STRAMBOTISM
Strambotism is an artistic movement born in 1974 in Empordà (Catalonia) through Joan Fuster i Gimpera (Torroella de Montgrí, 1917–2011), who was the philosophical founder of this new current. Fuster coined the word “Strambotism” and applied it to painting with the intention of breaking with convention and reclaiming creative freedom. Before he died, Fuster named Quim Hereu (Girona, 1963) as the “testamentary heir of Strambotism.” Hereu became the formal founder of Strambotism by reinterpreting it, fully developing it, and giving it its own theoretical, artistic, and institutional structure. He created the visual manifesto with his Strambotic Trilogy (three monumental works measuring 6 x 12 meters each). He wrote the written manifesto, which systematizes the movement’s principles, and promoted the Quim Hereu Space at the Sant Julià de Ramis Fortress, the seed of the future Museum of Strambotism, which gives it public visibility and continuity.
The Origin of Estrambotism
As a child, I spent many hours at my grandparents’ house, drawing on the floor. In Girona. I liked doing it that way, so close to the paper, and I often did it after school. I could say that space was mine, private.
Everything was soaked in a kind of domestic harmony, filled with those comforting sounds: my aunt’s voice chatting with my grandmother in the kitchen, the swallows screeching in the street, a drawer opening and the metallic clink of knives and forks being put away after drying.
After a while, as Aunt Conxita — the one with the twisted, useless finger — peeled mandarins for me to have as a snack, sitting on the sofa, she glanced sideways at me and said:
“—Why do you draw such strange pictures? Can’t you draw more normal things?”
“Strange.” Spoken almost in a whisper, mixed in with other words and half-hidden among them, that adjective reached my ears and seeped inside me, staying there forever.
Many years passed between that first time I heard it at my grandparents’ house and the day it came back — like a reminder — in Torroella de Montgrí. I was with Pere Figueres, a good friend. We were talking about everything and nothing, and between one sentence and the next, he casually dropped the word “strange.” The word echoed inside me like a gong struck loudly beside someone sleeping. And a strong smell of turpentine spread through the air, thick and unmistakable. And we know what that means.
Pere Figueres — the man of a thousand hats — knew Joan Fuster and he knew me. It was 2006. We went to Joan’s house in Torroella — not to L’Alquímia, in l’Estartit. Joan showed us paintings, musical scores, and strange objects. And he talked, explained. I just listened. And watched. I didn’t have enough eyes to take in all his work, which fascinated me.
That meeting sparked an instant friendship, built on respect and mutual understanding, and at the same time, a very deep artistic connection. Joan had published some small books, delightful ones. And there was one undeniable fact: Fuster had had the brilliant idea to coin a term for his work — Estrambotism.
Maybe it was a primitive idea, maybe still undeveloped, but it was a great invention, no doubt. If we wanted to make it big, there was still a lot of work to do. So we both got down to it. He was nearly ninety, I was just over forty. Wisdom and impulse. We both understood it as a handover — it was obvious. Our eyes lit up, like two conspirators who know they’re building something that will outlive them. Estrambotism already had one parent, but if that wasn’t enough, now it had two — or, if you prefer, it had a father and a mother.
And Time, patient and relentless, would take care of the rest: the past and the future, one half and the other, united by a single purpose.
As Ernst Gombrich notes in his The Story of Art: “great movements are rarely born from a single act of creation, but from the dialogue between one person’s intuition and another’s formulation.” Perhaps, just perhaps, those two people were Joan and me.
For five years, we shared ideas and projects with a shared goal that was gradually taking shape: to remake Estrambotism and propel it so the whole world would know it. Until in 2010, shortly before his death, Fuster made me heir to that embryonic new movement he had started.
Joan died in 2011 — nine years ago, at the time of writing these words — and so he never got to see the public launch of the project we began together. But I, for now, am still alive, with my strength and determination intact. We both knew that if we hadn’t met, the destiny of each of us — and of Estrambotism — would have been completely different.
Fragments from the Strambotic Manifesto
- Strambotism is defined as the impulse, the rauxa, that allows a person to leap across the abyss separating them from what they’ve always dreamed of doing, from becoming who they’ve always wanted to be—no matter how odd, strange, or different that may be. It’s an act of liberation, of daring to live by overcoming fear of convention and excess reason. Rauxa is its driving force.
- For now, time is finite for human beings, and that means it has immeasurable value. Three colossal paintings because I always wanted to paint pieces that big, colossal. And subjects carefully chosen to capture the essence of this new movement: Time, Power, and Freedom.
- Strambotism is unclassifiable and escapes intellectual cages because it is born from each individual’s subjectivity. Art is the mirror of our consciousness.
- At the origin of the creative act, at a wondrous epicenter, we find the subtle presence of the muses. They are ethereal beings, extremely radiant, indescribable because they are constantly changing shape. They are invisible to others and come and go at their own will—uncontrollable, infallible, precise. As precise as the orbits of a planetary system around its sun.
- They say Time doesn’t forgive what is done without it. So right now, I dedicate what I’ve been granted to nurturing Strambotism and formally founding it with the creation of its visual manifesto—the Strambotic Trilogy—and this written manifesto that completes it. And I present it to the world to complete what my friend Joan Fuster i Gimpera began. And because in doing so, I have fun, and I’m transported back to my childhood, where everything was peace, light, and silence…
Testament of Strambotism
And on an ordinary day, in an ordinary year — while old women were selling vegetables at the market and the flies were falling in love with their saint — I got a phone call. It was Fuster. His voice left no room for doubt:
“I need to tell you something important. It’s urgent. Can you come?”
I was in my workshop, and without thinking too much, I put down what I was working on. When a friend tells you it’s urgent, you don’t ask why. You go. I got in the car and headed toward l’Estartit. It’s always been a pleasure to go there, but that day the road felt clearer, purer, as if the air itself wanted to tell me something. It was one of those afternoons that only the Catalan autumn knows how to offer. The sun lit everything up in an almost unreal way, as if trying to make us forget that death is always waiting for us — patient, infallible — behind every corner.
I arrived at L’Alquímia and opened the small red door with white letters I knew so well. I climbed the four steps that turned to the right, and there he was — Fuster — seated in front of his easel, as always, at the back of the small studio. A brilliant white light was pouring in through the wide-open window overlooking the harbor.
“—Good morning, Joan.”
He didn’t return the greeting, which was unlike him. But I immediately understood his mind was occupied with what he wanted to tell me. He was getting straight to the point.
“—Sit down, sit down, Quim, please. I need to tell you something important.”
He adjusted his glasses and began reading a piece of paper he held in his hands. When he finished, he looked me in the eyes and continued:
“—… I’m going to die soon. I’m making you the heir of Estrambotism.”
Then he handed it to me.
It was a poem.
A poem in the form of a will.
Testament of Strambotism
Your premonitory name
announces a testament
that I, as a conscious father,
want to take out of the drawer.
You are heir from this moment on
to an -ism with a heritage
of estrambotic visionary,
an ideal with no precedent.
Joan Fuster i Gimpera – To my dear friend and great painter Quim Hereu
November 2010
*“Rauxa” is a Catalan word that describes a sudden rush of passion or unstoppable impulse. It’s that wild burst of energy or emotion that pushes someone to act boldly, without overthinking — driven by instinct, excitement, or pure gut feeling. Sometimes it shows up as creative fire, other times as fearless action. It’s all about letting go and going all in.