Abbreviated retrospective. Cristóbal Gabarrón.

CRISTÓBAL GABARRÓN Cristóbal Gabarrón, was born in 1945 in Mula (Murcia) Spain. He received his first training in Valladolid, Spain before pursuing his early artistic career in France and Italy. With over 50 years of artistic expression, Gabarron now resides in both Spain and in the United States.

Far from the aesthetic conventionalism of isthmuses or vanguards, Gabarrón’s work only understands life. His vision of art is clearly anthropocentric. The individual human life and the coexistence and the development of human values are the pillars on which his art and his personal convictions rest.

Gabarron has many milestones in his career that have made an impact on a global scale. The Olympic Mural for the Barcelona Olympic Games (1992), the Encounter Mural for the Universal Exhibition of Seville (1992), the sculptural project “Atlanta Start” (1996), the materialization of the work “Hope for Peace” (1986), the Official Poster for the Millennium Summit and the Millennium Chapel (2000-2001) are all important examples of such milestones in his career. His collaboration with international organizations, such as the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and United Nations demonstrate his fruitful creative period, which still remains today.

Cities around the world have embraced Gabarron’s vision by displaying his public sculptures. Many prominent European and American cities, such as Miami, New York, Madrid, Gdanks, Lisboa, Saint Paul de Vence, Valladolid, Murcia, A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela and Valencia have exhibited his works in popular streets and plazas. In addition, several towns have incorporated permanent large public outdoor sculptures which were handcrafted by the artist. Examples of such outdoor sculptures are “Valladolid Gates“, “Color Borough”, “Human Spirit”, “Tecnus”, “Frouida”, “Sky Dome”, “Mullae”, “Tribute to Philip II” and “Metamorphosis”.

Gabarron’s paintings and sculptures have also received extensive attention and recognition from internationally acclaimed museums. Museums such as the Chelsea Art Museum, the IVAM – Valencia Institute of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art of Gdanks in Poland, and the Niemeyer Center have all supported and displayed retrospectives of his work. Critics and historians of stature, such as Donald Kuspit, curator and professor of New York University, Kosme de Barañano, Professor of Fine Arts at the Miguel Hernández University, and Julián Zugazagoitia, Director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art at Kansas City, have all taken considerable interest to study and examine Gabarron’s career, which has been abundantly detailed in published literature in recent years.

Since 1992, Gabarrón has been responsible for the gradual establishment of three foundations, in Valladolid, New York and Murcia, where his principal desire is to give back to society through the implementation of artistic and cultural activities and through the creation of awareness of the arts. Information about the foundations can currently be viewed on the foundation’s website (www.gabarron.org).

In this booklet, you will find a comprehensive selection of Gabarron’s artwork throughout his career. This selection will show you the depth and evolution of his art and at the same time, demonstrate the complexities of humanity.

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SELECTED ARTWORK CHRONOLOGY

1. WT10 - 26 3/8 x 22 7/16 In. (67 x 57 cm.) - Oil/Canvas 2. Geometrias II (Geometries II) - 4 3/4 x 2 9/16 x 2 9/16 In. (12 x 6,5 x 6,5 cm.) - Plastic 3. La realidad no vista 2 (Reality not seen 2) - 36 1/4 x 23 5/8 In. (92 x 60 cm.) - Oil/Canvas 4. Sao Paulo Film Shot 5. Serie Vietnam - 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 In. (100 x 100 cm.) - Oil/Canvas 6. New York 24 - 31 7/8 x 39 3/8 In. (81 x 100 cm.) - Collage/Panel 7. Performance film shoot 8. Demonstrador - 11 7/16 x 7 7/8 In. (29 x 20 cm.) - Mixed/Paper 9. Eros 8 - 39 3/8 x 31 7/8 In. (100 x 81 cm.) - Oil/Canvas 10. Zem Art 10 - 41 5/16 x 27 9/16 In. (105 x 70 cm.) - Oil/Paper 11. Flat Sculpture 3 - 64 x 26 1/4 x 1 In. (162 x 67 x 2 cm.) - Mixed/Foam Board 12. Puzzle 8 - 17 11/16 x 13 3/8 In. (45 x 34 cm.) - Collage/Stucco Paper 13. Flying Installation Berkeley, San Francisco (U.S.A.) 14. 6 Pieces. Chicago sculptures installation - 78 3/4 x 15 3/4 x 15 3/4 In. (200 x 40 x 40 cm.) Mixed/Foam Board 15. Cell 17 - 31 11/16 x 31 11/16 x 1 3/4 In. (80.5 x 80.5 x 4.5 cm.) - Mixed/Iron

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SELECTED ARTWORK CHRONOLOGY

16. Versus 2 sculpture - 74 13/16 x 47 1/4 x 51 3/16 In. (190 x 120 x 130 cm.) - Oil-Pigment/Steel 17. Hawaii 11 - 48 1/16 x 96 1/16 In. (122 x 244 cm.) - Oil-Pigment/Canvas 18. Mexico 1968 - 78 3/4 x 78 3/4 In. (200 x 200 cm.) - Oil-Pigment/Canvas 19. Sky Jumping in fly - Commemorative poster for the XVIII Winter Olympic Games of 1998, Nagano (Japan) - 25 9/16 x 19 11/16 In. (65 x 50 cm.) - Oil/Paper 20. Cuppers 1 - 118 1/9 x 59 1/18 x 51 1/5 In. (300 x 150 x 130 cm.) - Cobre/Cupper 21. A costa da morte - 36 1/3 x 28 1/3 In. (92 x 73 cm.) - Oil-pigment/Canvas 22. Wamba 6 - 78 10/14 x 236 1/4 In. (200 x 600 cm.) - Oil-pigment/Canvas 23. Oinoz. Emina Wine Interpretation Centre, Valbuena de Duero - Height: 197 In. (Height: 500 cm.) - Bronze 24. Danza Macabra 4 - 64 3/5 x 82 2/3 x 41 5/7 In. (164 x 210 x 106 cm.) - Ceramics/Steel 25. Niña que no pudo alcanzar la luna 10 - 13 11/15 x 7 7/8 In. (35 x 20 cm.) - Mixed collage/Paper 26. Mitologías 8 - 20 x 25 9/16 In. (56 x 66 cm.) - Oil Pigment on Stucco Board 27. Empalados 2 - 59 1/18 x 23 4/7 x 19 4/5 In. (150 x 60 x 50 cm.)

Unique Sculpture - Treated and polished steel, polychromed fiberglass

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1

1972 – 1975 The Relative Years

1968 – 1971 The Intense Dreamer

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1976 – 1979 The Thought

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8

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1980 – 1983 The Poetical Personal

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1984 – 1987 A Long Crossing

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10

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1992 – 1995 The Breaking Existentialism 1988 – 1991 The Lesson Of Non Judgement

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17

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2000 – 2003 Facing the new Millennium 1996 – 1999 The Calm Enthusiast

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2004 – 2008 The Gates of Life and Death

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24

13

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2009 - 2012 Whole Life

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SELECTED PUBLIC ART

1995

Universiada Boat, Palma de Mallorca

1998

Permanent installation: Valladolid Barandilla del Pisuerga, Valladolid Permanent Sculpture Installation: Valladolid Gates, Valladolid Villa de las Ferias Public Park, Medina del Campo

2003-2010 2006

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Permanent Sculpture Installation: Frouida, Murcia Permanent Sculpture Installation: Tecnus, Boecillo

2007 30

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2009

Permanent Sculpture Installation: Metamorphoses, Castile and Leon Parliament, Valladolid

Permanent Sculpture Installation: Sky Dome, Arroyo de la Encomienda Permanent Sculpture Installation: Tribute to Philip II, Villa de Navalcarnero, Madrid Permanent Sculpture Installation: Mullae, Mula, Murcia

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SCULPTURE GROUPS FOR PUBLIC EXHIBITION

2005

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Sculpture: Kronos Salamanca (Spain); Murcia (Spain); Medina del Campo (Spain) ; Valencia (Spain).

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Sculpture Group (10 Sculptures): Tribute to Quixote UN Plaza 49th St., New York (USA); Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Florida (USA); Arts and Science City, Valencia (Spain); SEA, Alicante (Spain); National Museum of Modern Art of Gdanks, (Poland); Santo Domingo de Silos, Burgos (Spain); Niemeyer Center, Avilés (Spain); Sylvia Berlin Katzen Sculpture Garden, American University Museum, Washington (USA).

2006

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Sculpture Group (10 Sculptures): Mysteries of Columbus Paseo del Prado, Madrid (Spain); Central Park, Columbus Circle & Broadway Ave, New York City (USA); City Downtown, Lorca (Spain); SEA, Alicante (Spain); City Downtown, Cáceres (Spain), Estoril, Lisbon (Portugal); Plaza Nueva, Sevilla (Spain); City Downtown, Jerez (Spain); Niemeyer Center, Avilés (Spain); Alden Biesen Castle (Belgium); City Downtown, Hasselt (Belgium); Bokrijk Open Art Museum, Genk (Belgium); Artzuid 2013, Amsterdam (Holland).

Sculpture: Metamorphoses Saint Paul de Vence, (France); Medina del Campo (Spain); Madrid (Spain).

2008

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Sculpture Group (16 Sculptures): Alhambra Towers Valladolid (Spain); Murcia (Spain); A Coruña (Spain); Santiago de Compostela (Spain); Vigo – Pontevedra (Spain); Lisbon (Portugal); Madrid (Spain); Valencia (Spain).

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SELECTED INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

1986

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Painting: Our Hope for Peace, International Year of Peace, WFUNA, New York

1992

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Mural Painting: History of the Olympism for the Olympic Games, L’Hospitalet, Barcelona

1993

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Mural Painting: Encounter 92 for the Universal Exhibition of Seville

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Sculpture Group (12 Sculptures): Twelve European Muses for the new European Parliament, Brussels

1996

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Sculpture Group (26 Sculptures): Atlanta Star-An Olympic Forest for the Olympic Games, Atlanta

1997

Mural Painting: Tribute to Human Spirit, American Sports Art Museum and Archives, Daphne, Alabama

2000 2000-2001 2003

Architectural facades: Color Borough, Valladolid Mural Painting and sculpture: Millennium Chapel, Medina del Campo Performance Art and Sculpture: Ave Fenix – El Deseo F-40, Guggenheim Bilbao

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OUTDOOR / PUBLIC ART

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41. Sculpture Group (10 Sculptures): Mysteries of Columbus. Artzuid 2013, Amsterdam (Holland).

“ The gestural passion, in an explicit representation of a knot, this rope labyrinth that since the Greek myths, we associate with the shrewdness to face up the utmost danger, but also with the difficulty to clarify the complex itineraries of mind. In an extraordinary Gabarrón reformulates automatism and the notion of picture as event. Like Breton pointed out writing about Masson, the artist should carry out the event-work of art, making a revelation with a significative taste for risk as a response to “this life that wants to surprise in its source and leads him eclectically to the metamorphose”.

Fernando Castro Flórez

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PERMANENT INSTALLATIONS

42. Permanent Sculpture Installation: Metamorphoses, Castile and Leon Parliament, Valladolid

“This chromatic similarity between his pictorial work and his sculpture would already serve to tie one definitively to the other. However, the relationship is more fundamental and is not limited to the treatment of color. Line is also present in his sculpture.”

Kosme de Barañano

TRAVELLING INSTALLATIONS

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43. Sculpture Groups: Mysteries of Columbus and Tribute to Quixote. Niemeyer Center, Avilés (Spain)

“His artistic career begins with the practice of a figurative sculpture he abandons three years later in order to take up painting desolate landscapes. During one period, he dedicates himself to printmaking without leaving abstraction and he begins his work as a muralist. Fully within abstraction, he starts to use watercolors, washes and metals, as he becomes interested in optical effects. In his latest works, colors have been softened and specific figurative references appear.”

Francisco Calvo Serraller

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URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL INSTALLATIONS AND LANDSCAPING

44. Architectural facades: Color Borough, Valladolid

“His symbol-laden painting is full of insinuating forms that produce a restless feeling in us. His works encourage us to try to decipher a message full of ambiguities and double meanings that the artist shows us in multiple images loaded with provocation.”

Donald Kuspit

PAINTINGS AND MURAL ART

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45. Mural Painting: Tribute to Human Spirit, American Sports Art Museum and Archives, Daphne, Alabama

“Gabarrón’s work has represented Spain in cultural and artistic events worldwide... and his work is one great manifestation of the humanistic and artistic feeling of modernity.”

Juan Antonio Samaranch

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46. Official Poster for the United Nations Millennium Summit, Down of the New Millennium, New York

“The principal of the failed -desire- and consumerism, extensively addressed and discussed in relation with Marcel Duchamp’s work, and the subsequent perfection of this –desire-, is concentrated with incredible intelligence and beauty by Gabarrón, throughout the psychological contribution of the installed artwork and his Performance.”

Edward J. Sullivan “With his images, Gabarron tends to reshape a circular dimension of space and time in the sense of a wholeness recovery which includes inside past, present, and future, interwoven in a fluid, spatial substance, and at the same time, solid.”

Achille Bonito Oliva

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47. Mural Painting and sculpture: Millennium Chapel, Medina del Campo

“We are the product of this cosmic process in which we participate through the creative act.

I missed the emotion of universal reach engendered by this painting of the chapel, so as a return to the order of the cosmos-genesis. Don Cristóban Gabarrón, you are a great humanist of color.”

Pierre Restany

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SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

1964

Galería Castilla, Valladolid

1970

École des Beaux-Arts, Paris

1972

Galería Macarrón, Madrid

1974

Galleria Fiamma Vigo, Roma

1974

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile

1980

Galeria Rayuela, Madrid

1985

Space and Cube, London

1986

United Nations, New York

1990

Palais de l’Europe, Strasbourg

1991

Galerie Bodenschatz, Basel

1991

Tecla Sala Art Center L’Hospitalet, Barcelona

1992

American Sports Art Museum and Archives (ASAMA) – Daphne, Alabama.

1992

Fundación Carlos de Amberes, Madrid.

1999

Musee Olympique, Lausanne.

2003

Guggenheim, Bilbao

2005

Museo del Barrio, New York

2006

Chelsea Art Museum, New York

2006

IVAM – Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia

2006

Hugieia Art Gallery, Belgium

2006

Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid

2006

Guy Pieters Gallery, Saint Paul de Vence

2006

Palacio Almudí, Murcia

2007

National Museum of Modern Art of Gdansk, Poland

2009

Mal Maison, Cannes

2011

Niemeyer Center, Aviles

2012

Bokrijk Open Art Museum, Genk

2012

American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington DC

2013

ARTZUID, Amsterdam

Publisher / Editor Fundaci贸n Casa Pintada The Gabarron Foundation Design Xoana Pardavila Text and Photos 漏 2013, The Gabarron Foundation

The Gabarron Foundation www.gabarron.org About the Artist: www.gabarron.net Contact: info@gabarron.org

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