Books are much more than just an object. Its content is capable of housing infinite universes, of being an inexhaustible source of knowledge and transporting us to real and unreal places where the imagination reigns, from another time, from another dimension. It has been shed blood because of the books; there has been prohibition, censorship, repression and annihilation. They have also opened doors to freedom, exchange, tolerance and knowledge. Such is the power of a book, which has become an object of worship. Who has not opened a new book in a bookstore and smelled its pages? We like to read them, see them on our shelves, order them, leave them open face down, carry them in the bag, read them on the subway, lend them, ask for them, return them, and give them a second life. And this same passion is shared by many artists who make books their raw material of work.

The artist Schaduwlichtje is able to transform printed pages based on folds. This way, he manages to create these amazing sculptures with no need for scissors. This Dutch mathematician began working on paper when he joined the bookstore Books4life as a volunteer in 2013.

Other authors focus on taking advantage of the outside of the books for their compositions. This is the case of Mike Stilkey, an artist who works with used and discarded copies to create huge walls of stacked books on which he applies paint to create his works. Sometimes, the colour of the cover determines the type of piece you are going to draw. His compositions are intriguing and overwhelming.

For his part, Jonathan Callan reuses magazines, fanzines and books as the main element. His works give a second life to these materials eliminating references to their original use so that he bends the leaves and curves the covers to get some abstract compositions with shapes that remind us of the organic structures of the coral or the way lichen grows in the bark of the trees.

The work of Alicia Martín is well known. She has been using books in large-format sculptures for years to create proposals with enormous visual impact. In the form of a waterfall that springs from a window or as a huge spiral that imitates a whirlpool of water, her pieces surprise and charm equally.

Much more subtle is the work of Beatriz Díaz Ceballos. Her work is based on the written word, and she uses books as an infinite source of printed texts from which words sprout in waterfalls. Her proposals resemble allegories of a fairy-tale that refer us to images of fantasy and reverie.

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.