Feel the spirit of Juan Garaizabal in front of the Louvre Museum and in the Galerie Bogena!

To better understand the universe of Juan Garaizabal, you have to get deeper in the origins of one of the most famous Spanish contemporary artists of the World (photo credits: Juan Garaizabal).

Born in 1971 in Madrid, he had always been enjoying to travel from his thoughts, his dreams and finally his realizations, full of shaped sculptures. Maybe have you already heard about his Memorias Urbanas Foundation (also know as Urban Memories) that symbolizes his career? Most of the time, his installations are erected in emblematic sites throughout the Planet, with the goal to create some sorts of alternative memorial monuments. In fact, Juan Garaizabal pays much attention to a few significant historical elements of the cities he visits and tends to revive in his own way, between his three workshops in Madrid, Miami and Berlin. The result is a very singular structure, with a very identifiable style.

 

 

Moreover, with the desire to bring back to life a couple of architectural points that may have disappeared through times but reinterpreted with his own vision. In order to make this challenge possible, apart the mastering of various techniques he has learned over times (such as: masonry, carpentry and forging metal), the artist enjoys employing the drawing art, which he studied in his youth at the Academy in Madrid. 

Represented by the Bogena Gallery (cf. upper), in the heart of the French Riviera, this art center is run by the architect Bogéna Gidrol. Stretched in an ancestral house, since 2013, at the foot of the illustrious medieval village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, and just behind the Maeght Foundation, this Art forum offers a rich selection of contemporary artists. Bathed in light where each artwork resonates with its colorful surroundings, while being opened to multiple artistic disciplines, those are: music, literature, sculptures, engravings and so on. 

 

 

If you pass through the Louvre Museum of Paris, you would be surely amazed to admire these monumental installations of the Spanish artist Juan Garaizabal. 

Settled with the support of the Cultural Department of Paris Center, take the time to explore a fine selection of its finest realizations made of metallic masterpieces, dedicated to decorate this illustrious Place du Louvre. Those three monumental sculptures are set to pay a tribute to the Urban Memory of the Lost Tuileries, by the time a beautiful castle was installed at this location. Therefore, those three fictional remains would be at your disposal until the end of July 2021, just in front of the future Paris Youth Center, along another visible exterior exhibition since the end of April 2021, baptized Fragment of Yesterday, a monumental artwork composed of stainless steel, displayed at the Château d’Aunoy (cf. below), situated at a couple of miles from Paris (photo credits: Alex Plato).

 

Therefore, Juan Garaizabal found an ideal historical location for his incredible sculptures, nearby the belfry of the City Hall of the 1st district, as well as the beautiful Church of Saint-Germain L’Auxerrois.

This seemed to be so important for the artist, since he has been working since 2008 on this exhibition, as a real tribute to the former Tuileries Palace, an emblematic monument of the French history, built in 1564 under the impulse of Catherine of Medicis and unfortunately destroyed in 1883. With these steel fragments, we dive into the past within these interactive sculptures, connecting the link between yesterday and today. During two months, this magnificent ensemble, composed of large vessels of plants with reference to the Tuileries gardens, close to a circular clock, in memory to the old tower bell, as a bygone central element; and a third set of lamps referring to the several furniture pieces of this castle.

 

More information on the Bogena Gallery official website and Juan Garaizabal official website.

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