The poet, video artist and cultural agitator Ester Xargay died a few days ago, at the age of 63, after a long battle against cancer. Xargay stood out for his experimental will and for his research in the audiovisual field, and especially for his public side with recitals that brought together the poets of the moment and those of later times. She was born in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, but grew up in France, where she retained an exotic accent, and returned at the age of 18 to study Art History and embark on a career as a poet and audiovisual producer.
His work, whether in the form of a poem, action, or audiovisual, always free, plays with language and is transgressive in its forms, with books of poems such as The Buried Angels (Cafè Central, 1990), Trencasons (Llibres del Segle, 2002) or Desintegrar-se (Meteora, 2019), with which he won the Cadaqués prize for Rosa Leveroni.
Much of his work was written with Carles Hac Mor, such as the play Tirant lo Blanc la, or La perfección és facista, or La construcción del socialisme (Entreacte, Editorial AADPC, 2000), the novel Carabassa a tot drap, or Love free, use and abuse (Pagès Editors, 2001), or the poetry books Epitom infra un o no (Ombres de poemes de Marcel Duchamp) (Pagès, 1997) or Zooflèxia (the truest bestiary of all) (March Editor, 2007).
His documentary The Working Group received the Espais award for art critics in 2000, and was featured in several DVDs such as Videopoesia catalana del segle XX, by the Habitual Video Team – with the long-lost Lis Costa and Josep M. Jordana– (Propost.org, 2001) and participated in initiatives such as the CD-Rom Paraparèmies, displacements, reifications…, with Adolf Alcañiz, Barbara Held and Carles Hac Mor, and which in 1999 received the Navarre audiovisual creation award. He also collaborated in numerous publications, such as Avui, Papers d’Art, Reduccions, Transversal, Talp Club, Sense Títol or Barcelona Review.
But to say all this is to explain nothing, if we do not talk about how, first doing a duet with Carles Hac Mor, and alone after the death of his partner, he gathered around him for years a flock of art poets, of letter, of voice and of action that he hoped to do. You don’t know who pushed who, but she was always there. Whether they were poets who were already accomplished, such as Víctor Sunyol, Enric Casasses or Dolors Miquel, or those who were just starting out, transversal and in(inter)disciplinary such as David Ymbernon, Meritxell Cucurella-Jorba, Eduard Escoffet, Josep Pedrals, Núria Martínez-Vernis, Martí Sales, Francesc Gelonch, Miquel Àngel Marín or Eduard Carmona and many, many others felt how his breath gave them wings. Recited magazines, walks, walks, cycles at the extinct Metronome, now here or there, later when they coordinated the cycle “Poesia als parcs de la Diputació de Barcelona” or, already alone, the last few years, directing the new equipment La Pahissa del Marquet, in the natural park of Sant Llorenç del Munt i l’Obac. He also co-directed Barcelona Poesia, first with David Castillo and then as a trio with Eduard Escoffet and Martí Sales.
Everything he organized was open, integrating well-known, emerging names or simply whoever wanted to sign up, because he believed that art is for everyone and from everyone. Cultural law, we would call it now. And always with a smile, reciting with a laugh and even singing.
After a long process of illness, on December 1st he still presented a paper at the International Congress of Postmodern Catalan Literature at the University of Barcelona: Literature and the art of my time. Of a time that is also and will be ours.
