MANOLO VALDÉS
MONUMENTALES ÉGÉRIES
Avenue
George V - Paris
15 October 2020 - 15 January 2021
To celebrate the second edition of George V Monumental, an
open
air exhibition
on the prestigious Parisian avenue organised by the Comité George V in partnership with
Opera Gallery Paris,
Manolo Valdés offers us a sculpture trail featuring ten monumental works, designed as
an
ode to matter and
to the female portrait genre. The delicate but gigantic icons, with their various
colours
and textures
dialogue perfectly with the Avenue's elegant sandstone Haussmann-style buildings.
Whether it
be his
emblematic Meninas, a tribute to Velázquez,
here in
four different
translucid colours reminiscent of precious stones or his giant feminine heads bearing
majestic crowns of
butterflies or foliage, these monumental muses enhance the enchantment of their
surroundings.
MANOLO VALDÉS
Cabeza de Mariposas (Green patina)2018
Bronze
447 x 460 x 259 cm
176 x 181 x 102 in
MANOLO VALDÉS
Ariela2011
Painted aluminium
305 x 294 x 150 cm
120.1 x 116 x 59.1 in
MANOLO VALDÉS
Triple Butterfly2019
Aluminium
310 x 338 x 203 cm
122 x 133 x 80 in
Fascinated by the properties of different materials, the artist gives them life in a
unparalleled way.
Aluminium, bronze, resin and stainless steel are shaped to perfection to redefine the
portraiture of women. The
exhibition, titled Manolo Valdés,
Monumentales Égeries is a true ode to femininity. These stylised heads,
adorned with crowns and headdresses are women, Muses. All seem caught in a moment of
absolute serenity.
Valdés' sculptures offer a very human, very humane
and
new apprehension of monumental sculpture.
Here there is not a
relationship of power, with the artwork towering over the viewer, but rather a conversation,
an endless
interaction between the sculpture, the viewer, and the environement.
MANOLO VALDÉS
Reina Mariana2019
Aluminium
279 x 216 x 168 cm
110 x 58 x 66 in
MANOLO VALDÉS
Mariposas2019
Aluminium
316 x 670 x 250 cm
124.4 x 263.8 x 98.4 in
Valdés interprets the History of Art, and pays tribute to the great Classical masters such
as Velázquez, El
Greco, Picasso, Matisse, Brancusi… His Contemporary pieces are a bridge between History and
our present. To
celebrate this exhibition on the Avenue George V, the artist specially designed a sculpture
of Clio, the Antic
Muse of History, created after Sandro Botticelli’s own Clio.
MANOLO VALDÉS
Clio White,2020
Aluminium
385 x 645 x 248 cm
151.6 x 253.9 x 97.6 in
MANOLO VALDÉS
Infanta Margarita Black2020
Resin with pigment
210 x 165 x 120 cm
82.7 x 65 x 47.2 in
“Art of each era always gathers elements from the past; Art is
a succession and an eternal addition”.
Manolo Valdés
MANOLO VALDÉS
Infanta Margarita violet,2020
Resin with pigment
210 x 165 x 120 cm
82.7 x 65 x 47.2 in
MANOLO VALDÉS
Infanta Margarita Blue2020
Resin with pigment
210 x 165 x 120 cm
82.7 x 65 x 47.2 in
MANOLO VALDÉS
Infanta Margarita Orange2020
Resin with pigment
210 x 165 x 120 cm
82.7 x 65 x 47.2 in
One of the most internationally established Contemporary Spanish painter, sculptor and
draughtsman, Manolo
Valdés (born in Valencia, 1942) began his career in the 1960s as one of the founding
members of Equipo Crónica, a group of artists
who took inspiration from Pop Art
to challenge the Spanish dictatorship of Franco and the History of Art itself. When the
movement ended in
1981, he continued his own artistic exploration centered on the appropriation and
reinterpretation of
masterpieces. He has developed an individual style that reviews History without
detracting from the original
subject. Quoting figures from well-known works of art, Valdés revitalises these familiar
images by taking
them out of their original context. The timelessness of the image as the axis of the
visual experience is
the determining factor in his creations.
Valdés has had numerous solo and group shows internationally in galleries and museums
alike and his work is
part of prestigious private and public collections, notably the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York; the
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; the de Young
Museum of San Francisco;
the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy; the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg,
Germany; the Menil
Foundation, Houston, Texas; the Modern Museet Art, Stockholm, Sweden; the Museo Nacional
Centre de Arte
Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas and the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston,
Massachusetts among others. He currently lives and work between Madrid, Spain and New
York city, USA.