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OUTDOOR EXHIBITION OF SCULPTURES BY MANOLO VALDÉS
Eight Sculptures by Internationally Renowned Artist on Display at
Joseph L. Alioto Performing Arts Piazza at the Civic Center from
April 29 – August 31, 2008
Mayor Newsom and Manolo Valdés to Lead Special Dedication Ceremony on
Tuesday, April 29 at 5:00 PM
Regina II (left) and Reina Mariana (right), Courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY
San Francisco, CA (April 21, 2008)…On the heels of the successful Louise Bourgeois Crouching Spider installation, the San Francisco Arts Commission is sponsoring an outdoor exhibition of eight sculptures by internationally renowned artist Manolo Valdés. “Manolo Valdés in San Francisco” will be on display from April 29 – August 31 in the Joseph L. Alioto Performing Arts Piazza at San Francisco’s Civic Center. Mayor Gavin Newsom will lead a dedication ceremony featuring Manolo Valdés on Tuesday, April 29 at 5:00 PM. The sculpture exhibition was made possible with support from the Marlborough Gallery, New York, and Grants for the Arts in San Francisco.
“We are honored to have the privilege of displaying the work of an esteemed artist such as Manolo Valdés,” said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. “San Francisco will join the ranks of the other leading cities of the world such as Paris and New York in hosting this impressive sculpture display.”
This is the first time that the San Francisco Arts Commission has orchestrated the display of an ensemble of sculptures as part of a temporary exhibition. The Manolo Valdés sculpture exhibition iscomprised of eight monumental bronze sculptures by the renowned Spanish painter and sculptor. Three of the sculptures (Yvonne I, Yvonne II and Regina II) depict large female heads, their calm facial composure and structured equilibrium dynamically offset by enormous ornamental head pieces which bring the sculptures to over 13 feet in height. A fourth female head, Lydia, is more sphinx-like in expression with a taciturn gaze expressed by her finely sculpted eyes and brows. The exhibition also includes four sculptures from the Las Meninas series, which are based on the central figures, Infanta Margarita and Reina Mariana, in the famous Baroque painting Las Meninas by Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. The feminine Reina Mariana figures are courtly and elegant while imposing. These sculptures will look particularly appropriate in the context of the formal Beaux Arts architecture of San Francisco’s Civic Center. The Reina Mariana sculptures were recently displayed to much acclaim in the gardens of the Palais Royal in Paris.
“We are committed to bringing art into the daily life of the city for the enjoyment of San Franciscans as well as our visitors,” said Luis R. Cancel, San Francisco’s Director of Cultural Affairs. “These temporary sculpture exhibitions help to extend our city’s international reputation as a major center for public art. Placing these works in the Civic Center means that Mr. Valdés work will join sculptures by Henry Moore and George Rickey that permanently adorn this civic space – they will add an additional element of excitement for the summer.”
“Manolo Valdés in San Francisco” is organized by the Arts Commission’s Public Arts Program which, in addition to commissioning permanent artworks for civic spaces in accordance with a city mandate as part of the cost of new municipal construction, has managed or facilitated 15 temporary public art projects over the past few years. These include the 27 foot-long Crouching Spider installed earlier this year on the Embarcadero and the David Best Temple Project in Patricia’s Green. Upcoming temporary projects include an ephemeral installation of thousands of latex balloons that will hover over the surface of Lake Merced this August. Upcoming permanent projects will be installed in the Central Subway and Laguna Honda Hospital, as well as numerous Recreation and Park facilities and branch libraries throughout the city.
About Manolo Valdés
Born in Valencia, Spain in 1942, Manolo Valdés is one of the few artists today who has successfully mastered the disciplines of drawing, painting, sculpture and printmaking. In each medium he has shown himself to be equally expert, technically skilled, highly original, and unceasingly imaginative. Impassioned by artists of the past ranging from Rubens to Zurbarán and Matisse to Lichtenstein, Valdés finds more than just inspiration in their paintings; he uses their work as a pretext (“como pretexto”) to create an entirely new aesthetic object - a painting or sculpture that, while clearly sourced from an known composition, is a uniquely brilliant work of art in itself.
Manolo Valdés lives and works in New York and Madrid. In 1999, he was the official representative of Spain at the Venice Biennale. Recent retrospectives of Valdés’ paintings, sculpture and graphic work have been held at the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2002 and Madrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in 2006. An important solo exhibition at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul, France, was also held in 2006. In 2007, Valdés became an Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite, France, one of the highest cultural honors in that country.
His work is included in numerous public and private collections including, but not limited to: the de Young Museum of San Francisco; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany; Menil Foundation, Houston, Texas; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Modern Museet Art, Stockholm, Sweden; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Museo Nacional Centre de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.
The San Francisco Arts Commission
Established by charter in 1932, the San Francisco Arts Commission is the City agency that champions the arts in San Francisco. Led by the belief that a creative cultural environment is essential to the City’s well-being, the Arts Commission programs permeate all aspects of city life from the murals and monuments under the care of the Civic Art Collection to the dance and theatre productions funded by Cultural Equity Grants, to the new generation of teen poets cultivated by the Writer’s Corp program.
One of the first of its kind in the country, San Francisco’s Public Art Program was established by City ordinance in 1969. The Public Art Program seeks to promote a diverse and stimulating cultural environment to enrich the lives of the city’s residents, visitors and employees. The Program encourages the creative interaction of artists, designers, city staff, officials and community members during the design of City projects in order to develop public art that is specific to the site and meaningful to the community. The acquisitions made by the Commission’s Public Art Program reflect the city’s ongoing commitment to the cultural enrichment and beautification of civic spaces.
Contact: Jill Manton, 415/252-2585