[ENG] 359 Florero Para Un Atleta Big

Miguel Berrocal

opus 359 - Florero Para un Atleta Big

Miguel Berrocal

| opus 359 - Florero para un Atleta Big | 1987-89

Opus 359 Florero para un Atleta Big year created in dimensions elements caracteristics

1987-89 Negrar, Verona - Italy .

32.5 x 36.5 x 18.2 cm 7 Disassemblable

edition

8 artist proofs in bronze, lost wax cast (EA I / VIII to EA VIII / VIII ) 6 exemplars out of commerce, lost wax castl ( HC 1/6 to 6/6)

notes

the tile “Florero”, means “Flower vase”, hence the sculpture can be optionally used as one or five separate flower vases

Miguel Berrocal

Opus 359 - Florero para un Atleta Big

History of a Piece

The opus 359 - Florero para un Atleta Big, is one of the many models that the artist developed as a study for a bigger monument, the opus 402 - Citius Altius Fortius, and having liked the size, decided to edited it in a very exclusive Artist Proofs edition o 8 exemplars.

When preparing for the Expo of Seville in 1992, The Olympic committee asked Berrocal to develop a monumental sculpture that was to be located at the entrance of the Olympic Pavilion, and that aimed at attracting the eye and the interest of the visitors.

Berrocal conceived a male torso, named after the Olympic motto, Citius Altius Fortius, (Latin for Faster Higher Stronger), that could also disassemble into 5 elements, evoking the 5 interlocked rings of the Olympic symbol.

The sculpture opus 402 - Citius Altius Fortius, is a mechanized monument whose elements open up, turn around their axes and close back again, so that they reveal their inner hidden beauty to the spectator.

The Mechanized sculpture required Berrocal to research new materials and constructive technologies that would allow him to build the work at a much cheaper price than in bronze. For this he employed Kevlar, a light but very resistant sort of carbon fiber that had just been patented by Dupont a couple of years earlier.

Today the opus 402 - Citius Altius Fortius can be admired in the sculpture garden of the Olympic Museum in Lausanne Switzerland, where it keeps opening and closing for the public every day.

opus 402 - Citius Altius Fortius Top: the open elements turning around their axes bottom: just opened or almost closed Opus 359 - Florero Para un Atleta Big that as the title suggests ( Flower Vase for an Athlete Big), can be optionally used as a flower vase

| opus 359 - Florero para un Atleta Big | 1987-89

Miguel Berrocal

| Miguel Berrocal: biography | 1933-2006

MIGUEL BERROCAL: short biography Miguel Ortﾃｭz Berrocal was born in Villanueva de Algaidas, Mﾃ｡laga, on September28, 1933. He began his academic training in the Faculty of Exact Sciences in Madrid, where he read the first two years of mathematics as a requirement for enrolment in the School of Architecture. Meanwhile, like many others who aspired to study architecture, he attended the School of Arts and Crafts, where he was taught by ﾃ］gel Ferrant, and later he studied with the potter Pierre Canivet in Paris.

He took an early interest in sculpture that could be taken apart, transformed or combined, and this has remained a feature of all his subsequent sculptural output. In his sculpture there is a constant search for new concepts and unknown areas within the very structure of the work, creating a path by which the viewer can enter the world of construction and deconstruction. His work has been influenced by sculptors such as Oteiza and Chillida, among others.

He uses classical themes (torsos, heads or reclining figures) and, above all, a certain anthropomorphism to avoid an excessively geometrical, abstract result, although in his work there is a clear imprint of mathematics and architecture, resulting from his own inclination or his academic training.

His style is characterised by a Hellenic inspiration, a baroque quality, and a complexity and breadth of forms. The meticulousness and precision in the construction of complex manipulable pieces and the exactness of the drawings and subsequent assemblages result in sculptural elements that in turn consist of other pieces with an identity of their own.

It was precisely the difficulty involved in the creation of each individual sculpture that in 1962 led him to embark on serial production. This provided the sculptor with a way of multiplying his pieces, just as painters do by means of graphic arts procedures. Thus a given theme may be repeated in a different dimension, with the combination of new elements or arranged in a different way.

In 1974 his style underwent a remarkable reduction, and he began to make simpler, forms. In his most recent period he has used increasingly elemental, essential drawing.

His first solo show was at the Xagra gallery in Madrid in 1952. Since then he has presented numerous exhibitions throughout the world, and his work is to be found in leading museums and institutions in Europe and America, establishing Berrocal as one of the most significant and important artists of our times.

Miguel Berrocal lived and worked in Negrar, Verona Italy between 1964 and 2005 when he decided to return to his born town in Andalucia Villanueva de Algaidas to build and open a new studio. He dies in Antequera, Mﾃ｡laga on May 31.2006 en plena actividad creativa.

Miguel Berrocal

| Fundación Escultor Berrocal para las Artes | 2007

Foundation Sculptor Berrocal for the Arts [Fundación Escultor Berrocal para las Artes]

The Fundacion Escultor Berrocal para las Artes (Foundation Sculptor Berrocal for the Arts) was established in 2007 to protect and enhance the vast creative legacy of the spanish sculptor Miguel Berrocal.

The Foundation has been created by the heirs of Miguel Berrocal, fulfilling so his express desires and completing the project that the artist started while still alive.

The Institution aims at the conservation, research and diffusion of Miguel Berrocal’s works, as well as the contribution to the development and progress of Culture and Arts, Science and Technology in all its forms.

It achieves it’s objectives through exhibitions worldwide, promoting cross-disciplinary research and development in the fields of Arts, Sciences, Technology, Design and Education. for information

berrocal.net fundacion@berrocal.net

Aerial view of Villanueva de Algaidas, Málaga, Spain, birth town of Miguel Berrocal and location of the Berrocal Museum-System, a 3 place exhibition venue around Berrocal’s Creative Universe

Miguel Berrocal

| Main Public Collections | 1933-2006

Miguel Berrocal

Main Public Collections

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles

Auditorio de la musica de la Cartuja, Sevilla

Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles

Ayuntamiento de Huelva

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Ayuntamiento de Madrid

Museum Boymans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Ayuntamiento de Málaga, Málaga

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Ayuntamiento de Oviedo, Asturias

Museum Ludwig, Köln

Ayuntamiento de Villaneuva de Algaidas, Málaga

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza

Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Beelden aan Zee Museum, Scheveningen

Oficina de Turismo Español, Roma

Fonds Cantonal de Décoration et d’Art Visuel, Genève

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

Camera di Commercio di Carrara, Carrara

Rathaus, Ulm

Fundación Juan March, Madrid

Sprengel Museum, Hannover

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Roma

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart

Hamburger Kunstahalle, Hamburg

Stadtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim

Hirshborn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.

Univeristy of Michigan- Museum of Art, Ann Arbor

International Sculpture Museum, Olympic Park, Séoul

Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Israel Museum, Jerusalem Jewish Museum, New York Mairie de Noisy-Le-Grand, Marne-la-Vallée Musée d’Art Moderne de St-Etienne, St-Etienne Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris Musée des Beaux-Arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds Musée Olympique, Lausanne

Miguel Berrocal

| Awards | 1933- 2006

Miguel Berrocal

Awards

1955

Medaille de bronze de la “Première Biennale di Alexandrie – Pays de la

1988

Goodwill Ambassador, UNESCO, Paris

Méditerranée

1989

Académico correspondiente de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid

1966

Grand Prix de Sculpture de la Biennale de Paris

1967

Medaglia d’oro del VII° Concorso Internazionale del Bronzetto, Padova

1990

Accademico dell’Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Roma

1968

Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République Française

1993

Medalla de Oro de Andalucía, Sevilla

1969

Medaglia d’oro della Presidenza della Repubblica Italiana per “Il

1994

Academico de Honor de la Réal Academia de Bellas Artes Santa Isabel de Hungría, Sevilla

metallo come pura espressione d’arte” Va Biennale d’Arte del Metallo,Gubbio 1970 1973

Gran Premio de Honor da Biennal de Saõ Paolo.

1976

Accademico associato dell’Accademia Tiberina di Roma

1977

Medaglia d’Oro della XXXIIIaMostra Internazionale dell’ Arredamento-M.I.A., Monza

1981

Cambio 16, X° Aniversário, “Figura de la Decada” ,Madrid

1984

ABC de Oro del periodico ABC, Madrid

1985

Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République Française.

Medalla de Honor “ VictorioMacho” de la Asiciación de Escultores y Artistas Españoles.

Medalla de Honor “ VictorioMacho” de la Asiciación de Escultores y Artistas Españoles.

Commendatore della Repubblica Italiana Academico numerario de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes Santa Isabel de Hungría, Sevilla

Scientific Council, International Institute for Opera and Poetry.

UNESCO,Verona

Medalla de oro del Ateneo de Mälaga Corona d’onore dell’ International Aesthetic Research, Torino

1987

2000 2002

Cruz de Plata, Agrupación Española de Fomento Europeo, Barcelona