Contemporary artist Ramon Llinas personally promotes the Invisible Men Project, an initiative to support groups that are at risk of exclusion through art. The concept of art is difficult to define and has various points of view. We can define it as “the act or faculty by which the human being imitates or expresses and creates, copying or fantasizing, that which is material or immaterial, using matter, textures, image, sound, body expression, or, simply, provoking the imagination of those who contemplate his work». Here we define what are "Invisible Men" Through the art.
Art is difficult to define, but much more difficult to value. And it is that, being such a vocational and abstract profession, many times, the work of the artist is undervalued. However today that we are experiencing so many uncertainties of an economic nature, Art has recovered its value as investment asset. Many of the most beautiful works of art that have been created in the world and almost all the production of Contemporary art It is stored in free ports, especially in Switzerland, where there are more works of art than in museums. These free ports have containers perfectly equipped for the conservation and exhibition of these works of art and, as long as they do not leave the free port, all transactions carried out are exempt from paying taxes. Thus, the most liquid and profitable Art market is found in these free ports.
The artists, behind each painting, each performance and each work, transmit a hidden message, an important message that many times we must perceive simply by observing. The titles of the works or exhibitions are also a clue to what the artist wants to convey.
Many of the artists who have become recognized want to contribute to the world with their career their grain of sand for social peace. Among them today we highlight Ramon Llins, a Catalan painter with exhibitions on four continents and an important work of contemporary art.
Throughout his professional career, he has worked in various disciplines such as cinema, fashion, sculpture and design. She is a member of the Board of Museums of Catalonia and has held major exhibitions around the world. The last one, at the end of 2021 with the title «gave up zero» the Caja Rioja Foundation, sponsored by CaixaBank. This exhibition had great repercussion in the media and was a success with the public and critics.
Ramon Llinas's paintings combine visual force with texts that make us reflect. His messages, of a social nature, aim to awaken the conscience of the observer. Ramon Llinas advocates freedom in all aspects of society: gender equality, sexual options, thought, artistic expression...
In his paintings appear what we call «invisible men» o "abandoned spirits" that refer to the migrants who arrive in our country through the Canary Islands or through Ceuta and Melilla in small boat or jumping the fence. These migrants, when the CIES are saturated, are taken by boat or plane by the authorities to the peninsula, they do not take care of their needs, nor do they regularize their legal situation and they are abandoned to their fate.
As the southern border of the EU, Spain is the recipient of a large migratory flow. Apart from the boats and of those who jump the fence, also those who arrive by plane as fake tourists from all over Latin America. By transferring migrants to the peninsula without regularizing their legal situation, they achieve a double objective:
- In the first place, cheap labor because if a worker does not have papers, they cannot have a contract and therefore the working conditions are what the employer wants: there is no minimum wage, no social contributions, no hours, no vacations, no compensation. for dismissal, nor rights of any kind.
- Secondly, they cause this tide of "invisible men" continue their migration north and they are the ones who finally arrive at the Calais camps waiting to be able to pass into the United Kingdom, without any support or legal protection. Those who arrive in the USA from Mexico and other countries are known as dreamers.
In this group of «hshading iinvisible», also includes refugees who have to leave their countries because of the war, especially the one in Ukraine, which touches us so closely. Ramon Llinas has friends in the Ukraine and was planning to do one of his exhibitions in Lviv, one of the cities devastated by the conflict. Ramon Llinas is especially sensitive about this conflict and wants to convey in his paintings and in the messages that appear, the suffering and helplessness of these people and support them through his paintings and texts, that they want to be the "mute cries of these invisible men". With his works, he wants to give visibility to some of the social problems that most affect us.
Ramon Llins has an art collection, with its own works and those of other artists from Contemporary art and wants to promote a project to socially and occupationally integrate these groups of «invisible men» who are at clear risk of social exclusion.
The objective of art, many times, is to express an experience, an emotion or a situation to the public that observes it. Artists like Ramon Llinas, transmit an important message for our society through their paintings and reflective texts. The works of Ramon Llinas are also a way of vindicating a social need.
