Manolo Valdes

MANOLO VALDÉS (Valencia, 1942).
"Dialogue of ladies", 2006.
Bronze.
Measurements: 17 x 3 x 8 cm (x3).
This sculptural group of Valdés is part of the project "La Dama de Barajas", an artistic proposal that brings together three female busts in bronze on wooden bases, accompanied by a publication conceived by Mario Vargas Llosa and Valdés himself, in which the poems are in close dialogue with the sculptures. The set incorporates photographs of Morgana and is presented in a carefully crafted wooden case. In this case, the figures are presented independently as an integral part of this artistic project.

The three pieces are conceived as a triangular structure, a sort of silent conversation between three figures. The three ladies known as La soñadora, La realista and La coqueta establish a symbolic dialogue in which each personality is revealed through the formal language of headdresses.
In La soñadora, the headdress is transformed into a tangle, an organic and evocative accumulation that refers to the world of imagination, reverie and the intangible. The realist, on the other hand, is defined by a set of squares that allude to reason, measurements and structure, underlining an analytical attitude towards reality. The coquette completes the triangle with a hat of precise geometry. A monumental version of these sculptures was exhibited at Madrid Airport in 2004.
Manolo Valdés introduced in Spain a form of artistic expression that combines political and social commitment with humor and irony. He began his training in 1957, when he entered the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia. However, two years later he abandoned his studies to devote himself fully to painting. In 1964 he founded the artistic group Equipo Crónica, together with Juan Antonio Toledo and Rafael Solbes, in which he remained until the latter's death in 1981, despite the fact that Toledo had left the group two years after its foundation. Since then he has settled in New York, where he currently resides and where he has continued to experiment with new forms of expression, including sculpture. Among the numerous awards Manolo Valdés has received are the Lissone and Biella of Milan (1965), the silver medal of the II International Biennial of Engravings of Tokyo (1979), the prize of the Bridgestone Art Museum in Lisbon (1979), the National Prize of Plastic Arts (1983), the medal of the International Festival of Plastic Artists of Baghdad (1986), the Decoration of the Order of Andres Bello in Venezuela (1993), the award of the National Council of Monaco (1997), the Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts (1998), the Award of the Spanish Association of Art Critics (2000) and the Best Print Artist Award (2002), among others. With Equipo Crónica, Valdés used figuration as a vehicle of expression for his approaches, for his criticisms of art, society and politics, but prioritizing above any other content the pure act of painting. From the thematic point of view, Valdés was inspired by the art of the great masters of painting: Goya, Velázquez, El Greco, Ribera or Zurbarán. His work forces the viewer to delve into memory and search for significant images from the history of art. Valdés is represented in some of the most outstanding museums around the world, such as the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Metropolitan, the MoMA and the Guggenheim in New York, the Georges Pompidou Center and the Fons National d'Arts Plastiques in Paris, etc.