From Rodoreda to Espriu: the eternal smiles captured by Antoni Bernad

BarcelonaWhen Antoni Bernad's camera spoke, it was as if an angel had passed by. Magic had happened; something had ethereally transformed reality, always so subjective. Antoni Bernad acts on us like a seductive magician. First, he envelops you in a layer of bizarre flattery, and when he has you disarmed, naked, he clicks. Then the angel that accompanies us all emerges, the essential and intimate moment we carry hidden, the hidden treasure we often don't even know we're keeping. Many of the smiles you'll see in this report are stolen, snatched away by the photographic wand of an artist with a gift: that of provocative sympathy.

We chose smiles. We could also have let ourselves be enchanted by lost glances, by fears, by loneliness. But smiles predominate in the universe of the photographer and the man, and with them we celebrate the joy of living that so defines Antoni Bernad, capable of capturing beauty in every gesture, in every packaging, in every knowledge. His camera, his eye, is the extension of a heart that beats free and curious, playful and uninhibited. Indiscreet, that is how he sees invisible things in us. That is how he plays, until he cages us in a spontaneous eternal image.

Antoni Bernad loves photography as much as he loves life, as much as he loves his friends, those who are here and those who have passed away: Beth Galí, Antoni Llena, Laura Ponte, Oriol Bohigas, Elsa Peretti, Antoni Tàpies, Gae Aulenti, Maye Maier, Ricard Bofill, Miu... his subjects have easily become close people, long-lasting relationships. He never leaves anyone indifferent. He's an angel, someone who walks a few centimeters elevated, who moves in an unknown dimension. He is and he isn't. He flies over us, he liberates us, he makes us uncomfortable. And ultimately, he humanizes us.

Can a photograph, a work of art, be told? For years, Antoni Bernad has been sharing, orally and with humor, the incredible stories of five decades behind the camera (1960-2010) as a fashion and portrait photographer, succulent anecdotes that reveal his innate ability to provoke and capture glances and moments that transcend us. Now, he's finally compiled them in a book published by Blume, a memoir that brings together more than 200 images, many of them annotated, a whole continuity of genuine expression, with cinema as the great inspiring reference: "My photos owe more to impressions received from cinema than from fashion," he says. A subtle effort to pursue always scapular interiorities.

In the prologue to the work, the artist and inseparable companion Antoni Llena speaks of the three elements that give character to Antoni Bernad's photography: "Variety, naturalness and taste", elements with which he has managed to avoid the easy "morbid attraction" of all creative activity when one lets oneself be carried away by stereotypes and false sensualities. And the art historian Josep Casamartina sees in the photographer's work an "elegance and discretion" that is not always exactly what magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, Elle and so many others for which he has worked.

Here, then, is an Antoni Bernad who reveals to the general public the circumstances and chances that surrounded some of his iconic photographs.