The silence, water and sand, emptiness and absence of this “landscape”, somewhere between sculpture and installation, evoke the desert mentioned in the title. This work brings together many of the signature elements of Nacho Criado’s personal creative world. Considered one of key players of Spanish
Conceptual Art emerged as a movement in the 1960s in the United States, with Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) often regarded as a key forerunner or influence. Chief among the movement’s artists are Sol LeWitt (1928-2007), Joseph Kosuth (1945), Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) and Yoko Ono (1933). It came into being in opposition to formalism, to define a number of different practices in which the underlying idea and process behind the artwork were more important than its materialisation, meaning that conceptual artworks may take on the most varied guises.
, not long before he died Criado was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (2008) and the National Visual Arts Award in recognition of his life’s work.
His practice focused on how an object evolves in space and on the behaviour of matter over time. Though generally associated with
Term which refers to the movement that emerged in New York in the 1960s and which would then develop throughout the 1970s. In reaction against
This contemporary painting movement emerged within the field of abstraction in the 1940s in the United States, from where it spread worldwide. Rooted in similar premises and postulates as Surrealism, the Abstract Expressionist artists regarded the act of painting as a spontaneous and unconscious activity, a dynamic bodily action divested of any kind of prior planning. The works belonging to this movement are defined by the use of pure, vibrant primary colours that convey a profound sense of freedom. The movement’s main pioneers were, among others, Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) and Hans Hoffman (1880-1966). Leading Spanish exponents of the movement are Esteban Vicente (1903-2001) and José Guerrero (1914-1991), who lived for some time in New York City, where they were in first-hand contact with the many artistic innovations taking place there around that time.
, the movement proposed a paring down of abstract forms, a quest for utmost simplicity, very precise finishes, and a perfecting of pure geometric figures. It also championed a reduction of the artist’s input and a greater involvement of spectators, with the intention of triggering an intellectual stimulus so that they would take on a greater role in the actual configuration of the artwork itself. Particularly outstanding names in this movement are Dan Flavin (1933-1996), Sol LeWitt (1928-2007), Frank Stella (1936), Donald Judd (1928-1994) and Robert Morris (1931-2018).
, his use of poor, waste materials also connected him to
an art movement from the late 1960s in which the artists worked with ordinary “poor” materials which were easy to find. These included wood, leaves, stones, vegetables, fabrics or any waste material. The general rule was to reject expensive industrial materials in an attempt to reinforce creativity through a reuse of objects.
. In his early steps as an artist Criado showed a profound respect for great masters such as Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and Mark Rothko (1903-1970), to whom he paid homage in installations created in the 1970s.
Three of his series—
LSD (Light Spirit Dream), Paisajes endémicos and
No es la voz que clama en el desierto—converge in this piece. Here, Criado engages with a poetics of waste through the use of broken fragments. A sheet of wood rests on two buckets, filled respectively with sand and fragments of glass, an analogy of elements and testimony of ruin. The sand contained in the buckets speaks to the
Land Art is part of the larger Conceptual Art emerged as a movement in the 1960s in the United States, with Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) often regarded as a key forerunner or influence. Chief among the movement’s artists are Sol LeWitt (1928-2007), Joseph Kosuth (1945), Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) and Yoko Ono (1933). It came into being in opposition to formalism, to define a number of different practices in which the underlying idea and process behind the artwork were more important than its materialisation, meaning that conceptual artworks may take on the most varied guises.
projects he undertook in the 1970s; the glass, a recurrent material across all his work, refers to water that time has crystallized; the metal brackets and the transparent shelves, metaphoric repositories of knowledge in the artist’s universe, are actually unable to fulfil their function of holding anything up as they are simply adhered to the surface.
The overall effect is to create a space of stillness and reflection in which the voice, the human being, cries out in the desert of emptiness, solitude and nothingness it inhabits.
