Taking travel photos across England, Spain, France & Morroco out of context, I put together the edition of this conceptual narration. Beware Of The Dog is the journey to maturity, the transition in which desire, the idea of death, and the scars caused by the passing of time all appear. These concepts replace the space that fiction occupies when we are children, with “reality”, and awareness of the adult world. But where are the boundaries between the physical and the spiritual, between tangibility and faith, between fear and trust? And how far can we appeal to fantasy to fill the void of the inexplicable and the unknown? The loss of innocence means realizing whether or not your fears are really yours or other people’s, and whether your imagination is going to keep on saving you or not.

AWARDS
– Voies Off Award Arles, 2018 – shortlisted
– PHOTO IS:RAEL, 2018 – selected
– Athens Photo Festival 2019 – selected
– VI AFTM Photography Grant, 2017 – winner

PRESS
– “Beware of the dog is an enigmatic book. We will have to turn it around, moving it in a circular way to make us feel uncomfortable, alert to that confrontation with reality, with the facts, with what it implies to grow and experiment. [ ] But does the passing of time make us face fear? That is exactly what Llovet does with his camera, to defend himself from that fear, from that restlessness, from that passage from the naive and innocent to our shadows and our most intimate fears.” Francisca Pageo / Détour – Read the article (in Spanish)
– “Alex Llovet has a superb sense of all that has befallen us. His images take us on quite a trip through the eyes of children, traveling through our subconscious as it manifests itself in our collective reality. [ ] Alex Llovet has created a strong project that uses art as a forceful vehicle to make us reflect on what is now and what might come next.” Gerhard Clausing / PhotoBook Journal – Read the article
– “Beware of the dog tells us about fears, those we feel when we are children, those we feel when we are adults, those we feel when we are parents, in short, those that we feel through all ages of life, but have the consistency of reality making us alive. Alex’s book brings no more answers than he asks questions, he simply and gently poses moments that he gives us to contemplate. [ ] The images, individually, are beautifully crafted, but, put end to end, side by side, forward, backward, it allows us to enter the intimacy of Alex Llovet. Not in a voyeuristic intimacy that would not interest us, but rather closer to the feelings, and then “Beware of the dog” is not so scary, we are warned and then we become attentive…” Christer Ek / Who needs another photo blog – Read the article
– Ilias Lois / Velvet Eyes – Read the interview

ENG

Year 2011. In a context of a global economic crisis 
partly caused by banks, they began a process of massive 
closure of their offices characterized by painting 
their crystals white before leaving the place. The 
windows became opaque, an ironic metaphor for the way 
many financial institutions work. The white color, in 
western culture traditionally associated with values 
such as purity and beauty, acquired in this case a 
negative value.
BLANK is the result of 6 years of work, including 
photographs made by Josep Maria de Llobet between 
2013 and 2014 in the city of Barcelona. After being 
exhibited at the DOCfield 2016 and Revela-T 2017 
Photography festivals, and after going through various 
editing processes, we are very proud to publish this 
body of work in the form of a limited edition 
collector's book-object.


ESP

Año 2011. En un contexto de crisis económica global 
provocada en buena parte por los bancos, éstos iniciaron 
un proceso de cierre masivo de oficinas caracterizado por 
el hecho de pintar de color blanco los cristales, antes 
de abandonar el lugar. De esa forma las ventanas se 
volvieron opacas, irónica metáfora de la forma en que 
funcionan muchas entidades financieras. El color blanco, 
asociado tradicionalmente en la cultura occidental a 
valores como la pureza y la belleza, adquiría en este 
caso un valor negativo.
BLANK es el resultado de 6 años de trabajo y parte de 
imágenes realizadas por Josep Maria de Llobet entre 
2013 y 2014 en la ciudad de Barcelona. Tras ser expuesto 
en los festivales DOCfield 2016 y Revela-T 2017, y tras 
pasar por diversos procesos de edición, estamos muy 
orgullosos de publicar el trabajo en forma de un 
libro-objeto de coleccionista en edición limitada.

ENG

On March 14, 2020, the Spanish government decreed the 
State of Alarm for the second time since the approval 
of the current constitution in 1978. It was the response 
to a pandemic caused by COVID-19 and implied strict 
confinement of the entire population, forcing citizens 
to stay locked up in their homes. They could only go out 
on the street the essential time to acquire food and 
medicine, attend emergencies and, in some specific cases, 
go to their workplace.
This extraordinary measure came into force on the same 
day at 23:48 and was active until May 3, the date on 
which the conditions of the quarantine began to relax.
Over the following weeks, this forced confinement caused 
an increase in anxiety in a large part of the population.
The photographer Oscar Ciutat took the 49 photographs 
from this serie between March 16 and May 3 from a small 
balcony of his Barcelona apartment as a reaction to the 
stress derived from the sum of this confinement and the 
constant informative bombardment around the pandemic. 
By doing so, Oscar turned the daily gesture of looking 
at the sky into a small act of resistance and hope.

«Friable, fluid, rocky, flammable and volatile stretches 
of sky, specks of sky, gusts of sky, heaps of sky. Sky is 
omnipresent, even in darkness under the skin.» 
- Wislawa Szymborska, Sky


ESP

El 14 de marzo de 2020 el gobierno español decretó el 
Estado de Alarma por segunda vez desde la aprobación de 
la actual constitución en 1978. Fue la respuesta a una 
pandemia provocada por el COVID-19 e implicaba un 
confinamiento estricto de toda la población, obligando 
a los ciudadanos a mantenerse encerrados en sus domicilios. 
Solo podían salir a la calle el tiempo imprescindible para 
adquirir alimentos y medicinas, atender emergencias y, en 
algunos casos concretos, acudir al lugar de trabajo.
Esta medida extraordinaria entró en vigor el mismo día ‪a 
las 23:48‬ y estuvo vigente hasta el 3 de mayo, fecha en la 
que empezaron a relajarse las condiciones de la cuarentena. ‬
A lo largo de las siguientes semanas, este encierro obligado 
provocó un aumento de la ansiedad en buena parte de la 
población.
El fotógrafo Oscar Ciutat realizó las 49 fotografías de 
esta serie entre el 16 de marzo y el 3 de mayo desde un 
pequeño balcón de su piso barcelonés como reacción al 
estrés derivado de la suma de dicho confinamiento y del 
constante bombardeo informativo en torno a la pandemia. 
De esta manera Oscar convirtió el gesto cotidiano de mirar 
al cielo en un pequeño acto de resistencia y esperanza.

«Áridas, fluidas, rocosas, inflamadas y volátiles extensiones 
de cielo, migajas de cielo, bocanadas y montones de cielo. 
El cielo está omnipresente hasta en la oscuridad bajo la piel.» 
– Wislawa Szymborska, El cielo