Great Divided Bread

This large-scale work represents an everyday theme, bread, which Pablo Serrano would work on from 1978 in the series Broken and Shared Bread (Pan Partido y Compartido). It is both a formal and conceptual continuation of his Joint Units (Unidades Yunta)—abstract forms which, like a puzzle, fit together and integrate into one piece. This is a metaphor for the necessity of giving and receiving love and of uniting with other human beings. Bread, as food of humanity, is an element of union, "a symbol, a method of understanding between peoples." Pablo Serrano says: "Broken and Shared Bread signifies everything I have been looking for; it simplifies communication and signifies inner reflection, self-knowledge, and work." All these ideas connect with a strong concern for humanity that permeated the totality of his work. This was one of his last series and his ultimate 'breads' dated 1982.