March 20, 2007

Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series

CONTEMPORARY ART LESSONS IN NAVARRA

Abstraction in Navarre (the plastic arts during the 1960s-1980s)

Dr. Francisco Javier Zubiaur Carreño.
Chair of Navarrese Heritage and Art

As a consequence of a series of events - the progressive opening to the outside world, the development partner -cultural, the Pamplona Meetings of 1972 and the arrival of Jorge Oteiza in Alzuza in 1975 - the plastic arts in Navarre will take a progressive turn towards geometric and expressionist Abstraction from 1975 onwards, something that can be seen in the paintings of Pedro Manterola and Luis Borobio, as well as in the sculptures of Faustino Aizkorbe, Ángel Garraza and Xabier Santxotena. This change in the conception of the work was preceded by the formal explorations of a series of painters and sculptors, mostly in the field of expressionism. Among the former, Francisco Buldain, Miguel Echauri, Julio Martín-Caro, Mariano Sinués, José Antonio Eslava and Alfredo Díaz de Cerio. Among the latter, by the schematics of José Ulibarrena. Thus, in the 1980s it can be said that Abstraction is already fully integrated in our regional creation and runs parallel to a fruitful figuration in breadth and results. 

Pedro Manterola, Bandera 2, 1975

J. Echeberría Burgoa, Composition, 1982