THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF IDENTITY

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The work of sculptor Xavier Mascaro originates in reflection, in a careful process of formal and conceptual preparation that lends his pieces a polysemic dimension, capable of appealing to very different sensibilities. However, his refined theoretical discourse views the accident as an inseparable part of his aesthetic identity and of the production process of each of his pieces. Not all the reactions that take place during the metal casting processes can be planned, meaning that some form of premeditated surprise is inherent in the final

result of his sculptures. Such is the case with bronze and with iron, two of the materials of which Departure is made, which is on display at the museum between January 2nd and April 28th 2019. In a certain way, the origin of this installation also comes from a somewhat unplanned moment, from a happy coincidence between the artist and Museo Würth La Rioja.

 

The first encounter with Mascaro took place in 2007 with the acquisition of his work Cultural Object XVIII for the Würth Spain Collection. The work was included in the museum’s inaugural exhibition, Human Figure and Abstraction, opened by Prof. Dr. h. c. mult. Reinhold Würth. Over 10 years later, coinciding with the broadcast of the National Radio of Spain’s programme “No es un dia cualquiera” from the museum, the reunion that set this project in motion took place. The installation Departure is on display as part of The Guest Work, a project that aims to delve into the more recent works of artists who make up the Würth Collection. For this reason, curator Kosme de Baranano has surrounded the installation with other works that reinforce Mascaro’s recent research, both in the field of poetry and meanings as well as in techniques and materials Mascaro’s work examines the human condition through the atemporal – what remains of who we were, of what we recognize in our distant past. His artistic work takes us formally back to the past, but also proposes a multiplicity of readings that converge in the present. The monumentality of his work, his colossal sets of sculptures of iron and bronze, settles deep in the retinas of those who view his pieces, and move us from the recognition of collective identity to the shiver of individual feeling.

 

Mascaro reclaims his imagination from the past. His artistic career provides us with immediate references ranging from Etruscan to Nubian sculpture, from Egyptian to Greek mythology, from Iberian to Mesoamerican archaeology. His work shifts between grand words: gravity, in the search for transcendence, in the attempt to

maintain the essence of who he was; solemnity in the use of the material, in the staging of the installations, in the ashen patina of iron, in the time contained in sculpture; depth in the fragile equilibrium that seems to hold the pieces upright, in the empty frames, detached from any mass, propped up, about to collapse.

 

As an artist fascinated by technique, Mascaro integrates his reflections on the material and the process as an essential part of his work. The remnants of the casting process, of the chemical agents and of the (unplanned) thermal behaviour of materials are the grammar of an artistic language in which he reclaims the technique (water troughs, slag, scaffolding...) as a visible component of his aesthetics. The technical production of his

pieces is loaded with the conceptual meaning of each work both in the choice of materials as in the dynamics of the casting itself. On the one hand, Mascaro uses materials (bronze, iron, ceramics...) that humanity has used since the Neolithic age, and thus generates a historical continuity with his reference points. On the other, the casting of metals requires a long cooling process, during which the pieces are surrounded by sand. The artist thus has to extract each sculpture from the earth, thereby creating a sort of metaphor, a contemporary archaeology focused on the identity shared with the past.

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In the series Cultural Objects, created in the mid-2000s, Mascaro linked his research into the aesthetic possibilities of the technique with his formal and conceptual exploration of ancient cultures. Since then, his artistic work has developed into a careful balance between the forcefulness of the material and the refinement of the reflection. The piece Cultural Object XVIII (2006), which forms part of the Würth Spain Collection, is an excellent example of the results of his work. The work depicts an arm that is held upright on precarious

scaffolding, and whose artistic conception leaves it open to a multiplicity of meanings. The artist explains that “Cultural Objects alludes, on the one hand, to the inspiration of the works, which have their origin in those produced by other cultures prior to ours (Etruscan, Egyptian, Iberian...), by human beings identical to us, who left in their work traces of their passions, their fears, their dreams... which have reached us today.

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On the other hand, they are contemporary cultural objects of today, speaking of the same thing that others spoke before, but from my language.” Departure shows a narrative coherence in Mascaro’s artistic evolution. It is a monumental set of sculptures

made up of 26 boats, crafted in cast iron and bronze, which recall the representations of boats in the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean: the sea as a space for cultural communication. The series consists of disused and destroyed ships, as if they were stranded on an inhospitable beach or abandoned as ghost ships, set adrift: the sea as a witness to migrations (both past and present), the pain of abandoning what is left behind, the terror that forces you to keep moving forward. Together with Departure, the exhibition includes two small manned ceramic boats which the artist has titled Exodus. These pieces (as well as Bookshelf, also on display in the exhibition) show Mascaro’s most recent technical experimentation, which consists in combining two materials with very different behaviours when exposed to thermal contrast: metal and ceramics. In this process, the metal contracts during cooling, but this contraction is slowed down by the ceramics, which means that both materials fracture and support each other; an accident, one which cannot be planned, which technically and visually reinforces Mascaro´s poetics.

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Carmen Palacios Hernández

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