MIQUEL NAVARRO
Mislata (Spain), 1945

He studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Carlos in Valencia and began to paint in about 1964, producing paintings and drawings on paper, whereas in 1968 he made reliefs of rubber and plastic with an Expressionist tendency. In 1972 he decided on sculpture, while at the same time designing ceramics, having worked with Carmen Calvo in a ceramics factory as a young man. That year he presented his first solo exhibition at the Galería Tassili (Oviedo). In the work produced in those years he used heat-resistant material and sand, which he modelled in the form of fireplaces. In 1974 he made his first Ciudad (City), which he exhibited at the Colegio de Arquitectos in Valencia and at Buades (Madrid, 1974). His cities are installations consisting of repeated items with geometrical forms, arranged in compositions so that their appearance resembles a model of a city. The vertical elements –towers- stand out prominently, while the horizontal elements are smaller, arranged so as to create the layout of the city. The materials used most frequently are wood, clay, zinc, lead and, from 1991 onwards, aluminium. Some items seem to be considered as independent sculptures. His most frequent themes particularly include warriors, totems, moons, buildings, the sexes, channels and fountains, this last element often being associated with the idea of a phallus. In 1980 he exhibited at the Guggenheim in New York, and in the early nineties he designed theatre settings (Vente a Sinapia and Absalón) and open-air sculptures. One of his most outstanding cities was the one exhibited in 1984 and 1985 in Graz, Austria, in Madrid (Fernando Vijande) and in London (Serpentine Gallery). In 1986 he was awarded the National Visual Arts Prize, and that year he also exhibited at Gamarra y Garrigues. In 1989-90 he presented his installation Minerva paranoica (Paranoiac Minerva) at the Palacio de Cristal. In the nineties Navarro continued with his exploration of the form of cities (La Ciutat Roja, MACBA, 1997, and Marlborough Gallery, 2000). During 1998-99 a travelling exhibition with the title El mundo de Miquel was presented in the United States and South America.