Last night, the president of the Hortensia Herrero Foundation opened the exhibition Monumental Sculptures by Manolo Valdés, which was installed this week in the South Lake of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències of Valencia. “Bringing this exhibition to Valencia was a dream for me, almost a utopia. I first saw the exhibition installed in Place Vendome, Paris, through some catalogues, and I thought that it would be wonderful to bring it to my hometown. I am very pleased with this opening and also with the fact that many Valencians and anyone visiting the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències will be able to enjoy it,” Hortensia Herrero said.
The opening took place tonight in an event that brought together more than 400 guests. The act was chaired by Hortensia Herrero herself and by the artist, Manolo Valdés: “With this exhibition we blend together our greatest contemporary artist with the avant-garde environment of our most international architect, Calatrava. There is no better place. In fact, this exhibition ended up being so beautiful that I think it will become a must-see for the whole Valencian society and for anyone visiting Valencia, making this city even more relevant among tourist destinations.”
Purchase of one sculpture
The president of the Hortensia Herrero Foundation promised to buy one of the sculptures of the exhibition: “This temporary exhibition will be on display for around five months and a half, so we thought that the Foundation should buy a piece to be kept as a testimony, as a souvenir. This is what I promise today. We will put it in “La Marina”, nearby the storage facilities (Tinglado 2)”. The choice will not be made by Hortensia Herrero herself: “But we have a problem in the Hortensia Herrero Foundation… What sculpture should we choose? The truth is that I do not know what to do, and I would like the Valencian people and the visitors to help us make this decision. Because of this, we need your vote, and I encourage everyone to join in, because the winner sculpture will be the one that will remain here in Valencia forever.”
This temporary exhibition, which will last until 10 December, has the six sculptures that were part of the Paris exhibition, with the titles “La Mariposa” (“The Butterfly”), “Los Aretes” (“The Earrings”), “La Diadema” (“The Headband”), “Mariposas” (“Butterflies”), “La Doble Imagen” (“The Double Image”) and “La Pamela” (“Pamela – Picture Hat”). For this exhibition, Valdés has created big heads whose headdresses are composed of very diverse motifs such as butterflies, geometric forms or a hat. Valdés draws his inspiration from the surrounding objects and incorporates them in a work that is inspired by the Spanish painting tradition and the art history in general.
For the execution of these monumental sculptures that are more than five metres high, the artist used different materials such as weathering steel, aluminium, cast iron and marble, and some of the works have been painted with an epoxy coating.