Javier Inés, the photograph before the Olympic city

PalmThere are names that become part of a city's history, even if they've remained silent for years. The name of photographer Javier Inés is one of them, not because he was a marginal figure, but precisely the opposite: because for a time he was fully integrated into the creative Barcelona of the 1980s, photographing it from within, and because his career was abruptly cut short when he still had so much to say. Today, as his work is being exhibited again in Pollença, in the Cloister of Sant Domingo until April 6, we wonder why a photographer like him disappeared from the scene for decades.

Javier Inés was born in Zaragoza in 1956 and died in Barcelona in 1991, at just 35 years old, a victim of AIDS. At that time, the disease was still an almost certain death sentence, and with his passing, a career that was just beginning to take shape was also lost. Inés not only died young, but he did so just as the city he had photographed was preparing to take a definitive leap toward Olympic modernity.

Before that, Javier Inés had already made his mark. He wasn't unknown. He published in magazines like Ajoblanco, The Vanguard, Living in Barcelona either Front LineHis portraits circulated at a time when photography played a central role in shaping cultural imaginaries and trends. He photographed artists, architects, designers, and politicians, but also nightlife figures, people who didn't usually occupy prestigious spaces. His photography made no distinctions.

Before she died, Inés asked her partner, Juanjo Rotger, not to scatter her archive. To keep it safe, to take care of those photographs because, one day, someone would know how to look at them. Rotger kept that promise. First in the apartment they shared in Barcelona, ​​then in his house in Port de Pollença. For decades, he preserved a collection of more than 10,000 images. Without haste. Without knowing when—or even if—they would ever leave their boxes.

Photographing from within

To understand Javier Inés, you have to understand the Barcelona he photographed. It's not the city of postcards, nor the one of the institutional narrative following the Olympic Games. It's a Barcelona before, nocturnal, contradictory, creative, a city that hadn't yet fully settled into order. A city where culture, celebration, and precariousness coexisted.

Inés didn't observe this city from the outside. He was part of the same circles he portrayed. He worked as a waiter in places like KGB, Universal, and Distrito Distinto, key venues in Barcelona's 1980s nightlife. There, he observed, talked, listened, and then photographed. This explains an important part of his style: intimacy. His images have no distance or moral superiority. They don't judge, they don't ridicule, they don't exaggerate marginality.

Colita, also a photographer, who knew him and was key in the recovery of his work, summed it up very clearly: Javier Inés knew how to photograph Barcelona underground "Without poking fun at them." That is, without gratuitously provoking anyone, without turning his subjects into caricatures. This is one of the defining characteristics of his work: respect.

A wide variety of figures passed before his camera. From characters from the Raval nightlife, like the prostitute Mónica, to writers, artists, and politicians like Pasqual Maragall, all part of a city that was beginning to believe in itself. All are photographed with the same interest, with the same attention to gesture, to gaze, to the moment.

Inés was looking for something more than just a proper portrait. He said it himself: he wasn't content with simply taking a photograph; he wanted to go further, to bring forth a mystery, something magical. This is especially noticeable in his black and white portraits, but also in his color work, particularly that which he did in Ibiza, where light and bodies acquire another dimension.

The exhibition now on display in Pollença showcases this diversity: black and white photographs of 1980s Barcelona, ​​color images taken between Barcelona and Ibiza, works related to ballet, photocollages, and a significant section dedicated to the nightlife scenes of the KGB and the Universal Hotel. Personal objects, such as his first camera, are also on display, helping to construct a more intimate narrative.

Colita, the archive, and the future that never was

For many years, Javier Inés's work remained outside the art world. Not for lack of quality, but because no one had championed him. The turning point came when Colita alerted gallery owner Rocío Santa Cruz to the existence of this archive. From then on, his recovery process began. Santa Cruz, specializing in the dissemination of historical photographic archives and the rediscovery of forgotten artists, understood the value of Inés's collection. And his work began circulating again in spaces like Paris Photo and ARCO, repositioning him within the narrative of contemporary Spanish photography. Not as a curiosity, but as an artist with his own distinct presence.

Colita put it bluntly: if Javier Inés hadn't died so young, he would be a classic today. A benchmark. His career was cut short just as it was beginning to solidify, which explains why his name didn't carry on. But his work is there. And it endures.

The Pollença exhibition, in this sense, has a strong symbolic value. Not only because it displays photographs, but because it brings things full circle. It is in Pollença where the archive has been stored for years, and it is where it now comes to light once again. The director of the Pollença Museum, Andreu Aguiló, recalled at the exhibition's presentation that one of the main functions of museums is precisely this: to give visibility to works that deserve it and that, for various reasons, have remained out of the spotlight. For the next few months, the cloister of Sant Domingo will host an exhibition that looks to the past not with nostalgia, but with a desire for understanding.

To observe Javier Inés's photographs today is also to think about all that could have been. About a career that didn't have time to fully mature. About a perspective that today would be essential to understanding where we come from. Perhaps he didn't live to see the recognition he deserved. But his images, finally, have spoken again.