Miquel Navarro at IVAM’s Collection

Since 1973, the Valencian artist, with his distinctive cities or “groupings”, develops a type of installation with a sculptural character, integrating groups of little pieces configured as structures and diverse constructions ranging from rural to urban and from environmental to industrial. From that time on, Miquel Navarro has been creating a work in which constructive structures and spatial and environmental configurations express metaphors about space and time, granting him recognition in the international art sphere. IVAM’s permanent collection has, thanks to Miquel Navarro’s donation in 2005, more than 500 works; paintings, sculptures, drawings and installations, through which we can carefully study the different creative stages which the artist has undergone until today. Taking into account the IVAM has turned into the centre of reference for the investigation on this creator’s work, we thought it was convenient to allocate the permanent exhibition of a wide selection of these artistic funds, dated between 1964 and 2004, at Gallery 1. In this artistic space, we can find his early drawings and paintings, big and small format sculptures and four of his installations in which the artist interprets the issue of cities. This display underlines those fields of investigation which have better defined the artist during more than forty years: the human body and its relation with architecture, desire as a catalyst for creativity and the building of cities. In this exhibition we can highlight his watercolours on paper and the many sculptures employed to make cities or monumental projects through elementary and modulating forms. Refractory ceramic sculptures, iron, terracotta, zinc, aluminium or copper of different sizes display and contrast the subtle hues of their fabrication singularities, patinas and textures. In Navarro’s sculptures we can witness a true symbiosis between body and architecture. Warriors, phallic symbols and totems transform their selves into bridges and fountains. Buildings, as well as cities, have organic similarities with the human body. His urban groupings constitute the most complex and characteristic prototype of his entire work, and therefore occupy privileged spaces throughout the exhibition. In them we can observe a sort of chronological cubism where antiquity and modernity merge thanks to the presence of buildings, factories, nature… with the intention of fusing present and future together. In conclusion, an exhibition with a versatile landscape which draws us to the most poetic aspects of Miquel Navarro’s work, who we can absolutely feel in each of his creations.