BARCELONA.- The title of the exhibition is a reference to Bimbo, one of the several cats Paul Klee (1879–1940) had as pets in his lifetime, and which he photographed with genuine devotion. This fascination is connected to Klee's admiration for felines as animals that do not suffer from the same gravitational limitations as humans. Likewise, a dancer's body can achieve some of the cat's qualities in terms of movement that are beyond most people.
In fact, Bimbo belonged to Karla Grosch, a dancer and Bauhaus teacher who lived with the Klee family in Dessau. Grosch tragically died in 1933 and the Klees took in their friend's cat.
Nora Baylach (Granollers, 1994) has studied Klee's cat photos and taken them as inspiration for a street photo session in Barcelona, devoted to a single cat: an anonymous animal with white fur, like Bimbo, and with different-coloured eyes.
To portray this new Bimbo, Baylach returned to analogue technology, well aware that rolls of film are practically impossible to find and are not to be wasted. This decision led her to calculate carefully how to use the film available and choose just the right moment, which meant prolonged waiting, enabling her to study the animal's movements carefully, get close to it and get to know it as if it were a natural model. The result is a sequence of eighteen pictures, some of which recall the numerous drawings Klee made of his cats.
Nora Baylach (Granollers, 1994) is a dancer, creator, contemporary dance teacher and photographer of the performing arts. Without a traditional academic training, Baylach studied in the Àrea Espai de Dansa i Creació in Barcelona and began her performing career as part of the Producció Nacional de Dansa de Catalunya, choreographed by Thomas Noone and Roser López Espinosa, with whom she continues to work regularly. Alongside this, Baylach works with different companies and independent artists such as La Taimada, Ana Borrosa, Laia Santanach and Animal Religion, among others. Interested in pedagogy and teaching, she is part of educational projects linked to Roca Umbert Fàbrica de les Arts and at Graner Centre de Creació de Dansa i Arts Vives, as well as teaching at the Institut del Teatre and Àrea. As a creator, since 2016 Baylach has worked on several stage productions of her own, including Madre, T-shirt, T-shit, Teixit and Òxid. Moreover, at the online creative space La Vertical, Baylach synthesises photography and movement in photographic projects specialising in contemporary dance, circus, performance and new drama.
The Fundació Joan Miró has curated photography exhibitions in its Foyer since 2012. On the basis of an agreement with the heirs of Joaquim Gomis and the Catalan government, the foundation manages the Gomis archive, as well as publicising its contents and fostering study of his work. To this end Gomis' work is exhibited on a temporary basis, alternating it with that of other creative talents who have practised photography on an amateur basis.
