Three Spanish Artists
An exhibition of three Spanish artists, two sculptors (Susana Solano and Miquel Navarro) and one painter (José María Sicilia).
This exhibition of three Spanish artists was organised in collaboration with the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores and the Ministerio de Cultura in Madrid. Miquel Navarro (b.1945) showed a single work entitled La Ciudad (The City). From elements of zinc and terracotta, Navarro constructed an installation that served as a model for an imaginary city but which equally existed as a dispersed sculpture. Navarro’s city was silent and empty of human presence.
The pictures in the exhibition by José María Sicilia (b.1954) all dated from 1984, when he was responding to the cityscapes of Paris and Madrid. Television aerials, buildings, buckets, and brooms featured as motifs; the colours were predominantly ochres, greys, blacks, and rusts. The works that featured in the exhibition were Edificio de España Gris (Grey Spanish Building), Estación de Montaña TV 4 (Mountain TV 4 Station), Antena TV 1 (TV 1 Antenna), and Netoyage 2 (Cleaning 2).
Susana Solano (b.1946) displayed eight works made from beaten iron. Several echoed building forms, especially citadels, where architecture and rock become inseparable. Austere and lean in execution, the sculptures were what Solano called a “search for silence”. The sculptures on display included Mozárabe (Mozarabs, 1986), Serie La Lluna No.2 (Moon Series No.2, 1985), and Colinas Huecas No.15 (Hollow Hills No.15, 1985).
The exhibition coincided with the State Visit by the King of Spain, and ran concurrently with Dobles Figuras, an exhibition of four Spanish painters presented by the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
