"The new Ithaca of the Mediterranean" is a book illustrated with images from the permanent sculpture exhibition of Can Picafort, Son Serra de Marina and Santa Margalida that bears the same name, and includes the texts of two great writers who made Mallorca their home: "Ankaeus at the orange-grove", by Robert Graves, and the "Fable of the poet on the island", by Camilo José Cela; as well as an interview with the painter and sculptor Joan Bennàssar by Felip Munar i Munar.
Human Reasons” is my new project and the answer to the most dangerous crisis that, I believe, the human being lives: the forgetfulness of the humanities. It intends to reopen the truths based on reason, science and law; lose fear of this world in disorder; and prevent people with common sense from being slaves to those who lack it.
Author's edition that compiles the trilogy on the “Mediterranean” that the artist Joan Bennàssar has published in the last 10 years, plus his biographical book. It is composed by 4 large-format andhardcover books that collect the most notable works of his entire career, focusing especially on his last periods. The journalist and writer Antoni M. Planas y Sanjosé, Felip Munar i Munar and Maria de la Pau Janer are responsible for some of the texts in these publications: "Erotic Mallorca" - songs and sayings about love in the Balearic Islands (Catalan, Spanish and English). "The wine I drink tastes of the sea" - social history of wine in the Mediterranean (Spanish, German and English). "The rhythm of oars breaking into the sea" - history of the cultures that have lived bathed by this sea (Spanish, German and English). "Joan Bennàssar" - biography of the life and work of the artist (Spanish and Catalan).
"The rhythm of oars breaking into the sea", from 2018, closes the Mediterranean trilogy, and deals with the journey, identity and culture of the Mediterranean world. It is an attempt to underpin the common values of a mixed society with man as the central axis on which dreams and memory gravitate.
"The truth is simple" collects an interview about the personal career, vision of art and the art world of the painter and sculptor Joan Bennàssar. It has been translated into four languages (English, German, Spanish and Catalan) and its publication in 2015 is related to the sculpture exhibition "Where the waves break" on the seafront of Cala Rajada.
The wine I drink tastes of the sea” is a book about wine and the world that surrounds it. It is the second volume of the trilogy that is related to the doing, being and feeling of the Balearic people. It is the pictorial representation of the history and myths of the Mediterranean peoples. It is a work born from the mutual dependence where art is the source of knowledge and wine is a stimulus and source of inspiration.
Biography of the artist Joan Bennàssar in a bilingual edition (Catalan and Spanish) that reviews his career from 1965 to 2010, dividing his work into 19 periods. The writing, that is the result of long conversations with the journalist Antoni M. Planas, is complemented by multiple images of the paintings and sculptures of the moment it deals with.
"Mallorca Erotica" is the first book in the “Mediterranean” trilogy. It is made up of a selection of erotic poems from the Mallorcan countryside illustrated by the paintings of Joan Bennàssar. The result is a unique book that combines the most deeply rooted tradition of our land, the sung and told voice of our ancestors, with the absolute modernity of a 21st century artist. It is a book to look at and to read, it is the game of two intertwining bodies, it breathes passion.
