Abstraction and Motion

A member of the first generation of Seville’s abstract artists, Juan Suárez made his debut in the late 1960s with a geometric work of very refined colours and reliefs.

In the mid 1970s, the geometry of his previous works begins to tinge with landscaping hints through the painter’s repetitive gestures, which used to be absent up until then. The geometric scheme, activated by small areas of colour along the edges, serves as a frame to others. In this case, the activity of the artist’s sensitive gaze towards the outside is noticeable. The sequence of strokes in these areas brings a dimension of time.

Thus, the programme of modernity, the repetition and seriation are all activated by the transitory nature and the changing rhythms which the coloured areas help to vary. The title of these exhibits may help us identify the reason which originates them: the beauty of a unique moment, of the true sensation when facing the landscape which only art can help retain.

The use of scientific theories to understand the complexity of human nature in the cosmos is at the root of Yturralde’s works. Since the late 1960s, the artist had been working on a highly objective line of work, centred around the basic figures of geometry. This became stronger during his time at the Computing Centre of Madrid.

Nevertheless, he used new tools for his geometric solid figures extracted from the new theories of communication and perception. Thus, he obtained impossible shapes from a traditional perceptive logic, which meant the beginning of new dimensions in accordance with the latest scientific assumptions.

The subsequent development is a consequence of hard work first and also of experimenting with Land Art and environmental art in the 1960s. A development which consisted of taking those geometric figures to the three spatial dimensions and turning them into flying sculptures, integrated in a natural element such as air, at the mercy of the winds and currents, defying gravity.

Consisting of artists mostly from Córdoba, Equipo 57 became known during an exhibition held at Le Rond Point in Paris in June 1957. At that time, they published a text presenting their programmatic aspirations. This would be followed by the manifest “Interactivity of the Plastic Space”, edited for the exhibition at Madrid’s Sala Negra in November of that same year. Formally, Equipo 57 originated from the studies of space by Oteiza and the geometric abstractions of the 1950s, especially the concrete art of the Swiss artist Max Bill.

However, as an avant-garde group, they based an important part of their activity on social action. Thus, they started by defending the disappearance of the figure of the artist and his subjective vision in favour of the anonymity of collective work. Art had to serve and adapt to the needs of a new society, where the man would fight for the common good rather than for his own benefit. With regard to this social aspect, Equipo 57 was strongly influenced by the Russian avant-garde artists of the Revolution. Also, this group was against the institutionalization of art and the market, aspiring to sell their works at cost price.

The initial plastic principles, space as a continuous whole where the basic elements of painting (form, line, colour) were integrated and interacted with each other while sharing the same prominence. These principles were reflected, besides paintings and drawings, in an animation film almost entirely made by hand in individual shots. To this purpose, many gouache works were done. These were not shown back then and only surfaced much later. Some of these gouache works are shown in this exhibition.

Finally, as in every Utopia, the aspirations of Equipo 57 hit reality, which caused great frustration. This dissatisfaction, along with the dispersion of its members made the functioning of the group increasingly difficult and resulted in its dissolution around 1963. Still, its ideas remain in the history of Spanish art as one of the most radical and intense approaches of all those aspiring to change the course of its history through art.