", "the Night Gardener", "the Night Watchman", "the Starfish Spinner", or "the Little Girl with a Lantern", the latter being the protagonist of a play by Xavier along with the poacher of the stars. Xavier's work has a strong presence of the narrative, with works that tell a story with a certain dreamlike sense.

Some of the works produced within this series have been part of important solo exhibitions in spaces such as the Atelier Clot, Bramsen & Co. in Paris; Joan Gaspar Gallery and the Llorens Artigas Foundation (Gallifa), in Barcelona; the Museum of Contemporary Spanish Engraving in Marbella or the Portuguese Center of Serigraphy in Lisbon. Or, more recently, 'El Jardin Circonflexe', held in 2023 at the Historical Botanical Garden of La Concepción in Málaga, which had the collaboration of the Unicaja Foundation.

The Artist

Xavier (Boulogne-Billancourt, 1958) is a multidisciplinary Franco-Spanish artist. He comes from a family deeply connected to the art world. He is the son of Javier Vilató, grandson of Elie Lascaux, nephew of José Fín, great-nephew of Pablo Picasso, and of the avant-garde art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler.

Since 1975 he has developed a significant artistic career characterized by the importance of the manual in the work, addressing techniques as diverse as painting, engraving, lithography, ceramics, sculpture, theater, or cinema, which has brought his work to major cities in countries such as France, Portugal, Japan, Switzerland, the United States, or Spain.