Vicenç Altaió (Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, Vallès Occidental, 1954) is a poet, essayist, art critic, publisher, opinion columnist, cultural agitator, and trafficker of ideas.

He is the author of a major, wide-ranging, interdisciplinary, literary and artistic oeuvre which includes poetry collections with titles ranging from Sempre som afany (1979), Correspondències com conspiracions (1980), and Biathànatos o l'elogi del suïcidi (1982), through to the collection Massa fosca (Poesia 1978-2004) (2004). He later published the titles Santa Follia de Ser Càntic. A Joan Vinyoli (2005), which was awarded the Vicent Andrés Estellés Prize in 2005 and the Cadaqués - Quima Jaume Prize in recognition of poetic creation in 2006, and Radicals lliures (2017). He has published a large number of art books, working with artists. These include La dona és Mallarmé (1982), Groc, el ventríloc, o la indigestió de la veu (1984), La llengua suspesa (1986), Àfrica (1989), Amor latent: ella era ell (1990), L’art pot morir (1993), Europa (1994), Aqua et tempus (1996), Incendis (1999), Les hores de l’or (2003), Déu, ciència i llibertat (2006) and Per_Cromwell (2018), and art books and studies, among them Jordi Benito: idees com a imatges, documents com a obres d'art (2015), and Miró i els poetes catalans (2016).

With J. M. Sala-Valldaura he has published the studies and anthologies Les darreres tendències de la poesia catalana (1980), and Mig segle de poesia catalana. Del Maig del 68 al 2018 (2018); with Daniel Giralt-Miracle, the book Visualkultur.cat: art, disseny, llibres (2007); and with Julià Guillamon, La revolta poètica, 1964-1982 (2012). Vicenç Altaió is author of the series Tràfic d’idees, an autobiography without a subject and with aesthetics as its moral. The series consists of the titles Tràfic d'idees (1986), L'escriptura sense llançadora (1997), La Desconeguda (1997), La dificultat (1999), Desglossari d'un avantguardista (2000), Els germans. Retrats d’artistes (2002), El cervell i les venes (2005), La consola de Cadaqués o somnis d’un fill putatiu... (2007), Un sereno en el cementiri de l’art (2011), and Un traficant d’idees a les fronteres de l’art (2013).

Together with his literary production Vicenç Altaió is also engaged in very important work as a curator and director of exhibitions, and as creator and editor of publications like Tarotdequinze (1975-1978), Èczema (1978-84), Àrtics (1985-90), and Cave Canis (1995-1999). He has been director of the KRTU (Culture, Research, Technology, Universal) centre (1990-2008) and of Arts Santa Mònica, Arts-Ciència-Comunicació (Arts-Science-Communication) from 2009 to 2013.

He is a member of the Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC – Association of Catalan Language Writers).

Web page: Toni Terrades for AELC.
Documentation: Vicenç Altaió.
Photographs from the biography: Author’s personal files.
Cover photograph: © Carles Mercader.
Translation: Julie Wark.