Yturralde

Chronology

1942

Jose María Lopez Yturralde is born in Cuenca on 29 May. He is the only son of Miguel, a clerk of works, draughtsman and builder, and Elena, a sensitive, cultivated woman. The same year he and his mother move to Olite in Navarra, to live with his mother's family, with whom he lives until the age of five, in the flour factory managed by his grandfather. In due course he adopts and signs with his mother's surname. In Olite he learns to read and write with his mother and starts his schooling with the Franciscan Fathers.

He recalls perfectly the first film he sees in his life, in that town in Navarra, Captains Courageous, based on a novel by Rudyard Kipling, directed by Victor Fleming and featuring Mickey Rooney, Spencer Tracy and Lionel Barrymore. From his house he can see the imposing castle, of which he makes the first drawings from life that he remembers.

1947

They go back to live in Cuenca for about a year, but this is interrupted when he has a serious accident in a car. While he is still convalescing from fractures in both legs, he and his mother return definitively to Peralta, in Navarra. He draws constantly and makes a pencil portrait of his grandparents.

1951

Daily painting classes with a local teacher, José María Aranaz, an elegant, cultured man. a great enthusiast of reading and admirer of Sorolla, who practises naturalistic painting. Under his guidance he paints landscapes from nature and interprets illustrations. He makes a sort of cartoon film, constructing the paper film himself, using characters he invents or takes from comic strips and showing the film with an NIC cinema projector.

1953

He and his mother move to Saragossa and he begins his secondary education at the Colegio del Salvador run by the Jesuits. He continues painting with the style and forms taught him by Aranaz, whom he continues seeing in the holidays and who repeatedly urges him to give up his studies and devote himself fully to painting. He joins the Aeromodelling School in Saragossa, where he learns to design and construct gliders and other model aeroplanes. Later he applies these techniques with light materials to his work, always cultivating a certain passion for aeronautics and flying.

1954-56

He goes to night classes to study drawing at the Arts and Crafts School in Saragossa. Next to it is the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes, which he visits and where he particularly remembers the works of Goya. He is employed as a drawing assistant at the advertising company Suma, where he learns the techniques of wash, pen, lettering, etc. He designs bus bodywork and helps to paint theatre sets, cinema advertisements, etc. Summer reading in the small but well-stocked library of his aunt and uncle, María Luz lturralde and Rafael Domínguez, ranging from Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells and Conan Doyle to Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Turgenyev and Gogol.

1957-58

He moves to Valencia, where he lives with his father's relatives. His cousin Mariluz Sanchis, a piano student at the Conservatoire and a great enthusiast of painting, introduces him to artists and intellectuals who frequent the University Club, a social meeting-place and venue for debates, performances of plays and exhibitions. On her advice, he decides to study Fine Arts, and enrols as an external student to prepare for the entry examination for the Escuela de Bellas Artes, in the class of Ancient Art and Vestments with Professor Rafael Sanchis-Yago, who instils in him a solid, profound, constructive view of the problem of space and volume by making analytical drawings of the plaster Greek and Roman statutes used as models. He goes to life classes in the evenings at the Círculo de Bellas Artes.

He draws for the university magazine Claustro, producing numerous illustrations, and begins studying at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Valencia. He meets Father Alfons Roig and attends his classes and lectures, where the problems of modern art are transmitted with feeling and direct understanding. He talked to us about artists such as Kandinsky, Rouault, Julio González, Manessier, Bissière, Le Corbusier, Vasarely... Father Roig's poetic and dramatic view of art, as life, induces a deep, sensitive, loving approach to art in his students. A moral and emotional basis which those of us who had the good fortune to be his students will always bear within us.

1959

He travels to Paris, where the first art gallery that he visits by chance is showing an exhibition of Kandinsky. He works as a valet de chambre for a well-off family in the Rue Washington. This enables him to remain in the city for some months and visit its museums. Indescribable emotions in the great city. The impact, above all, of contemporary art in the Musée d'Art Moderne, with Nicolas de Staël, Modigliani, Delaunay, Matisse and Rouault, but above all the colour of the Fauves with their bright, pure tonalities whose relationships and rhythms influence him until the present day in the use of colour. Cézanne, L'Orangerie, Monet. He visits Normandy and Brittany. He hitch-hikes back to Spain.

1960

The return to Valencia and the Escuela de Bellas Artes proves oppressive and he thinks of leaving, this time for Germany, in order to continue his studies. He travels by train to Barcelona, and then in a bus of emigrants he reaches Stuttgart. In order to survive, he works for nine hours a day in a machinery factory.

Later he obtains a less arduous job as a post office worker. He frequently goes to the Staatsgalerie (which he revisits many years later in order to see the extension by the architect James Stirling).

He studies German at the Deutsches Institut. In Stuttgart he again meets Alfons Roig. Journeys to Tübingen, various parts of the Schwarzwald, and Munich, where he remains for a while at the Spanish College.

In Munich, at the then Kandinsky Museum, now the Lenbachhaus, he studies the collections of the Bauhaus, always reference points for him. He is especially impressed by artists such as Paula Moderson-Becker, Nolde and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and the architectural rhythms of certain works by Kirchner, but above all by the group Der Blaue Reiter. Works by Marc, August Macke and, of course, Klee and Kandinsky. Another painter who influences him particularly is Alexej von Jawlensky, who has a certain Matisse-like quality, coupled with geometrical solidity and the colouring of Byzantine-Russian icons.

The knowledge of German and Austrian Expressionism, to which he has access during the time he spends there, constitutes a basic aspect in his training, in his early and subsequent evolution as a painter.

1961-62

A notable physical deterioration as a result of overwork lands him in hospital in Stuttgart and accelerates his return to Valencia to recover.

In September he wins a place as a scholar at the San Juan de Ribera hall of residence in Burjasot, an institution of great prestige in Valencia, and there he remains as a student until 1965, This is an intense and interesting period because of the contact with university members of a high intellectual and professional level who make up the group of scholars, who have constituted this special and highly considered university hall of residence since its foundation at the beginning of the century.

During the academic year 1960-61 he is awarded a travel scholarship to Granada in the landscape competition held by the Fundación Rodríguez Acosta. He practically lives in the Alhambra and the Generalife, studying romantic and historical aspects of the precincts with Washington Irving's book under his arm and attentively following the geometrical patterns in the Moorish ornamentation. For him, the experience of that architecture and its exquisite refinement, always associating the human scale with the constructions and gardens, the layout of the water, its sound quality, the reflections and the extraordinary details of that culture constitute one of the constructive paradigms of his world of imagery.

He discovers Sánchez Cotán's Bodegón del Cardo (Still-life of the Thistle), another of the masterpieces that he considers indispensable, always keeping it in mente.

The pools and watcrlilies in the gardens, the very recent memory of Monet and something of Nicolas de Stäel, the Fauves and the German Expressionists lead him to paint somewhat in the vein of the Nymphéas (Waterlilies), but with noticeable traces of all the influences indicated.

In the last year of painting he has Genaro Lahuerta as his teacher. Differences in their appreciation of modernity and the new trends create problems and tensions in class with that painter, who nevertheless awards him the first prize for painting in a national competition for students of Fine Arts, for which Lahuerta is on the jury. Yturralde studies anatomical illustrations from the Renaissance to modern times, Leonardo da Vinci, Vesalius. Juan Valverde de Hamusco, Crisóstomo Martínez, Juan de Arfe, etc., with the generous direction and friendship of the Professor of the History of Science, José María López Piñero.

He makes copies—in the Museo de San Pío V, works by Goya and Pinazo, and in the Museo del Patriarca, works by "El Divino" Morales, Ribalta, El Greco and Juan de Sariñena.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Selective exhibition of students of the Schools of Fine -Arts. (He wins the First Prize for Painting).
• University Club, Valencia.
• Pinturas y dibujos, Centro de Estudios Norteamericano, Valencia.
• Exposition Concurso de Paisaje, Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Carlos, Valencia. (He wins the Granada Travel Scholarship.)

1963-64

He graduates from the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Carlos, Valencia. As a result of a competition for posts held by the General Management of Fine Arts he is appointed as a grant-aided assistant lecturer, assigned to the teaching of Portrait Painting at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Valencia. For the academic year 1963-64 he is made lecturer on the Teaching of Drawing in the class of Rosario Garcia. He is also assistant lecturer in the Art History classes with Professor Felipe Garín Ortiz de Taranco.

During this period he begins to evolve towards a geometrising abstraction, without ceasing to '"probe" in many directions, from "matter" Informalism to Geometrical Abstraction, the Russian Constructivists and Vasarely, the Italian Spatialists. Fontana, Manzoni, Castellani and De Luigi. He reads everything by Juan Eduardo Cirlot published by Seix v Barral in their Biblioteca Breve series, and also Del Expresionismo a la Abstracción, Significación de la Pintura de Tàpies, Cubismo y Figuración, El Arte Otro, etc. He asks the Marlborough Gallery in London to send him the catalogue of the Rothko exhibition in February 1964 and receives it in his hall of residence.

His journeys to Cuenca and Madrid, visits and conversations, contact with the personalities and work of Gustavo Torner, Fernando Zóbel, Antonio Saura, Manolo Millares, Eusebio Sempere, Antonio Lorenzo and Gerardo Rueda bring him understanding and a constantly renewed urge to paint.

In 1963 he begins working as artistic adviser to the Real Colegio del Corpus Christi de Valencia (Colegio del Patriarca, national monument), having restored paintings on the vaults of the Capilla del Monumento, discovering, cleaning and fixing sixteenth-century frescoes which were hidden. After a partial subsidence he reconstructs and paints the frescoes on the ceiling of the vestibule of the church.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Second Biennial, Saragossa.
• Jóvenes valores, Caja de Ahorros de Alicante.

1965

The first solo exhibition in his life. He presents work selected from his academic years together with more recent work in the Golden Chamber of the Regional Assembly. at this time the Provincial Council. Exhibition at the Galería Machethtti in Cuenca, together with Jordi Teixidor, Javier Calvo and the sculptor José Cubells. He shows a transparent red monochrome painting in which all that can be seen are some faint shapes in the middle, accentuated by their texture, while the other works have influences of Op Art and Vasarely.

He makes two murals for the Luis Vives hail of residence in Valencia, commissioned by the director José María López Piñero.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Provincial Council of Valencia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Galería Machetti, Cuenca.

1966

For two summers, together with Jordi Teixidor, he works as assistant curator at the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español in Cuenca, appointed by Fernando Zobel. He helps in setting up the Museum, and the relationship with the artists mentioned earlier represents a very important apprenticeship in his training. The Museum is inaugurated on 30 June, with a painting and various drawings by Yturralde in its collection. Influenced by Tàpies, he makes works that he leaves unsigned and which he is exhibiting for the first time in this retrospective at the IVAM. He makes monochrome works, with reliefs and with objects incorporated into the picture, and shows them in the legendary Sala Mateu in Valencia. Zóbel buys one of the works exhibited for the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español in Cuenca.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Sala Mateu, Valencia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Salon Senyera, Valencia.
• Crómata 66, Seminario Metropolitano, Valencia.

1966 - 1967

Minimal period. Solo exhibition at the Galería Edurne in Madrid. A small catalogue is published with an introduction by Juan Antonio Aguirre, He takes part in the group show Nueva Generación, at the Galería Amadís, in Madrid.

He meets the writer and art critic Vicente Aguilera Cerni, with whom he establishes a lasting professional relationship and friendship.

He makes his first silkscreen print with Eusebio Sempere and Abel Martin in their studio in Madrid. He has continued to use these techniques until the present, principally in the Iberosuiza premises of Llopis, in Valencia and Liria, with whom he has made numerous editions.

He presents his first exhibition at the Galería Edurne in Madrid. He takes part in the IX Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil, at the invitation of Luis Gonzalez Robles.

Working from the ideas and experiences of the group, he begins to make kinetic objects, studying light, movement, fluorescence and reflections as modular structures based on geometrical concepts.

He starts to experiment with and produce Figuras imposibles (Impossible Figures), an attempt to explore new compositional forms by setting out from basic structures immersed in multidimensional spatial networks and systems.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Galería Edurne, Madrid.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• IX Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil.
• Nueva Generación I, Galería Amadís, Madrid.
• Lissone International Prize, Italy.
• Nueva Generación II, Edurne, Madrid.
• Universiade, Tokyo, Japan.
• Artistas españoles, Museu de Arte Moderno, Brazil.
• Arte objetivo, Sala de la Direction General de Bellas Artes, Madrid.

1968

First Antes del Arte exhibition at the College of Architects in Valencia. He presents luminous and kinetic objects, fluorescent pieces, and his first Figuras imposibles. Solo exhibition at Eurocasa in Madrid. He works as a grant-aided student at the recently created Computer Centre in the University of Madrid. He takes part in the Seminar on the Computer-aided Generation of Visual Shapes. He gives talks on this very new discipline in Valencia, Barcelona, Pamplona and Bilbao.

He travels to Venice with Vicente Aguilera Cerni in his car, together with José lranzo, Anzo and Jordi Teixidor. They experience intensely the changes, taking-up of positions, rallies and demonstrations provided by the Mostra that summer after the events of the month of May in France.

In Seville he makes the acquaintance of a very young Juan Manuel Bonet.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Galería Eurocasa, Madrid.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Pintura española contemporánea, Mayagüez University, Puerto Rico.
• Antes del Arte 1, Official College of Architects, Valencia.
• AVIS Prize, Italy.
• Antes del Arte II, Eurocasa, Madrid.
• Saló d'estiu, Barcelona.
• Pictorama I, Barcelona.
• Arte y ciencia, La Pasarela, Seville.

1969

He continues contributing to the seminar at the Computer Centre. First works using display of shapes with the computer. He works with Isidro Ramos, physicist and analyst at the Computer Centre. First exhibition of computer-generated aesthetic works in Spain.

Yturralde takes part with Figuras imposibles. He makes the acquaintance of Daniel Giralt-Miracle, then director of the Galería As in Barcelona, situated in Gaudí's La Pedrera. Giralt-Miracle organises an exhibition of the Antes del Arte group. René Metras and Juan Mas visit the exhibition, buy a work from him and offer him an exclusive contract with the Galería René Metras in Barcelona. He takes part in the creation of the MENTE group (Spanish Exhibition of New Aesthetic Trends) formed by Daniel Giralt-Miracle, Juan Mas y Jordi Pericot.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Formas computables, Computer Centre, University of Madrid.
• 22 pintores españoles, Sala Wiot, Las Palmas, Gran Canaria.
• Cuatro artistas de la nueva generación, Sala Santa Catalina, Madrid.
• X Salón de Marzo, Valencia. (He wins the Jose de Ribera Medal).
• Selección de obras del X Salón de Marzo, Caja de Ahorros de Alicante.
• Antes del Arte III, Galería As, Barcelona.
• Antes del Arte IV, Serie Matemáticas, Galería Eurocasa, Madrid.
• X Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil.
• Panorama 69, Galería Eurocasa, Madrid.
• Saló d'estiu 1969, Barcelona.
• MENTE IV, Vasco Navarro College of Architects, Bilbao.

1970

Beginning of various years of excellent association with the Galería René Metras, where he holds his first exhibition. He travels to Venice to see the Biennial and the Mark Rothko exhibition which opened at the Museo d'Arte Moderna Ca' Pesaro four months after Rothko's death. He meets Xavier Rubert de Ventós, writer and Professor of Aesthetics at the School of Architecture in Barcelona, and the architect Freddy de la Reguera, and works with them on several projects, such as the transformation of various buildings by means of colour. Together with Ricardo Bofill, he takes part in a series of talks in Pamplona in connection with the exhibition MENTE V.

At the art fair in Basel he contacts Jesus Rafael Solo, who talks to him and gives him a book of Antonio Calderara, who later influences Yturralde's work. They meet again in Paris at Soto's studio-home.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Caja de Ahorros Municipal, Pamplona.
• Galería René Metras, Barcelona.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Arte español contemporáneo, Galería AL2, Rome, Italy.
• Presencias de nuestro tiempo, Galería René Metras, Barcelona.
• MAN 70, Barcelona.
• Internationale Kunstmesse, Basel, Switzerland.
• MENTE V, Pamplona.

1971

In Saragossa he exhibits at the Galería Kalos. He meets Federico Torralba, teacher, writer and art critic, and Victor Baylo, director of the Sala Libros in Saragossa, where he exhibits later. He also visits the exhibition of Miguel Marcos, at whose gallery in Barcelona he presents an exhibition in December 1999.

Invited to take part in seminars and talks on "Basic Computer-aided Design" and "Impossible Structures", at the International Design Conference (1CSID), Ibiza.v

He is responsible for the design and installation of the Georges Braque exhibition held by the Fundación Juan March in the gallery of the Valencia Town Hall. He gives the opening address.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Galería Val i 30, Valencia.
• Galería Sen. Madrid.
• Galería Kalos, Saragossa.
• Galería Grises, Bilbao.

CROUP EXHIBITIONS

• Testimonio 70, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid.
• MAN 71, Barcelona and Museo del Ampurdán.
• Arteónica, Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo, Brazil.
• Presencias de nuestro Tiempo, Sala Provincial, León.
• Producción automática de formas plásticas, Ateneo, Madrid.
• Jonge Spaanse Kunst, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, Belgium.
• Espace, Mouvement et Couleur, Galeríe Empain, Brussels, Belgium.
• Computer Assisted Art, Palacio de Congresos, Madrid.
• Presencias de nuestro tiempo, Galería Ivan Spencer, Ibiza and Galería Grises, Bilbao.
• Imagen y línea en la pintura española de hoy, Puerto Rico.
• Picasso 90, Galería Aquitania, Barcelona.

1972

His exhibition at the Galería II Giorno brings him into contact with Bruno Munari, Gillo Dorfles and Franco Grignani. He designs the poster and the catalogue for the exhibition Homenaje a Josep Lluís Sert.

He also takes part with his "impossible figures" and gives a talk at the Canary Islands College of Architects, Santa Cruz de Tenerife. He visits Eduardo Westerdahl. He receives the Ibizagrafic 72 Prize at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Ibiza, together with Tàpies and Millares. Until 1980 he designs numerous covers for publications of the Instituto de Agroquímica y Tecnología de Alimentos.

He presents and writes a text for the portfolio of silkscreen prints Obras de Asins, Demarco, Durante, García Rossi, Torres Agüero, for the Galería Juana de Aizpuru, Seville

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Caja de Ahorros de Navarra, Pamplona
• Casa de la Cultura de Estella, Navarra.
• Gallería II Giorno, Milán.
• Gallería René Metras, Barcelona.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• El arte de Espana sobre el papel, L.A. Arango Library, Bogotá, Colombia.
• Impulsos, arte y computador, Colegio Alemán, Madrid and Barcelona.
• III Bienal de Arte Coltejer, Medellín, Colombia.
• IV Biennale Internationale de la Gravure, Kraków, Poland.
• Arte Actual Valenciano, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Seville.
• Ibizagrafic 72, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Ibiza.
• Jeunes Artistes Espagnoles des Années Soixante-dix, Montpellier, France.
• Couleur, Espace, Mouvement, Galerie Empain, Brussels, Belgium. Konstruktivismus, Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne, Germany.
• Homenaje a Josep Lluís Sert, Colegio de Arquitectos de Canarias, Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

1973

The exhibition at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Madrid, where he presents over a hundred works, brings to a culmination the period of structures or "impossible figures". The works that follow are strongly macled pieces using conical perspectives of great complexity. He also works with spherical perspectives and with three-dimensionality and the exploration of other dimensions, finding patterns in plane and volume. With the Galería Sen in Madrid he publishes a portfolio of silkscreen prints of his own work, Sobre el cuadrado.

He visits Xavier Rubert de Ventós at his home in Empuriabrava and is recommended to move to MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In December, his first visit to New York and Boston. He stays with Juan Navarro Baldeweg for some days. The director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), Otto Piene, receives him and admits him to the Center as a Research Fellow.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Estructuras 1968-72, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid.
• Galería Juana de Aizpuru. Seville.
• Gallería II Salotto, Como, Italy.
• Sincrom, Brescia, Italy.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• 50 años de Constructivismo, Galería René Metras, Barcelona.
• Computer Art, Gallery Contemporany Art, Zagreb, Yugoslavia.
• Miró 80, Colegio de Arquitectos de Baleares.
• Lunds, Kunsthall, Lund, Sweden.

1974

He obtains a grant from the Fundación Juan March to extend his studies at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where basically he will concentrate on making a deeper study of N-dimensional projective systems and the use of new technologies with possibilities for application in art, such as lasers, optical fibres and natural energy sources (solar energy, wind, tide, waves, etc.}. This leads to his first three-dimensional works with flying capability.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Galería Val i 30, Valencia.
• Galería Anastasia Klein, Castellón.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• V Biennale Internationale de la Gravure, Kraków, Poland.

1975

In October he moves to MIT. There he comes into contact with outstanding figures in contemporary art such as György Képes, Otto Piene, Jürgen Claus, Marl Mendel, Otto Frei, Dale Eldred, Peter Campus, Walter de Maria, etc. The exhibition of Figuras imposibles held at the CAVS produces resonances in Japan through Itsuo Sakane of the Asahi Shimbun, who in subsequent years invites him to take part in various exhibitions in that country.

He meets David Brisson, a lecturer at Braum University and a painter and theorist specialising in polytopes, with whom he establishes a firm friendship and studies shape generating methods in networks with four or more dimensions, as a development from the compositional systems used in the Figuras imposibles.

At MIT he gives courses on "Research and Structures", "Life Drawing" and "Still-Life Drawing". He takes part in various courses, including "Video Environments" with Peter Campus, "Art and Environments" with Otto Piene and Friedrich St. Florian, "Projects in Environmental Art. Passages" with Paul Earls, "The Psychological and Technological Worlds of Color" given by Professor Solomon, "The Avantgarde Films" by John Rubin. He reads a book that he never abandons in future, Synergetics, Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, R. Buckminster Fuller's magnum opus, which conveys thinking that is very scientific but strangely not opposed to the Zen idea of "an instant of reflection and it will be too late". The immense wealth of ideas generated by Fuller's work has a positive influence on José María Yturralde's development during these years at MIT.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Galería Juan Mas, Madrid.
Apogee Gallery, Princeton (NY), Dallas and Washington, USA. Galería René Metras, Estructuras 1968-75. Barcelona. Sala Libros, Saragossa. Ambiguous Structures, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (Mass.), USA.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Pintores constructivistas españoles, Galería Kandinsky, Madrid.

1976

He is received by the architect Josep Lluís Sert at his home in Cambridge. Every weekend he travels to New York in order to see exhibitions and museums. He meets Professor Arthur L. Loeb, a scientist at the University of Harvard, who was a friend and teacher of Escher. With him he studies crystallographic systems and structures, and complex geometries and projections, extending his knowledge about the compression of space.

He reads Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland, a classic book that combines scientific knowledge, social satire and the logic associated with science fiction. He also reads a sequel, less intense but no less interesting from the viewpoint of the knowledge of geometry that it transmits, Dyonys Burger's Sphereland.

For the second time he receives the Ibizagrafic Prize, awarded by the Museo de Arte Moderno de Ibiza. He designs covers and makes illustrations for the magazine International Poetry Review, edited by Evelyn P. Gill and Raymond Tyner in Greensboro (NC), USA.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Virtual Realities, Carpenter Center for The Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge (Mass.), USA.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Diari Avui exhibition/donation, Fundación Joan Miró, Barcelona.

1977

In order to find out more about flying, he becomes involved in the first hang-gliding course. He has an accident during a bad landing and has to be hospitalised with a broken ankle. He continues studying light constructive systems, focusing on the experience of the wind as a support "for heavier-than-air objects". He designs a multitude of kites with complex geometries and sustaining elements, but related to aesthetic and emotional aims. An attempt to show the harmony of the forces and elements at work-breeze, light, clouds and foam-in which the structures flow as an amplification of reflection operating in parallel to the movements and changes of nature.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Provincial Council, Málaga.
• Galería Carteia, Algeciras.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Nueva Generación 1967-77, Palacio de Velázquez, Madrid.

1978

With the aid of a grant from the Fulbright-Hays Foundation he attends the course "The Creative Arts and Contemporary Society" in the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies in Salzburg, Austria. He meets Clement Greenberg, attends his lectures and talks to him on various occasions.

He takes part in the Venice Biennial, making an installation of structures which he causes to fly over the gardens of the Biennial. On stormy days he leaves them on exhibition in the Spanish Pavilion. He also shows drawings and photographs. He designs the art magazine Cimal.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Spanish Pavilion, Venice Biennial, Italy.
• Department of Optics in the Faculty of Physics, Valencia.
• Celebració al Vent, a happening with flying structures, beaches of El Saler, Valencia.
• Galería Lucas, Gandía, Valencia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• The Art of Spain, Niavaran Cultural Centre, Teheran, Iran.

1979

Together with the Optics Laboratory in the Faculty of Physics, Valencia University, directed by Professor Mariano Aguilar Rico, he takes part in the organisation and installation of the first public exhibition of holography, presenting a hologram about Kepler's idea of the universe, with a series of regular and semi-regular polyhedrons inscribed and circumscribed in spheres. He installs a visual interpretation with lasers of Mozart's Requiem. He also works with the laboratory's colour group, giving courses on this discipline in various faculties and institutions in Spain. He is an active member of the International Colour Association, taking part in numerous seminars and conferences in Spain and the rest of Europe.

He is appointed to lecture on painting in Fine Arts, a position that he still holds. With his students he creates a series of urban happenings, trying to establish an imperceptible relationship between the performers and their performances and the reality and life of passers-by in the street. A theatre of urban totality in which everything is related and integrated.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Galerie de l'Université, Paris.
Caja de Ahorros de Alicante y Murcia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Pintura española del siglo XX, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico DF.
• The Expanding Visual World, Museum of Fun, Tokyo, Japan.
• Holografías, Ateneo, Valencia.
• Viatge en trenet and Conferencia pública, urban happenings, Valencia.

1980

Graduation dissertation in Fine Arts with a theoretical work, Colour: a teaching proposal for the first course on colouring in the Faculty of Fine Arts.

Together with the designer Carlos Pastor, at the Faculty of Fine Arts he organises the first video course given in Valencia, with the aid of the Polytechnic University, Sony, and local institutions.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Cultural Centre, Caja de Ahorros de Sagunto.
• Fossil .Art, a happening in the Palaeontology Museum, Valencia.
• Estructuras Volantes sobre Benidorm, beaches of Benidorm.

1981

He makes the acquaintance of Jorge Oteiza at his home in Alzuza, Navarra, during an intense and exciting day.

At the Faculty of Fine Arts he organises a teaching and experimental film cycle, presenting and chairing discussions, with films by Kees Boeke, McLaren, etc. With the help of the French Institute he organises a cycle of talks, Regards sur la Peinture Moderne, chaired by Claude Verdieux, designer and artistic adviser to Radio Télévision Français.

He presents a radio happening, Marcel Duchamp entrevistado, on Radio Popular in Valencia, in which he acts as if he were Duchamp.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Estructuras volantes, Fundación Joan Miró, Barcelona.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• La Llum i el color, Sala Parpalló, Valencia.
• Hypergraphics, Bannister Art Gallery, Rhode Island College, USA.

1982

The Ministry of Education awards him a grant to attend and take part in the Sky Art Conference at MIT in the United States. At the CAVS he exhibits drawings, designs and new structures, which fly from the MIT Campus over Boston.

He gives seminars on the theory and practice of colour in the Faculty of Fine Arts, Valencia, during the academic years 1980-81 to 1982-83. Workshop on "Flying Structures" at the Teacher Training College in the University of Palma de Mallorca, in 1982-83 and 1983-84.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Sky .Art, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT, Cambridge (Mass.), USA.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Premio Cáceres de Escultura 1982. El Broncense Cultural Institution, Monasterio de San Francisco, Cáceres.
• Preliminar. I Bienal nacional de artes plásticas, Saragossa, Seville, Corunna, Santander and Barcelona.

1983

Together with Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, Otto Piene and other members of the Sky Art group at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies in MIT, he is invited to take part in Ars Electronica, held in Linz in Austria, where he makes flights with his geometric structures.

His interest in the problem of time and the notions of "ephemera/eternal" and "chaos/cosmos" lead him to present various installations in the Festivals of Navarra in Olite in August, such as Jardín de hielo (Ice Garden), Espacios sonoros (Sounding Spaces), and various happenings that take place within the setting of the events of the festivals. He gives talks on "Flying Structures". He organises a talk/video montage, Two electronic landscapes, by Antoni Muntadas, at the Faculty of Fine Arts and in the Museo de San Pío V, in Valencia.

He gives a series of talks and events connected with the work of Marcel Duchamp, and organises the happening Desnudo bajando la escalera (Nude Descending the Staircase), Casa Museo Benlliure, Valencia.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria.
• Jardín de hielo, and various other installations in the Festivals of Navarra, Olite.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Marcel Duchamp, happening and talks, Museo Benlliure, Valencia.
• Weisse Drachen Ausstellung, Sky Art Conference 83, Munich, Germany.

1984

He is a member of the Planning Committee (or the creation of a Faculty of Fine Arts in the University of Castilla-La Mancha. He travels to Marseilles and Paris at the invitation of the French government in order to visit new design centres and establish conditions for inter-faculty exchanges.

In collaboration with José Luis Berenguer (a member of the music group Actum) and Bartolomé Ferrando (visual poet), he organises a seminar on Marcel Duchamp and his relationship with music, visual poetry and happenings.

He gives talks on "Art and Science", "Electronic Art" and "Sky Art" at the Cultural Centre of the Caja de Ahorros de Valencia. He is lecturer in the seminar Art, Science and Geometry in the Department of Aesthetics in the University of Valencia.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Estructuras volantes, tribute to Leonardo da Vinci, beaches of El Saler, Valencia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Leonardo, el diseño y el ordenador, Lonja, Valencia.
• Veinte años de restauración en el Patriarca, Real Colegio del Corpus Christi, Valencia.

1985

Summer workshop/course on flying structures at the invitation of the Fundación Bartolomé March of Palma de Mallorca, in Cala Ratjada, Majorca. With the help of his students, at the Palau Solleric he creates an exhibition that teaches about visual perception and its projection in art and at the same time explains about Luigi Tomasello and operates in parallel with a magnificent exhibition on him also in the Palau. This much-appreciated Argentine artist invites him to his home in Paris and they establish a firm friendship.

He consolidates his return to painting by making a series of pictures in which the space of the painting, already close to the notion of the void, is articulated by the directional arrow of a line that is converted into a pulse of energy and is stilled like the ripples in the quietness of a pool when one throws in a pebble.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Estructuras volantes, Cala Ratjada, Majorca.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Estructuras volantes, in collaboration with the students of the Balearic Secondary
• Teachers' School, Paseo del Mar, Palma de Mallorca.
• Together with the members of his workshop, design and installation of the exhibition
• L'art juga amb la mirada, Palau Solleric Palma de Mallorca.
• Homenaje a Sempere, Galería Theo, Valencia.

1986

On 29 April 1986, at the ceremony of his reception as a numerary member of the Academy, he reads an opening address in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Valencia with the title The idea of time in pictorial space.

The exhibition at the Sala de la Caixa de Pensions in Valencia is a turning point in his return to the supports and channels of painting. It contains 29 pictures which try to reflect from the emotional aspect on the idea of time and of genesis from nothing or the void.

Together with bright, colouristic works, he shows a series consisting of grave black tones, rhythms that are very slow but firm or with a precise melancholy, connected with music, especially the Requiems of Brahms, Verdi, Fauré, Duruflé and Lutoslawski.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Estructuras flotantes, Playa de Cala Ratjada, Mallorca.
• Spatium Temporis, Sala d'Exposicions de la Caixa de Pensions, Valencia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Procesos, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid.
• Propuesta para una colección, Galería Theo, Valencia.

1987

He uses large empty tonal areas, somewhat distant and tempered by order and the linear quality of a precise directionality. He tries to diminish the importance of his concept of space and transform it in order to establish other limits, different tensions in the ethereal vibration of a field of nothingness, generating delicate presences of absence.

He receives his doctorate in Fine Arts from the Polytechnic University of Valencia with the category of Cum Laude for his thesis, A proposal for the systematic generation of compositional structures.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Estructuras volantes, Tramesa d'art, Palau de la Música i Congresos, Valencia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Arte ciencia, arte naturaleza, arte tecnología, Espai d'Art Contemporani, Valencia.
• Art a Valencia, 1960-1980, Casa de la Cultura, Mislata, Valencia.
• Cinco independientes, Galería Theo, Madrid.

1988

He makes various visits to see the exhibition of Rothko held at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid. He gives a course on "Repetitive Structures" in an open workshop called A rose is a rose in a rose at the Palau Solleric, Palma de Mallorca.

A talk followed by a round table discussion on "Art and Bionics" at the IMPIVA in Valencia. He makes a painting dedicated to Father Roig, in which he tries to express the difficult balance between passion and order, sensitive understanding and strictness. Values and doubts that Alfonso offered us.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Estructuras volantes, Playa de la Malvarrosa, Valencia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Arte español 88, Galería Theo, Valencia.
• Alfons Roig i els seus amics, Palau de la Scala, Valencia.

1989

Journey to New York and Boston with the help of a grant from the Valencia Council for Culture, Education and Science, in order to establish agreements with universities in the two cities.

Sky Art Conference at the International Symposium of Systematic and Constructive Art, Centro Cultural de la Villa, Madrid. He continues studying the square as a basic form connected with the idea of instability, contrary to the traditional signification of gravity, firmness and permanence. However, now not in weightless flying structures but in the plane of the square.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Arte geométrico en España 1957-1989, Systematic and Constructive Art, Centre Cultural de la Villa, Madrid.
• Mediterránea, Estudio Theo, Madrid.

1990

Invited to take part in Toyama Now 90, the International Triennial in Japan, He recalls the exquisite conversations about the art of the East that he heard in Cuenca between Zóbel and Torner and which now become present and real when he comes into direct contact with the long-desired Zen gardening and painting in Kyoto, especially when he enters the complex containing the Temple of the Peaceful Dragon, Ryoan-ji, The garden of rocks and sand, with no water or plants or trees, makes such an impression on him that it makes him change some of his deeply-rooted convictions connected with the most profound levels of knowledge, or of sentient intelligence in the words of Xavier Zubiri. Since this experience he has read and tried to learn as much as possible about the arts of the East. His work is unalterably affected by the art of those nations.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Galería Theo, Valencia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Toyama Now 90 Triennial, The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan.
• Arte español contemporáneo, Collection of the Fundación Juan March, Cultural Centre, Caixa d'Estalvis de Valencia.

1991

At the invitation of the Union of Russian Artists and through the interventions of Maite Beguiristain, lecturer in Art History at Valencia University, he makes his first visit to the USSR at the end of February. He travels in a small delegation consisting of Maite Beguiristain and two other lecturers, Rosalía Torrent and Juan Ángel Blasco Carrascosa. He visits Moscow, Novgorod, Leningrad and Minsk and gives talks on "Art and Nature", "Land Art" and "Sky Art". On 4 March, at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, they are shown some of the works not exhibited to the public, including Malevich's black. Suprematist painting of 1914 and various Kandinskys. He is deeply moved by the black square.

He begins the first series of Preludios (Preludes), a title that is partly musical and partly indicative of the fact that something is commencing. In principle there are seven paintings, 162 x 130 cm, which seem to conclude the group. But in fact he extends and transforms and studies this series over a number of years, persevering with an understanding of the most subtle aspects of composition, gradually minimising expressive elements and progressively dematerialising forms, dissolving the basic compositional square, which is always slightly irregular, sometimes perceived through its absence and later becoming merged and diluted in undefined, energetic, non-visible structures. At the end of December he travels to Bordeaux to see the great Peter Halley exhibition at the contemporary art museum there, the CAPC.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Galería Octubre, inauguration of the Jaime I University in Castellón.
New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Russia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Monocromos, Theo-Espacio, Madrid.
• Homenaje al cuadrado, Theo-Espacio, Madrid.

1992

Journey to Russian, this time alone, at the invitation of the Association of Russian Art Critics, to give talks about his work from Moscow and St Petersburg to Kazakhstan and Alma Ata. He even reaches the Himalayas, where they speak to him of Tan-gri, the god of space.

In Uzbekistan he visits Bukhara and Samarkand, the capital of the empire of Tamberlaine. In that city he makes a pilgrimage to the beautiful astronomical observatory, perhaps the most advanced in the fifteenth century, whose construction was ordered by the prince, poet and astronomer Ulugh Beg. He also visits Tashkent and other places on the Silk Road. Important lands for Sufi thinking, the poetry of Omar Khayyám, and the esoteric philosophy of Ouspensky, which he later took to Russia and which influenced artists such as Malevich. In September he visits Documenta in Kassel.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• La colección del IVAM, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia.
• ARCO 92, Galería Theo, Madrid.
• Arte geométrico, cinético y constructivo, Le Parc, Soto, Vasarely, Yturralde, Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo, Alicante, Valencia, etc.
• 50x50 Homenaje a Miguel Hernández, Museu d'Art Contemporani, Elche, Alicante. Travelling exhibition.
• Selección contemporánea, Galería Theo, Valencia.

1993

First complete exhibition devoted to the Preludios series, at the Galería Theo in Valencia.

At the Venice Biennial he is especially interested in the installation by Robert Wilson, works by Joseph Kosuth, and the work of John Cage at the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Preludios, Galería Theo, Valencia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• I Bienal de la imagen en movimiento. Visionarios Españoles, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.
• Vill'art, Town Hall of Villar del Arzobispo, Valencia.
• La Semana Santa vista por los pintores conquenses, Former Convent of the Carmelites, Cuenca.
• Arte valenciano en las colecciones de la CAM, Cultural Centre, CAM, La Llotgeta, Valencia.
• Les cobertes de l'averir, Galería Val i 30, Valencia.
• Selección contemporánea, Galería Theo, Valencia.
• Encuentros en el Zócalo, graphic work of Valencian artists, Polytechnic University of Valencia, UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico).

1994

Appointed as University Professor by competitive selection, in the Subject of Painting, attached to the Faculty of Fine Arts in the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

In his paintings he continues with the slow dissolving of the square. He begins to experiment with colour transitions, moving away from flat colour scales.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Girart'94, Villena, Altea, Torrent, Almansa, Requena. Travelling exhibition.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• ARCO 94, Galería Theo, Madrid.
• Un segle de pintura valenciana, 1880-1990, Centre Julio González, IVAM, Valencia.
• Artistes pel tercet món, Ibercaja Gallery, Valencia.
• Espacio 94, La Nave Galería, Valencia.

1995

Alfons Roig Prize for his artistic achievement. In the "Art in the Metro" competition he is awarded a prize for a mural that he makes in the Faculties station.

He takes part in the Art volant international symposium organised by the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Palma de Mallorca, with the participation also of Curt Asker, István Bodóczky, Michel Gressier, Jackie Matisse, Falko Haase and Tal Streeter. He is assigned Miró's studio at Son Boters, where he works with Ángela Felis. He builds and flies his flying structures and presents and discusses his work with the other participants. He gives a talk on flying geometrical structures at the Faculty of Architecture in Barcelona.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• ARCO 95, La Nave Galería, Madrid.
• Arte en el Metro, Harbour Clock Building, Valencia.
• Homenaje a Sempere, Galería Quorum, Madrid.
• Primer Salón de Arte Contemporáneo, Palau de la Scala, Valencia.
• Art volant, Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma de Mallorca.
• Colectiva, La Nave Galería, Valencia.
• La impronta de la vanguardia en el Museo San Pío V, Museo San Pío V, Valencia.

1996

First trip to Mexico in April. He stays there a month, giving a workshop/course on "Flying Structures and the Environment" at the National School of Plastic Arts in the UNAM. He visits Teotihuacán and henceforth tries to learn more about pre-Columbian art.

At the invitation of the School's director, José de Santiago, they travel to Guanajuato, where among other monuments he is particularly interested in the birthplace/museum of the painter Diego Rivera. Another excursion takes him to Puebla and Cholula, with their baroque temples. From the people he meets and from what he is able to see he acquires an enormous interest in Latin America and a fascination with Spanish colonial architecture.

Exhibition at the Sala Parpalló in the Centre Cultural La Beneficència, where he presents one main series with 15 large-scale works, at intervals with a repetitive cadence. The number suggests the 15 stones of Ryoan-ji, the Zen garden in Kyoto, which remains ever in his memory. In some of the works exhibited the boundaries of the paintings, which are no longer boundaries from a measurable point of view, are diluted without losing their expression of enclosure. He attempts to give them a slow but perceptible instability and subtle compositional shifts. The colour is increasingly contained and calm.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Preludios-Interludios, Sala Parpalló, Centre Cultural La Beneficència, Diputació de València.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• ARCO 96, La Nave Galería, Madrid.
• Independientes desde la Academia, Galería Grupo Efe, Godella, Valencia.
• Colectiva. Artistas de la galería. La Nave Galería, Valencia.
• Estructuras volantes. Institute Juan Gil Albert, Alicante.
• Colección Juan Antonio Aguirre, IVAM, Valencia.
• Antes del Arte, The Spanish Institute, New York.

1997

With the work Interludios (Interludes) he begins to radicalise the concept of form, which can be considered as one of the boundaries of chaos/cosmos. Now emptiness is form. In the exhibition at La Nave Galería, the continuation of the Preludios phase is perfected, with the presentation of various paintings in which there are no parts in the whole.

At the Centre Cultural La Beneficència he gives a talk, "A reflection on the concept of emptiness in painting".

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Interludios, La Nave Galería, Valencia.
• Preludios-Interludios, Palacio Gravina, Alicante.
• Preludios-Interludios, Castellón Provincial Council Gallery, Castellón
• Preludios-Interludios, Cultural Centre, Altea, Alicante.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• ARCO 97, La Nave Galería, Madrid.
• La tradición constructiva en la colección del IVAM, ARCO 97, Valencian Regional Government, Madrid.v
• Antes del Arte, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museo Nacional de Parque Rodó, Montevideo, Uruguay; Centre Julio González, IVAM, Valencia.
• La Nave Galería, Valencia.
• Artistes espanyols dels anys setanta a la Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma de Mallorca;
• Sala Carrer Major, Alicante; City Museum, Valencia.

1998

He is invited to take part in the first European Art and Nature Triennial, held in May in the wood of Dragsholm Slot, the castle at Odsherred, Denmark, where he presents the pieces Frame the Forest, Hyperweb, and Flying Structures. He introduces his work and takes part in various round table discussions. Second journey to Mexico, in August

Installation of the exhibition Preludios-Interludios at the Museo José Luis Cuevas, with the patronage of the Consortium of Museums. He visits the studio/home of the architect Luis Barragán, and also the Gálvez house.

At the Spanish College in Paris he exhibits the "flying structures". The exhibition is opened by Eduardo Zaplana, President of the Valencian Regional Government, together with Consuelo Ciscar, the Director General of Museums and Fine Arts, and Luis Racionero, Director of the College.

He returns to Mexico in September, this time visiting Guadalajara, the Institute Cultural Cabañas designed by the eighteenth-century Valencian architect Manuel Tolsá, where he is able to see the murals by Orozco and an exhibition by Mathias Goeritz.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Preludios-Interludios, Galería Altxerri, San Sebastián.
• Preludios-Interludios, Museo José Luis Cuevas, Mexico DF.
• Preludios-Interludios, Cabañas Cultural Centre, Guadalajara, Mexico.
• L'air, les géometries et la mer, Spanish College, Paris, France.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• ARCO 98, La Nave Galería, Madrid.
• First European Art Nature Triennial, Odsherred, Denmark.
• Desde la Sala Mateu, Royal Docks, Valencia.
• Plástica contemporánea, Alicante Provincial Council.

1999

His painting continues to evolve, with the renewed aim of exploring the most recondite boundaries of what is almost practically nothing, of matter made into light energy, pulsing cadences of extreme stillness.

In Paris he sees the Mark Rothko exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne.

He devotes himself wholly to his forthcoming exhibition at the IVAM. He constructs a model of the gallery to study the installation. The large sizes, often rectangular, break away from the square support that he has previously used systematically.

Journey to Argentina. The fervour of Buenos Aires with the spirit of Borges, with Jorge Glusberg, Director of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Consuelo Ciscar, Director of the Consortium of Museums, which makes these exhibitions possible, and other Argentine and Spanish friends who make the visit more pleasurable.

He gives a talk on "Flying Structures" in the Seventeenth International Conference of Criticism at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires.

On 16 July he is visited in his studio by the gallery director Denise René.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Preludios-Interludios, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• Preludios-Interludios, Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales, Montevideo, Uruguay.
• Preludios-Interludios, Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo, Brazil.
• Galería Miguel Marcos, Barcelona.
• Centre Julio González, IVAM, Valencia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Imágenes de la abstracción, Pintura y escultura española 1969-89, Fundación Caja Madrid, MEAC and Sala de las Alhajas, Madrid.
• ARCO 99, La Nave Galería, Madrid.
• Geometría valenciana, Centre Cultural La Beneficència, Valencia.
• ARTEBA'99, contemporary art fair, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• Galería Rafael Ortiz, Seville.
• Pintura valenciana del siglo XX, Fundación Bancaja, Valencia.
• La Nave Galería, Valencia.
• Second Mercosul Visual Arts Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil

2000

He starts the century with his IVAM exhibition under way and a busy trip to New York, where he focuses on architecture, especially on some “historical” skyscrapers like the “Flatiron”, the General Electric, and 1950s buildings like the “Seagram” by Mies Van der Rohe, etc. Yturralde insists on reducing and simplifying the expressive elements of his works. Once the form dissolved, the artist tries to get colour -when occurring- to be a wish of the audience in line with the painting’s intention.

In summer, he travels to Amsterdam, Holland, to visit the exhibition "The Golden Age of Dutch Painting”. There he sees Rembradt’s “Night watch” for the first time, which does impress him deeply, as well as paintings by Vermeer, Ruysdael, Saenredam, etc. On October 7, he is invited by Jorge Oteiza to the restuaranT El Cano in Guetaria, this being a most exciting meeting. On the 9th, he visits the Oteiza Foundation in Alzuza, a great museum designed by Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza.

Trip to London to see the New Tate. At the Serpentine Gallery, he admires Brice Marden’s works in his latest exhibition. He visits the Royal Academy to see an extensive exhibition of Turner’s water colour paintings, where he studies the artist’s light approach and radical abstraction of cloudscapes. The exhibition “Transformation Perceptions. The Guggenheim Museum Collection” is organised by Bilbao’s Guggenheim. He sees the exhibition and re-considers the 1960s works of Ryman and Brice Marden. He goes to the opening of Oteiza, at San Sebastian Kursaal.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• “Preludes-Interludes-Postludes”. Miguel Marcos Gallery. Zaragoza.
• “Preludes-Interludes-Postludes”. Museu de Arte Moderna Aloisio Magalhanes, Recife, Brazil.
• “Preludes-Interludes-Postludes”. Museu de Arte Contemporanea Centro Oragao do Mar de Arte e Cultura, Fortaleza, Brazil.
• “Yturralde”, Palau Solleric, Palma de Mallorca.
• “Yturralde”, Caja Navarra. Pamplona.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• “Arco 2000”, Miguel Marcos Gallery, Barcelona, and La Nave Gallery, Valencia. Madrid.
• “Proposal 2000”, La Nave Gallery, Valencia.
• “100 Gravats. Col-lecció Daniel Giralt Miracle. Museu de Valls, Tarragona.
• “Valencian Artists 2000”. Espai d’Art A. Lambert, Xábia, Alicante.
• “Colección Testmonio 1999-2000”. Barcelona Caja de Ahorros y Pensiones. Casa de la Provincia Exhibition Hall. Seville
• “Memory and Modernity. 20th Century Art and Artists in Castilla la Mancha”. Conde Duque Cultural Centre. Madrid.

2001

He goes to Barcelona to see Mark Rothko’s exhibition, presented by the Joan Miró Foundation. He tries to concentrate and integrate space and colour, dissolving as much as possible the shade idea to strengthen its presence as mystery and fantasy. He writes the paper “El Silencio” for the magazine “Contrastes”. He travels to Venice to visit the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, which hosts Tintoretto’s great paintings. He visits the Biennale with a particular interest in the series by Cy Twombly “Lepanto Battle”. In summer, eight-day trip to Stockholm to visit its architecture and study the city’s space perception, its museums, like the Moderna Musee designed by Moneo, the Strindberg Museum, etc.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• La Nave Gallery, Valencia.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• “10 Artists 10 Tendencies”. Vilareal. Museo de la Ciutat and Castellón de la Plana. Dávalos-Fletcher Foundation.
• “Arco 2001”. La Nave Gallery. Madrid
• “Memory and Modernity, 29th Century Art and Artists in Castilla La Mancha”. “López Villaseñor” Municipal Museum. Ciudad Real.
• “Esencias, ikus usaina”. Ernesto Ventós Omedes Collection. Kubo, Kutxa Espacio del Arte. Kursaal. San Sebastián.
• “La Colección del IVAM”. IVAM, Valencia.

2002

Attracted by the notions of the sublime, beauty, the absolute, from Romanticism to date. He explores such notions in his works. He takes part in the Philosophy Seminar of the Atenea Humanities Deparment of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, run by Prof. Agustín Andreu PhD. Speaker in the conference “Knowledge and Invention” organised by the same University. He writes papers for the journal “Contrastes”: “Extractos de un diario” and “Una Geometría del Alma”. He resumes N-dimensional geometry studies with the aid of computers.

He contributes greatly to “Las Artes de lo Mínimo”, issue 21 of “Contrastes”, and writes “Una reflexión apasionada en torno a los comienzos (del Mínimal)”. Trip to Berlin to see its architecture. He spends a few days visiting Kassel's Documenta, the most decadent he has ever seen, in his opinion. He writes “Jacinto Salvadó, memoria de una expresión plástica” for the catalogue of Salvadó’s exhibition at the Queen Sofia National Museum-Art Centre, Madrid. He gives the lecture “Evolution of the form in painting: Creation or Research?” and participates in the work group “Researching through practice?” in the conference “Fine Arts Research: scopes, methods, and alternatives”, La Laguna University, from 3 to 5 December 2002.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Altxerri Gallery. San Sebastián

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• “Contrastes”. La Nave Gallery. Valencia.
• “Arco 2002”. La Nave Gallery. Madrid.
• “quetratadeespaña ARTISTISPAGNOLINELLERACCOLTED’ARTEDELLACGI”.
• Academy of Spain. Rome.
• “Numbers and the Gaze” Barbadillo and Calculus Centre, Madrid University. Vimcorsa Exhibition Hall. Cordoba.

2003

He writes the article "Naturaleza - Arte - Ciencia" for issue 29 of "Contrastes", where he describes the relationship between animal architecture, the primitive beginning in the human species, and its links with some expressions of today’s art. Given his interest in contemporary architecture, especially in museums and religious precincts, he travels to Munich in March to see the new Pinakothek der Moderne, by Stephan Braunfels, and the Herz-Jesu-Kirche de Allmann, by Sattler & Wappner architects. He teaches the course "Poética del Espacio" within the PhD programme coordinated by Prof. Miguel Quilez Bach "La Realidad Asediada: Posicionamientos Creativos", at the Fine Arts Collage of the University of Barcelona, 8 - 9 May. He goes to the Venice Biennale where he confirms something which had been evident for some time, namely the shift towards a documentary approach and the preponderance of curators who use artists and their works to illustrate their own ideas. Trip to Berlin to carry out a photographic series devoted to the new architecture of the city, from Schinkel to date.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• “About the Sublime Void” Miguel Marcos Gallery, Barcelona. From 23 January to 28 de March. Miguel Marcos Gallery, Zaragoza. From 23 May to 21 de June.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• "Sintonía" Rayuela Gallery. Madrid. 13 March - 20 April.
• "The Calculus Centre 30 years after" Elche, 4 April-11 May, Contemporary Art Museum. Alicante, Alicante University MUA, Alicante University Museum,16 May - 11 July. Ibiza, Ibiza Contemporary Art Museum, 24 September - 31 October.
• "Summer Collective" Rayuela Gallery. Madrid. From 9 to 31 July and from 1 to 20 September.
• "Arco 2003", La Nave Gallery, Miguel Marcos Gallery. Madrid.
• "Spanish Constructivism" Muro Art Gallery. Valencia, exhibition May and June.
• "Micro UTOPIAS, Art & Architecture."2nd Biennale of Valencia, Valencia 8 June - 30 September 2003.
• "Between two centuries" Rayuela Gallery. Madrid, 11 December 03 - 17 January 04.
• "Fine Arts in the 20th Century - Valencia, 1940-1990".
• Atarazanas, Valencia 22 December 03 - 25 January 04.

2004

His works tend to generate a dialogue between the perception of depth, volume and luminosity, in order to reinforce the presence of a subtle inner brightness which emerges from the painting’s central space. He prepares a series of four large-sized serigraphies commissioned by the Madrid company "Arte y Naturaleza". He travels to New York where he continues studying the city's architecture, as he did in Berlin.

He goes to Vienna, where he continues his museum architecture analysis, especially at the new "Museums Quartier". He makes a serigraphied edition for the Architects Association of Valencia. He gives a lecture (Wednesday, 12 May) about his works at IVAM within the framework of the cycle "IVAM collection artists".

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• "Postludes", Rayuela Art Gallery. Madrid, 4 March - 7 April.
• "Art and Architecture II. José María Yturralde.
• Exhibition of a single serigraphy and video about the author and his works.
• Exhibition Hall of the Architects Association, Valencia. From 23 September to 8 October.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• “The early years, 1960, 1970" Casal Solleric. Palma de Mallorca, 22 January - 21 March.
• "Arco 2004" La Nave Gallery, Miguel Marcos Gallery. Madrid.
• "Presencias - 2 Mil" with Rafols Casamada, Michel Seuphor, Cruz Diez, Harald Schmitz, Negret, Morellet. Jesús Rafael Soto, Planas, Mignoni, new Díptico Gallery in Medinaceli, Soria.
• "The early years 1960-70" CAM, travelling exhibition, Alicante, Elche, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Valencia.
• "Space Drawing", with Elena Asins, Manuel Barbadillo, Eduardo Chillida, Equipo 57, Pablo Palazuelo, Manuel Rivera. Galería Rafael Ortiz, Seville.
• "25 years of art and the Constitution. Freedom, plurality and coexistence in Valencian contemporary art". Lonja del Pescado exhibition room, Alicante.
• "The Poetics of Cuenca, 40 years after 1964-2004". Centro Cultural de la Villa. Madrid. "Miguel Marcos, 25 years" Palacio de Sástago, Zaragoza.

2005

He returns to the use of the computer as a tool to generate new 3D flying structures and to delve into his multi-dimensional geometric studies. The exhibition and the Caja de Burgos Art Centre is possibly the start of a new more open and denser phase. He meets gallery owner Javier López de Madrid, and they start working together. The artist exhibits his works at his Arco stand and his gallery. He teaches the course “Art Workshop, Flying Structures and Nature” in the International University of Andalusia, Cartuja de Sevilla, from 12 to 16 September, in cooperation with the Andalusian Centre of Contemporary Art.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• "Postludes". CAB Caja de Burgos Art Centre. "José María Yturralde". Javier López Gallery. Madrid. 16 November 2005 - 10 January 2006.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• "Seven70ty in the Caja Navarra Collection". Sala de Cultura García Castañón, Caja Navarra Foundation. Pamplona. 24. 02 - 17.04.05.
• "Arco 2005" Javier López Gallery, Miguel Marcos Gallery, La Nave Gallery.
• "Models Structures Forms. Spain 1957-79". Contemporary Art Andalusian Centre. Seville. 22.09.05 - 27. 09. 05
• "Art happens. Origin of Conceptual Practices in Spain, 1965-1980". National Museum, Queen Sofia Art Centre. Madrid. 11.10.05 - 9. 01- 06.

2006

He attempts to establish (pictorial) links between the infinity – trans/infinity concepts in the new theories on time and space, and to find parallelism between eastern and western mystic notions on the emptiness, the sublime, and the absolute. Another trip to Berlin to visit the exhibition "Melancolie" curated by Jean Claire and held at the Neue Nacional Galerie.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• "Optische Erlebnisse", Instituto Cervantes. Viena (Austria). 12.04.06 - 01.12.07

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• "Mild and extreme reasons" Caja San Fernando Hall. Jerez. 13. 01 - 12. 02. 06.
• "Art happens. Origin of Conceptual Practices in Spain 1957 - 79". Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea Exhibition Hall. San Sebastián. 31. 01 - 25. 03. 06.
• "Bifurcations" with Elena Asins, Gerardo Delgado, Soledad Sevilla and Jordi Teixidor. Tomás y Valiente Art Centre. Fuenlabrada. 16. 02 - 23. 04. 06.
• "Geometric Transit". Palau Joan de Valeriola. Chirivella Soriano Foundation, Valencia. May 2006.
• "Spain & Latin Print", SIPA. Bellarte Gallery. Seoul, Korea. 09.27 - 10.01.06

2007

The experience of realizing around 120 paintings of small format, along summer, a project for a Bank entity in Valencia, with the consequent agility and immediacy, the situation made him to revise his last 10 years work, as a result, he tries to advance in the sense of luminosity, color vibration, compactness and in-depth serenity. A research on fast, nevertheless accurate technical workmanship during that experience led him to a certain kind of liberation.

Travel to New York in February and assist to the inauguration of Gering & Lopez Gallery, and the Armory Show where participates with that Gallery. It is a very important moment for him to belong and work with them.

In like manner he tries to learn and renovate his interest for scientific interpretation of aims like string theory. With the objective of making animations of “multidimensional geometry” he expand the software and hardware of his computer’s system.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• Yturralde “Obra reciente” La Nave, Valencia. 7. 06. 07 – 20. 07. 07
• “José María Yturralde” Galería Javier López. Madrid, 11.12.07 - 01.02.08

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• “Arco 2007” Gering & López Gallery, N.Y. La Nave Galería, Valencia. 15 – 19 febrero
• “The Armory Show”, New York, Geringa & López Gallery. 23 – 26 febrero
• “Reino y Ciudad. Valencia en su historia” 17. 04. 07
• “Art Brussels, 25th Contemporary Art Fair”. Bruselas. Gering & López Gallery N.Y.
• “Bit Internacional- [Nove] tendencije Computer und visuelle Forschug, Zagreb 1961-1973. Neue Galerie. Graz Austria.

2008

With the one man show in New York concludes the series “Postludios” and continues with drawings and sketches very much related again to the idea of beginning and infinity, a pictorial reflexion nearest to his work from the 80`s, beginning and the end as a new beginning, following Plato`s statement: “In all things, naturals and humans, the origin is the more excels”.

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Yturralde “New Paintings” Gering & López Gallery. New York. 17.01.08 - 23.02.08

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• “Del analógico al digital. Video Arte en Valencia 1978-2007. Fundación Chirivella Soriano. 01.02-2008
• Arco 2008, Gering & López Gallery. Madrid. Febrero
• “(Nove) tendencije – Computer and visual research Zagreb 1961 -1973.
• Center for Art and Media. Karlsruhe. 23.02-2008
• “Reacción en cadena”, Galería Rafael Ortiz, Sevilla. 18.09.08 - 28.10.08

2009

“Horizons”. Emptiness, lacerated by a energetic line, perceived as a horizontal o vertical direction, shows the relativity of our sensorial experience, in a world where now, we can imagine and describe new dimensions and see us from the outer space.

“Horizons” is refereed to a human vision, a situation of mental departure; it is not an illustration of something that not exists. (Where is the horizon of a Galaxy cumulus)?

Also he starts a new series of paintings by the name of “Deneb”, a very far away star. Mainly because he likes its sound.

Participates as a speaker, alongside the artists Carmen Laffon and Gustavo Torner in the “Coloquio en torno a Zóbel en el 25 aniversario de su fallecimiento”, organized by the “Real Academia Conquense de Artes y Letras”. Cuenca. 05.18.09. Lecturer in the Studies Journey: “La cultura Artística” espagnole sous le franquisme. Le critique d`art Vicente Aguilera Cerni”. INHA. París, 05.26.09

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• “El espacio ausente”, Galería Rafael Ortiz, Sevilla. 04.03.09 - 18.04.09
• “El espacio ausente”, Galería Altxerri, San Sebastián. desde 15.05 - 2009

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• “Arco 2009” Gering & López Gallery. Madrid. Febrero
• “Blanco y negro. Sujeto, espacio, percepción” Fundación Chirivella Soriano. Valencia. 06.02.09 - 26.04.09
• “Arquitectura” Exposición Arte y Arquitectura de CTAV. Centro Cultural Bancaja. Valencia. 29.06.09 - 05.07.09
• “Geometríes” Sala Martínez Guerricabeitia. Universitat de Valencia. 07. 07.09 - 18.10.09

2010

With the exhibition at the Gering & Lopez Gallery in New York, for the first time he exhibits the new series called Horizons.

About his last piece Yturralde. states. « Proverbs like tuareg’s “Mankind dwells in the horizon”, or some Japanese haikus, have been a source for my current work, I like that sense of infinity alongside infinity, or emptiness, same feelings from various admired romantic paintings as “The Monk by the Sea” a masterpiece by Friedrich, James Ward’s “Gordale Scar”, Turner’s “Evening Star”, also I was influenced by the mystic poetry, as the Spanish San Juan de la Cruz or Mexican Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. Or (always in my mind) American painters like Barnett Newman (Vir Heroicus Sublimis), Rothko and Pollok »

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

• “Hoirzons” Gering & López Gallery, New York. 02.26.10 – 04.17.10
• “Obra gráfica”, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Desde el 4 de febrero.

WORKS IN MUSSUMS AND COLLECTIONS

• Museo de Arte Abstracto, Cuenca.
• Museo de San Pio V, Valencia.
• Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Ibiza.
• Museo de Villafamés, Castellón.
• Colección artística del sindicato italiano CGIL.
• Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid.
• Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville.
• Museo de Arte Contemporáneo do Espiritu Santo, Brazil.
• P.R. Norman Collection, New Orleans, U.S.A.
• Brooklyn Museum, New York.
• Wroklaw National Museum, Poland.
• Centre de Recherches Visuelles. Empain, Brussels.
• Hasting Foundation. New York, U.S.A.
• Fundación Juan March, Madrid.
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S.A.
• Carpenter Center, Harvard University, U.S.A.
• Museo de Arte Moderno, Lanzarote.
• Museo del Alto Aragón, Huesca.
• Dept. Art and Sciences, The Museum of Fun, The Asahí Shimbun, Tokyo, Japan.
• Musée de Verck sur Mer, France.
• Musée Municipel de L´Estampe, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France.
• Museu d´ Art Contemporani dels Països Catalans, Banyoles.
• Museo de Bellas Artes, Vitoria.
• Colección Excma. Diputación de Valencia.
• Colección Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Valencia.
• Colección Excma. Diputación de Alicante.v
• Art Català Contemporani, Fons d´art de Xarxa Cultural. Barcelona.
• Colección Biblioteca Nacional. Madrid.
• Consejo Valenciano de Cultura. Valencia.
• Patrimonio Artistico de la Universidad Complutense. Madrid.
• Casa-Museo Pedralba 2000. Pedralba. Valencia.
• Universidad Politecnica. Valencia.
• Novgorod State Museum. Russia.
• IVAM. Institut Valencià d´Art Modern. València.
• Colección de Murales y Esculturas para el Metro de Valencia. Generalitat Valenciana.v
• Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. Madrid.
• Fundación Pilar y Joan Miró. Palma de Mallorca.
• Fundación Juan March. Palma de Mallorca.
• Cortes Valencianas. Valencia.
• Museo de la Ciudad. Valencia.
• Fundación Cajamadrid, Madrid.
• Col.lecció Fundació La Caixa de Pensions, Barcelona.
• Colección “De Pictura”, Madrid.
• Colección Ernesto Ventós Omedes, Barcelona.
• Patio Herreriano. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Español. Valladolid.
• Colección Visocan de Arte Gráfico Contemporáneo, 1978 – 2002. Empresa viviendas sociales de Canarias.
• Colección CAM, Alicante.
• CAB de Burgos, Burgos.
• Fundación Chirivella Soriano, Valencia.
• Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville.
• Center for Art and Media. Karlsruhe. Germany
• Fundación Martinez Guerricabeitia. Universidad de Valencia.

José María Yturralde
www.yturralde.org