Vicenç Altaió's memory is in his library
BarcelonaIf you search on the internet where the poet and art critic was born Vicenç Altaió, you will find that it was in Santa Perpetua de Mogoda. However, if you have the opportunity to ask him directly, he will answer that he is the son of "the Sainte du Mouvement Perpétuel", a free translation that I think best reflects his personality.
I say this after having seen Dry stone library, which is not a documentary but rather an artistic poetic essay, which is what its director, Joan Vall Karsunke, wanted to make, centered around the world of Vicenç Altaió and his personal library, which consists of some 30,000 volumes. Vall says that the first time he entered Altaió's house, he almost fainted from the shock. Also, because of the way they were arranged, alphabetically, with great discipline and, at the same time, with a great passion for literature and authors, which Vall says could be immediately perceived, and which also permeates the film. The director began going to film the library and realized that things were happening there, also because of how Altaió interacted with his friends. From there, they began to film encounters, which Vall presented as something performative. In the film, we can see him passing through his house. Biel Mezquida, who is reading behind a table where Altaió is lying. Here, he is dressed: on the day of Frederic Amat's visit, he is lying face down on the same table, and the artist is drawing, with a thick marker, his library on his back, where we find the order he mentioned in the Karsun Valley. Our territory, made of stones stacked very carefully, without cement. It seemed to him that the stones were like books, and what a lovely idea to relate the durability of stone with that of books. of what has been read and learned, but at the same time, it is a way of giving it permanence, through the physical, which is the world of the book, what is printed on paper, in the brains of other readers who may come in the future."
It is a generous idea, that of preserving Altaió is a lived space, an accumulation of moments that give us a glimpse of a very extraordinary life. There is a sensational moment, in which she opens a box and notebooks, diaries, plane tickets, a slide with John Cage from 1985 begin to appear... In addition to the friends who have participated in the film Laia Estruch, Altaió preserves books by friends and admired authors who have passed away, such as JV Foix, Tàpies, Brossa, Palau and Fabre or Joan VinyoliFrom the latter, take a volume of the Complete poetry, and reads the dedication that the poet, a great friend of his, made to him. One of the things he says to him is "You have your whole life ahead of you, I have death in the corner." Altaió, as we see in the film, has a lot of life ahead of him, especially rich in the previous life that it contains, and that the film conveys so well. Wisdom, generosity, a touch of brilliant eccentricity and the perpetual motion that accompanies you since birth.