Spanish, born in Paris in November 1965.
He moved with his family to Spain in 1968.
He produced his first paintings and etchings in 1979.
In 1983-88 he studied at the Barcelona School of Fine Arts,
graduating in the speciality of painting.
In 1989 he produced his first works in bronze and in 1995 he
began to work with iron.
In 1996-98 he lived in New York.
He then returned to Madrid, where he worked on the
production of monumental works, some of which are
installed in Ceutí (Murcia province), Jerez de la Frontera
(Cadiz province) and Pinto (Madrid province).
In 2004 he moved back to New York and currently he lives
and works in New York and Madrid.
About that time he started experimenting with works in
different materials, including stained glass, resin and stone. |
SOLO E X HI B ITIONS ( S e l e c t i o n )
2011 Beck & Eggeling, Dortmund
2010
Xavier Mascaró. Eterno retorno. Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia.
Beck & Eggeling, Dusseldorf
Xavier Mascaró. Escultura Monumental. Paseo de Recoletos y Paseo del Prado, Madrid.
2010 Eterno Retorno. IVAM, Valencia.Xavier Mascaró.Escultura Monumental.Paseo de Recoletos and Paseo del Prado,Madrid. 2009 Xavier Mascaró. Escultura Monumental. Paseo del
Parque and Plaza de la Marina, Málaga
Gebert Contemporary, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Xavier Mascaró. Galería Freites,
Caracas, Venezuela
2008 Guardianes. Palais Royal, Paris
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de
Salta, Argentina
Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires
Mascaró en Silos. Santo Domingo de Silos
Monastery, Spain
2007 Gebert Contemporary, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Sala Robayera, Miengo
Galería Cadaqués Dos, Cadaqués, Gerona
2006 Galería Joan Guaita. Palma de Mallorca
Museo Barjola. Gijón
Encuentro, Galería N2, Barcelona.
Obra reciente. Galería Arte 9, Murcia
2005 Recent work. Marlborough Chelsea, New York
2004 Mascaró. Spanische Skulptur des 20
Jahrhunderts.Palais Harrach, Kunsthistorische
Museum, Vienna
Xavier Mascaró. Esculturas de hierro / Bocetos
sobre papel, Training Centre, Santo Domingo
Monastery, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia,
organized by SEACEX (catalogue)
2003 Galería Marlborough, Madrid
Galería Art Nueve, Murcia
2002 Marlborough Chelsea, New York
Galería Marlborough, Madrid
2001 Galería Marlborough, Madrid
Galería Joan Guaita, Palma de Mallorca
Galería Colón XVI, Bilbao
1999 Galería Sen, Madrid
1998 Galería dels Angels. Gramercy International
Art Fair, New York
Galería dels Angels, Barcelona
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GROUP E X HI B ITIONS ( S e l e c t i o n )
2011 Tefaf 2011. Beck & Eggeling, Maastricht.
Dallas Art Fair, Gebert Contemporary,Dallas
El Arte del desnudo, Centro de Arte Tomás y Valiente. Fuenlabrada
2009 Art20, Park Avenue Armory, Gebert
Contemporary, New York
Hong Kong International Art Fair, Gebert
Contemporary, Hong Kong
Bologna ArteFiera, Beck & Eggeling, Düsseldorf
Bologna ArteFiera,
Galería Nieves Fernández, Madrid
2008 Art20, Park Avenue Armory, Gebert
Contemporary, New York
Hong Kong International Art Fair, Gebert
Contemporary, Hong Kong
Los Angeles Art Show, Gebert Contemporary,
Los Angeles
2007 ART20, Park Avenue Armory, Gebert
Contemporary, New York
Chiaroscuro Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
Festival VivAmerica, Plaza Mayor, Madrid
Figura Humana y abstracción,
Museo Würth, La Rioja
Gebert Contemporary, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Art Cologne, Galería Nieves Fernández
La palabra imaginada,
Museo Esteban Vicente, Segovia
Arco 2007, Madrid, Galería Nieves Fernández
2006 Seis artistas del Siglo XXI, Centro Cultural de
España Juan de Salazar, Asunción, Paraguay
Art Cologne, with Galería Nieves Fernández
El cincel y la palabra. Sala Kubo,
Kursaal, San Sebastián
Art Chicago 2006, with Galería Art Nueve
La Revolución de la Escultura en el siglo XX.
Casa de Vacas in the Retiro park, Madrid
ARCO 2006, Madrid, with Marlborough
Gallery (New York)
Sculpture, Marlborough Gallery, New York
Obra sobre Papel, Galería Marlborough, Madrid
2005 Works on paper, Marlborough Gallery, New York.
Mostra. Artistes Espanyols Contemporanis
Conselleria de Cultura de les Illes Balears, Passeig
de Sagrera, Palma de Mallorca
Summer Show, Marlborough Gallery, New York
Salamanca, ciudad de escultura.
Plaza Anaya, Salamanca
ARCO 2005. Madrid, with Marlborough
Gallery (New York)
Marlborough Chelsea, New York
2004 Sculptures Monumentales à Saint-Tropez,
La Citadelle, Saint-Tropez
La marche vers la vie. Jardins du Casino, Monaco
ARCO 2004. Madrid, with Marlborough
Gallery (New York)
2003 ARCO 2003. Madrid, with Marlborough
Gallery (New York)
Art Espagnol Contemporain, Marlborough
Monaco, Monaco
La Fête. Espace Bellevue, Biarritz. Travelled to
Museo Valenciano de la Ilustración y la
Modernidad, Valencia
Portadas de Ababol, Palacio Aguirre, Cartagena
2002 Europe’s Image, Myth & Reality. Den Haag
Sculptuur, The Hague
Les jeux dans l’art du XXème Siècle. Biarritz,
Espace Bellevue. Travelled to La Lonja - Palacio de
Montemuzo, Zaragoza
ARCO 2002, Madrid, with Marlborough
Gallery (New York)
Marlborough Chelsea, New York
La Parade des Animaux,
Jardins du Casino, Monaco
Escultores Marlborough, Capa Esculturas
Gallery, Brussels
2001 Cinquante ans de sculpture espagnole,
Palais Royal, Paris
Esculturas en el Retiro. Paseo de Coches,
Retiro park, Madrid
Propios y Extraños, Galería Marlborough, Madrid
ARCO 2001, Madrid, with Marlborough
Gallery (New York)
Relevos, Valdés-Mascaró. Torre Caja Madrid,
Obra Social Caja Madrid, Madrid
Propios y Extraños, Marlborough Gallery, New York
ARCO 2000, Madrid, with Galería Marlborough
Galería Vértice, Oviedo
1999 Propios y Extraños, Galería Marlborough, Madrid
ARCO 1999, Madrid, with Galería dels
Angels (Barcelona)
1998 National Arts Club, New York
Galería dels Angels, Barcelona
Galería dels Angels, ARCO, Madrid
1997 White Box Gallery, Philadelphia |
STAGE DESIGN
2002 Carta de amor by Fernando Arrabal, in a versión
by Juan Carlos Pérez de la Fuente
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía,
Madrid (Audience Award for the best stage design,
Palencia Festival)
2001 Cementerio de Automóviles by Fernando Arrabal,
in a versión by Juan Carlos Pérez de la Fuente.
Centro Dramático Nacional, Teatro María
Guerrero, Madrid
PU B LIC W OR K S
2003 Year of the Bull III. Jerez de la Frontera City Hall
2002 Caballo de Troya II. Jerez de la Frontera City Hall
Departure IX. Pinto City Hall
2001 Lizard. Ceutí City Hall
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B I B LIOGRAPH Y
2008 Barañano, Kosme. Solennité de la ruine. Text in the
catalogue for the Guardians exhibition. Mascaró.
Jardin du Palais Royal.
Carpio, Francisco. Un relato en tres dimensiones.
Text in the catalogue for the Mascaró
en Silos exhibition.
2007 Cook-Romero, Elizabeth. Unearthing inaudible
tones. The New Mexican,
30 November-6 December.
Mascaró crea ‘Love’ con el corazón como símbolo.
As, 21 November.
Mascaró reflexiona sobre la escultura en la sala de
arte municipal Robayera de Miengo. E.C.
Alerta, 5 October. Los ‘Objetos Culturales’ de
Macaró pasan por Robayera. Pueblos de
Cantabria, 1 October.
El material escenográfico de Mascaró se suma hoy
a la temporada de Robayera. Balbona, Guillermo.
El Diario Montañés, 22 September.
Mas, Ricard. ‘’Frágil!’’. Text in the catalogue for
the Sala Robayera.
Robayera inauguró el otoño expositivo con
la reflexión escultórica de Xavier Mascaró.
El Diario Montañés, 25 September.
La Sala Robayera acoge la obra del escultor Xavier
Mascaró. D.C. Alerta, 21 September.
El museo Würth franquea las puertas de La Rioja a
la excelencia del arte contemporáneo. El Correo,
8 September.
Moreno, Bárbara. La otra factoría de creación.
Noticias de la Rioja, 8 September
2006 La técnica consiste en hallar soluciones propias. El
Comercio, 16 September.
J.C. Gea. Xavier Mascaró expone en el Museo
Barjola su arqueología persona. La Nueva
España, 16 September.
La mano que invoca. Ángel Antonio Rodríguez.
Text in the catalogue for the Museo Barjola
exhibition.
García, Pepa. Mascaró desentierra sus
arqueologías íntimas en Murcia. La Verdad,
17 February.
Cruz Sánchez, Pedro A. Después del Incendio.
Text in the catalogue for the Galería Art Nueve
exhibition, February 2006.
2005 Planas, Ricard. Xavier Mascaró. Soldant la
imperfecció’. BonArt, no. 73, November 2005.
Francia, Ignacio. La escultura actual dialoga con
la monumentalidad de Salamanca. El País, 14 May
Blanco, José Manuel. Salamanca abre sus plazas
a la escultura contemporánea. El Mundo, 14 May.
Exposición de escultura. Terra.es.16 May.
Pozuelo Yvanco, José María. La vida toda
al alcance de una lectura, Blanco y Negro Cultural,
12 February.
Salamanca 2005. Una muestra de escultura al
aire libre decorará las calles de Salamanca
hasta finales de Agosto. Europa Press, 13 May.
Obras contemporáneas al aire libre retoman la
idea renacentista de la plaza. Terra.es.
Salamanca abre sus puertas a la
escultura contemporánea. El Mundo, 14 May.
Ros, Cristina. El Passeig Sagrera espacio para
las esculturas de diez artistas
contemporáneos. Última Hora Digital, 20 June.
Adrover, Ángela. Mostra d’Escultura Pública:
Artistes Espanyols Contemporanis. Amb l’Art,
20 July.
El presente de la escultura española se cita en el
Passeig Sagrera. Última Hora Digital, 20 July.
2004 Vázquez, Sonsoles. 10 artistas llenan tus sueños,
Telva, October.
Rudich Julieta. Viena acoge obras de Lucio
Muñoz y Xavier Mascaró, El País, 26 July.
El secreto de Ceutí, un Museo a cielo abierto,
Diseño de la ciudad, April, no. 43.
Burel, Víctor M. El jazmín y la basura, El Punto de
las Artes, 19-25 March.
Esculturas de Xavier Mascaró en el antiguo
convento de Santo Domingo, El Punto de las
Artes, 5-11 March.
Exteriores incorpora a Hidalgo, Mascaró,
Cidoncha y Franco, El País, 6 March.
M.C., ARCO 2004. El ABC de los imprescindibles,
ABC, Blanco y Negro Cultural, 14 February.
Bonet, Juan Manuel and Barañano, Kosme.
Mascaró, SEACEX, Spanish Foreign Ministry,
catalogue for the Xavier Mascaró exhibition
Esculturas en hierro / Bocetos sobre papel,
Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.
2003 Díaz Guardiola, Javier. Xavier Mascaró: “La
escultura debe ser lo más vaga e indefinida
posible. Ahí radica su fuerza”, ABC (Blanco y
Negro Cultural), 25 October 2003.
De Alfonso, Carlota. Xavier Mascaró. Evocaciones
y ausencias, El Punto de las Artes, 17-23 October.
Herrera Ottino, Belén. Estratos del recuerdo, El
Duende de Madrid, 15 October-15 November.
Jumel, Marine. Biarritz, entre art de la fête et fête
de l’art, L’Humanité, 18 August.
Barnatán, Marcos Ricardo. Biarritz es una fiesta,
El Mundo, 29 June.
Delgado Carlos. Xavier Mascaró. La forma como
reflexión, El Punto de las Artes, 20-26 June
Xavier Mascaró, Opinión, 15 June.
Lucas Antonio. Descifrando el amanecer del
hierro, El Mundo, 3 June.
Soler, Pedro. Evocación de lo ausente, La Verdad,
30 May.
Arco, Antonio. La muerte le hizo artista, La
Verdad, 29 May.
Sánchez, Raquel. Mascaró muestra su búsqueda
de la identidad, El Faro, 28 May.
Y otra estatua para el toro, Diario de Jerez, 7 May.
Xavier Mascaró en Marlborough Chelsea, Arte y
Naturaleza, January-February.
Marín-Medina, José. Ilimitaciones de Mascaró, El
Mundo - El Cultural, 6 November.
Javier Mascaró, Descubrir el Arte, November 2003
(year VI, no. 57)
Mancharse de olvidos, notodo.com.
Escultura reciente de Xavier Mascaró, Expansión
Weekend, 4 October.
2002 Xavier Mascaró. Recent Sculpture, Absolute Arts.
El Punto de las Artes, 13 to 19 December 2002.
Rotondas para contemplar”, Revista del
Ayuntamiento de Jerez, October.
Solanilla, José Luis. Grandes creadores
contemporáneos, en la muestra Los Juegos en el
Arte del siglo XX, Heraldo de Aragón, 30 October.
García, Eva. Montemuzo y La Lonja invitan a jugar
con el arte del siglo XX, El Periódico de Aragón,
30 October.
Xavier Mascaró, Arte y Parte, no. 41.
Sculpture Art of Spain, Vision Magazine,
Shanghai, August.
Lobono, Franck. Xavier Mascaró, Monaco
Seaside, no. 7, summer-autumn.
Quint, Eric. Herinnering aan het verloop van de
tijol, Haagsche Courant, 24 June.
2001 Monzón, Maite. Escultura en el Retiro Madrileño,
Revista Arte y Naturaleza, no. 17, November-
December, p. 9.
Sierra, Rafael. El vandalismo se ceba con la
exposición de escultura del Retiro, El Mundo,
30 November, p. 61.
Ribal, Pilar. Xavier Mascaró, El Mundo, Revista
Cultural, 21-27 November, p. 37.
Urquijo, Javier. Culto a la memoria. Viaje
interior por la imaginería de Xavier Mascaró, El
Mundo, 21 November.
La expresión de la búsqueda de la identidad, El
Mundo, 18 October.
A la recerca de la identitat, Diari de Balears,
18 October.
Xavier Mascaró a la búsqueda de la identidad,
Última Hora, 18 October.
Tomàs, F. Xavier Mascaró, Diario de Mallorca,
18 October.
El Retiro acoge un paseo de esculturas, El Punto
de las Artes, year XVI, no. 627, 5-11 October, p. 4.
Cereceda, Miguel. Entre el ornamento y el
monumento, ABC Cultural, 6 October, p. 36.
Los mejores escultores contemporáneos se dan
cita en el Retiro: el Paseo de Coches del Retiro,
convertido en un museo de esculturas al aire libre,
ABC Madrid, 3 October, cover and pp. 34-35.
Esteban, Rafa. Un parque de esculturas, El
Mundo, 2 October.
N.P., 24 escultores toman el Retiro, ABC, 2
October, p. 49.
Más escultores en el Retiro, La Razón, 2
October.
Carpio, Francisco. La Edad del Hierro, Lápiz, no.
171, pp. 65-69.
Tinte, Juan Antonio. Propios y extraños en la
galería Marlborough, El Punto de las Artes, 20-30
July, p. 5.
Tasset, Jean-Marie. Sculptures Royales pour un
jardin, Le Figaro, 29 June.
Pinte, Jean Louis. 50 ans de Sculpture Espagnole
dans les jardins de l’Alhambra, Figaroscope,
27 June.
El Palais Royal exhibe en sus jardines a tres
generaciones de artistas, de Oteiza a Barceló, La
Vanguardia Digital, 19 June.
Frade, Cristina. Entre la máquina y el hombre.
Los escultores españoles asaltan los jardines del
Palais-Royal, El Mundo, 19 June.
Rodríguez, Josefa. En los jardines del Palais-
Royal se exhibe la exposición Cincuenta años de
escultura española, La Razón Digital, 19 June.
Barnatán, Marcos Ricardo. Arco 2001 en diez
obras, Descubrir el Arte, March.
Héroes y titanes. Esculturas de Xavier Mascaró,
Art Notes, New York, February.
Barnatán, Ricardo. Elogio de la fuerza, Metrópoli,
January-February.
Díaz-Guardiola, Javier. Mascaró, íntegro, ABC
Cultural, 27 January.
De Alfonso, Carlota. Xavier Mascaró, la
articulación de lo épico, El Punto de las Artes,
26 January.
Tinte, Juan Antonio. Manolo Valdés – Xavier
Mascaró: Relevos, El Punto de las artes,
26 January.
Arnaldo, Javier. Xavier Mascaró, objetos
pervertidos, El Cultural (El Mundo), 20 January.
Suárez, Rubén. Nuevo desembarco de la
Marlborough en Vértice, La Nueva España,
18 January.
2000 González, David. Xavier Mascaró. Entrevista,
Noticias de Arte, New York, year XXVI, no. 257,
May-August, p. 4-6.
Erausquin, Victoria. Arco 2000. El nuevo
coleccionismo, Expansión (special issue), no. 5,
January, p. 4.
1999 García Osuna, Carlos. Xavier Mascaró, La Razón,
El Cultural, 4 April.
Barnatán, Marcos Ricardo. El hombre vacío,
Metrópoli 19-25 March.
Castaño, Adolfo. Xavier Mascaró, ABC Cultural,
20 March.
Tinte, Juan Antonio. Esculturas de Xavier
Mascaró, El Punto de las Artes, no. 521.
1998 Barenblint, Fernando. Xavier Mascaró, la
abstracción del destino, Art Notes,
New York, summer.
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Mascaró or Ascetism KOSME DE BARAÑANO
(Text of the commissioner for the catalogue of Xavier Mascaró in the Kunsthistorische Museum of Vienna and the Convent of Santo Domingo, Cartagena de Indias)
In this exhibition and catalogue we have endeavoured to present the
iron sculptures produced by Xavier Mascaró – an artist born in Paris in
1965 who studied Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona – between
1995 and 2003. Mascaró's artistic output, which is not too prolific, gives
the impression of forming a single unit that is difficult to divide into
different sections. Despite this, we have attempted to establish
separate chapters or stages in his experimental trajectory with a view
to explaining the philosophy that underlies or accompanies these
works, rather than their origins. The sequence of this anthology, which
covers Mascaró's sculpture from the first works he forged in 1995 to
the present day, is as follows:
_ First sculptures 1995 – 1998 ( Solemnity, Gravity, Faith, Hope,
Spirituality , etc.). Solemnity was the first iron piece produced by
Mascaró after he stopped painting. The work is made up of three
different pieces, one of which is 107 cm high, spaced out to cover a
total length of three metres. The sculpted pieces resemble the
weighs of a giant scale that controls space. Years later, this same
tectonic sense would appear, under a different guise, in Frida , a
broken column set in a splint-like structure, but the solemnity of the
architectural fragment sought by Mascaró would remain the same.
The artist's visual reasoning is based on the subversion of objects –
on the reconfiguration, rather than the paraphrase, of images (which
is what Bacon did with regard to Velázquez, for example). Hope ,
executed in Barcelona , was the first cast work that did not resort to
the false complementary pieces which are normally needed for the
interior construction of the mould. All the sculptures produced
during these first three years were made of cast iron. In Rationality ,
a very orthogonal piece like a pulpit, or in Faith , a cross, the hooks
and runners have been turned into expressive elements, much as
Julio González uses welding not only as a constructive element, but
also as a feature of texture and expression in his sculpture. Through
these objects (crosses, bathtubs), Mascaró strives to transmit a
melancholy lyricism, the poetry that is conveyed by their materiality.
Spirituality encompasses a series of prie-dieu or kneeler-like pieces,
the church furniture used to kneel down and pray. These are
transformed into almost pure abstraction, into architecture, on the
one hand, and into sediment, an effect that is achieved by means of
the skilled use of an ash coloured patina, on the other. In this way
Mascaró turns a common object into an arcane of Catholic religion.
_ Sculptures related with tauromachy 1998 – 2001 ( Sangre Española,
Olé, Love , etc.). During this period Mascaró showed greater
interest in quintessentially Spanish objects, attempting to highlight
the icons rooted in our culture that somehow define us in everyday
life. The Sangre española series uses a scaffolding structure,
similar to the one that appears in Hope . In Mascaró the use of
armature, of iron scaffolding that acts as a base, is a constant.
Whereas Brancusi eliminated the base or turned it into an integral
part of the sculpture, Mascaró supports many of his pieces on
scaffolding over which he “builds”, in the mediaeval sense of the
term, his garments, his images, his icons. This skeleton also helps
the piece to gravitate or exhibit the way in which it “hangs”, the
manner in which the heavy material of the armour folds. In
Sangreespañola IV the scaffolding almost dominates over the rest of thework,
particularly since the armour has lost the shaft section of the
saddle. The same happens in Olé, where the interest behind the
breast plates or epaulières lies in the way in which the plates
hang, in their starchy verticality. In other pieces exempt of
scaffolding, such as Love, Trap, Shield , which are more akin to the
high relief, this hanging disposition is absent; not so the sense of
rhythm, the search for the setting and the rippling movement of the
heavy materials, i.e. the rigid fabrics or leathers that are
transformed into cast iron.
_ Sculptures related with movement 1999 – 2002 ( Cabeza de Troya,
Departure , Barcas , etc.). First came the Caballos de Troya , pieces
that were also built with scaffolding in which the artist increased the
size of his creations beyond the human scale. Gradually, these works
became lighter, featuring less mass of iron and more scaffolding, as
in Bélier IV (near the ground) or Sueño de victoria (elevated
structure), which represents a bullfighter's bolero, also a rigid
garment, or in the first boats called Departure . The scaffolding raises
the point of view, thereby endowing the images with monumental
connotations. In the year 2002 he finished some pieces, such as Fósile ,
in which the play of stone and iron recalls Alexander Calder's
mobile sculpture, but rather than with humour, with sadness. The
piece is appealing in its opposing features, mobility and fragility,
which result from the materials that compose it, iron and stone. The
structure, whose appearance is galvanised, reduces the idea of
mass to the scheme of a skeleton (like power line pylons), and the
fossil becomes visible in the form of a crystallised shape.
_ Other series 2000 – 2003 ( Cabezas, Secret Garden, Templo , etc.). Over
the past three years, Mascaró has returned, on the one hand, to the
world of war, the world of helmets that take on the appearance of
impregnable fortresses in his series Cabezas . The prevailing
aesthetics is that of armours and belts, i.e. the iron elements that
adjust to the human body or the tack that protects animals. Mascaró
centres his attention on the straps used to tie these pieces; in them
he looks for the rhythm between metal and leather and the texture of
the union and setting of both. On the other, he starts to leave
quintessentially Spanish icons behind in favour of the type of
memento that brings back childhood memories: racing cars in
miniature, scooters (Citizen Kane's Rosebud sleigh?), archaeological
remains of a lost childhood. The artist himself has said that: “early
childhood is something that lies deep within us. I try to revisit it
constantly in an attempt to bring out the most genuine part of my
identity. It is something I would like to get to the bottom of.” For
Marcos Ricardo Barnatán, Mascaró's work is an “archaeology of
childhood.” In 2001 he executed his first stone and iron piece,
Pequeña Frida . Other materials, such as broken pieces of china from
a bathroom, are used in Personal Effects , dating from 2003, in an
archaeology of the toilet. The half-belt in Secret Garden (IV and V ) is
supported by eight rods instead of structured scaffolding. The halfbelt
is a pair of stockings or breeches that were worn under the
cuisse, the piece of armour used to protect the thigh.
_ Besides these three stages, we must consider his large pieces of
cast iron, such as Year of the Bull (I and III), over six metres high,
Caballo de Troya (I and II ), and Chaman , 3 metres high, as well as his
three installations: Maletilla (I and II), Intérieur Espagnol and Tu t'en
souviens..?, which have been exhibited in New York , Biarritz , Madrid ,
and Saragossa . All of these are made up of wood, iron, fabric (the
customary elements), and also of a video and music, when not of
sand. These installations show that the oeuvre of Mascaró is not
circumscribed to the visual object, the poem, but that it can turn into
a stage, into an experimental search for a space that can
accommodate the theatre and the plastic arts equally. Mascaró
stretches his images to the point where they become conjuring
tricks. In another theatrical piece called Tu t'en souviens…? he
recovers a family movie that belonged to his mother in which he
appears as a child with music of the period (the photographer, Juan
de Sande, helped Mascaró with the transposition of the super-8
images). We also present the drawings of the artist, which have been
divided into two sections: the sketches from his personal notebooks
and the drawings that can stand alone.
_ His notebooks, which consist of notes and sketches dating as far
back as 1996, are enormously interesting. In them, besides ordinary
notes or telephone numbers, we find his first ideas for a sculpture
or a series, or notes on how to execute a piece. For instance, there
are notes on where to put the runners for a Cabeza de caballo
piece, or on how to construct a bull from pieces similar to those
that make up a backbone, as well as jottings on an idea to make a
photographic chain of a newborn, with “various photographic
links”; later, he writes, “the images intermingle with others of glass
containers filled with water (stacks of jugs and bottles); liquid
medium, transparency.” He toys with these ideas which he later
translates into iron, the Fósile or the Bélier seen in sequences that
are transparent due to a lack of mass. In another page he jots
down how to achieve the texture of a nightdress by “patching up
the inside of the mould.”
In these notebooks we find preliminary sketches for the Caballos de
Troya , for the Temple of Heaven and, in huge numbers, for the large
format version of Departure . There are sketches and notes for all
his installations, for the casting processes, for a kind of Stonehenge
Finally, we present the drawings that stand alone, which almost
always come in formats larger than those of the notebooks,
among them the first one he drew when he arrived in New York in
December of 1996. These notebooks represent the moment in
which Mascaró captured his inspiration, the step between idea
and expression; the pieces themselves came later, as part of a
longer, slower and more laborious process. But these notebooks
are the net that trapped the first idea. In the words of another
sculptor, Jacques Lipchitz, “inspiration is something like a mass of
birds passing by and you know how to catch one or two, but if you
don't know how, you let them pass.”
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