Santiago Villanueva. Allusions

"My work explicitly alludes to the magical desire to capture one precise instant of material in movement and to stir an interpretation of the endless process of tension, inertia and flow in the eye of the observer".

Casal Solleric is hosting the inauguration of "Allusions", an itinerant project that brings together sculptures and spatial works by Santiago Villanueva (Madrid, 1964) which, following his show at Hamburg's Kühne Sitftung, will culminate in an individual exhibition at the Today Art Museum of Beijing next April.

This is the first time that Casal Solleric has opened itself to the visual interferences created by this well-known artist who has lived in Mallorca for many years, establishing a suggestive dialogue both with the spaces of Casal Solleric and with the museum institution. These installations and site-specific pieces reveal the most constant characteristics of his works as well as his desire to investigate other spatial and conceptual solutions in his work.

This project coincides with a period of international recognition for Villanueva, who has built on the experience of his earlier shows in such prestigious galeries as Xavier Fiol in Palma, Mario Sequéira in Braga or Diana Lowenstein in Miami, among others, to reach an interesting phase of creative maturity.

An architect by training, in this project catalogued and interpreted through the texts of critics like Biel Amer, Carlos Jover, Mónica Álvarez-Careaga and Pilar Ribal, Santiago Villanueva also sees him as a critic of his own work. In his own words: "'Allusions' is not a conventional exhibition, and neither are the different spaces where the eight works have been installed. The challenge of satisfactorily generating a stimulating dialogue between the pieces chosen for the exhibition and the space for displaying them was the main reason for me to take on this marvellous task. If this dialogue is right, capturing the message that I want to transmit through rhetorical allusions will enable the appearance of the empathy required for the appreciation and enjoyment to emerge".

His commitment to communication is evident in the specific texts provided for each installation, as in the case of "Unpacking", a large sphere of fibreglass and polystyrene which floats over the patio of Casal Solleric while still in the stage of being unpacked, where he comments: "In my work, a smooth, perfect epidermis is the container guarding the emotional fluid residing in it, but in "Unpacking" this skin is seeking refuge and protection in another greater and more obvious skin, which is the traditional packing of a work of art. The sphere is therefore levitating in a nervous state caused by its uncontrolable desire to reveal itself, between shy and timid, and sensual and erotic, while on the other hand it is inhibited by its fear of the critical and prying gaze it is subjected to in an exposed public place such as Casal Solleric".

Taking our cue from the words of Santiago Villanueva, and the title of the exhibition as an invitation, with its emphasis on pure visibility of form and material, we have sought to establish the connections between this work and the experimental photography of artists such as Harold Edgerton or Man Ray, and a relation with some of the main references in 20th century sculpture, such as Henry Moore, Carl André and Donald Judd, and above all Robert Morris and Eva Hesse.

As the outcome of a synthesis between geometrical, intellectual and sensual aspects, the sculptures of Santiago Villanueva possess an element of "instantaneous", real and invented forms that have been frozen or suspended in time, as if their gravitation and rigidity were annulled. This and other aspects are brought to the fore in the different approaches to his work that have been included in the project catalogue.

The reflection on theoretical and conceptual aspects arising from their shapes and conditions, and the tension of counteracting forces is commented by Carlos Jover: "I have often analysed the work of Villanueva in relation with this annulled summation of counteracting forces that results in the false still life, a fiction of a stilled world whose deepest levels are in a formidable struggle to erupt in chaos".

The text by Biel Amer emphsises the allusive character of Villanueva's sculptures and the artists desire to connect with the viewer: "From his earliest sculptural works, Santiago Villanueva has captured the interest of the spectator by looking for complicity in perception, associating every element and each work with a recognizable moment or object, without the need to make it obvious or realist, but by suggestion and attraction in both a tactile and visual sense".

Mónica Álvarez Careaga analyses the imagery of Villanueva: "Working with techniques for moulding, smelting and finishing, Santiago Villanueva endows his objects with organic and mineral imagery which is particularly visible in his preferred spherical and tubular forms, like antennae and stalactites, but above all in the transitional forms, which have been detained when changing into new arrangements, which are most abundant and noticeable in the artist's work".

By seeking luminescence, sensuality and the beauty of forms created with industrial materials, Santiago Villanueva has been able to develop a body of rotund, self-sufficient work of impeccable skill and humane geometry, creating rigurous, sensual and warm artworks that appeal to both intellectual and sensual approaches.