JOSÉ SUBIRÁ-PUIG

versión en español

Introduction Subirá-Puig´s sculptural work is one of the most unique in what makes up today's international panorama of contemporary art. In order to analyze the artist's creative intentions, the elements that condition the realization of his work must be considered. The use of wood is what stands out primarily: wood as an ideal element, as a decisive material which leads him to new and always interesting ideas. Also, his conscious choice to work with a material in which harmony and beauty are continually discovered, enriching the work and mimicking the fundamental balance that wood possesses. Lastly, the innate sense that leads him to feel the material's harmony and to attain the desired expressiveness of the profoundly magical figments of his imagination. No less significant is the harmonizing of the lines that cut into the profiles of his balanced sculptures creating a very personal expression. For example, the tragic hollows of his skulls with their surfaces prepared carefully and with great discipline, constituting an emotive guarantee in the unity of the work and avoiding a result that depends on an improvised creation. With regard to Subirá-Puig's firm command of the material, his principal attribute as an artist is this: to totally subject the material to forms determined, desired and fixed by him within a precise concept which is both symbolic and realist, attaining the double objective of satisfying our eyes and our soul with an infinite amount of harmonious and varied sensations. These sensations give the work a spirit of creation, of unique rhythms and cadences whose communion provokes and creates the reality of the movements that produce the harmonious life of the work. Each plane establishes a congruent proportion of demanding discipline with the equilibrium of the masses, distributing intelligently and subtly incisive accents of expressed emotion. As mentioned above, one of the most suggestive attributes of Subirá-Puig's work is his precise concept which emcompasses both realism and symbolism, expressed through the nostalgic serenity that governs his solitary and disturbing shapes. These are combined in a special cosmogony of a uniquely expressive rigour, in a relentless play between the real and the unreal, in the constant search for impassive figures, tied or dismembered, in which the symbolic content is expressed with extraordinary rigour. To my understading, all the intensity and purity of this wondrous plastic game lies through a happily achieved personal theory of emotional encounters and clashes which tries to establish a dialogue between the implicit and the explicit in the double nature of reality. For the spectator, this opens up possibilities of participating in the universe of the fantastic where every one of the works is a signpost towards an encounter, by virtue of an oneiric suggestion that helps us discover a different emotional dimension. Subirá-Puig's monumental pieces are generally conceived as symbolic weather vanes of certain magical dimensions. They respond to the finality that motivated their realization, offering a unique, plastic unity in which the equilibrium of the masses dominates. Rhythms created with light are achieved through the cleverly chosen cadence of the shapes, which is pure sensorial joy for the eyes. And an astonishing sensation of stability is achieved by his correct conception of the equilibrium of the intensely expressive nerves. All of this carried out with the same endearing quality as always, bringing an undeniable beauty to the hamony of its proportions. Luis González Robles Curator Subirá–Puig is not a modern artist but rather a contemporary creator. He chose not to adopt the conventional methods, iconography, philosophical viewpoints and esthetic criteria that have been in fashion and this choice has lead him to favouring a technique and a material that does not only belong to him. His life and his art live in the present: his art responds to the desires and needs of humankind in his time with whom he shares a point of view. His sculpture belongs to him and is presented to us as a necessity in which we can appreciate its effort, vital impulse, anguish and fullness. These sculptures are nourished by an imperative reason because of the use of a single material: wood. This constituent element of Subirá-Puig's sculpture has a deep and close relationship to both space and light which literally unite in the wood. Through precise gestures, Subirá-Puig's work, as powerful in its execution as it is in its thinking, expresses the workings of the soul which we can assume are sorrow, pacience and fervour. Subirá–Puig applies a concept of work which remains as visible traces on every piece, permitting the viewer to recreate the whole process. He gives the viewer's gaze an opportunity to penetrate into his creation and invites it to deconstruct the articulations of the sculpture in order to know the articulations. It is at this point that the viewer realizes that all the components are united exclusively through fitting and joining. The same process happens with all the work born from Subirá-Puig's magic, restless and alert fingers. Nothing is sculpted in his work in the dictionary sense of the word. Subirá-Puig's relationship to sculpture is set forth in this way: carving with a chisel, or with another medium, a hard material into the shape of a figure or an adornment. First off, the originality and authenticity of the media and language that Súbira Puig's uses should be recognized. Wood is not a material of power or violence: it has to be carefully manipulated and it is with difficulty curved, bended, made round and articulated in order to join the components together. Piece by piece and from the heart, Subirá-Puig, from the skeleton to the skin, builds these figures, heads, animals, still lifes, and fragments of our world, into shapes and rhythms unique in contemporary creation. Pierre Cabanne May, 1997

"Thyrsus", 1990 64 x 47 x 24 cms. Oak   "Souvenir of Braque", 1992 86 x 54 x 40 cms. Various woods   "Enamelled Casserole", 1993 34 x 43 x 30 cms. Various woods   "Fish Trap", 1997 52 x 24 x 20 cms. Various woods   "Beneath the Mask", 1984 32 x 2 x 29 cms. Oak-iron   "Self-portrait III", 1994 39 x 24 x 31 cms. Coated wood   "Black Torso", 1993 124 x 34 x 22 cms. Oak-Ovangol   "Trojan Horse", 1984 118 x 43 x 74 cms. Oak Totally dismountable work, commissioned by the Maison des Arts, of Laon "Margarita", 1992 111 x 37 x 32 cms. Multiplis   "Butterfly-Echo", 1965 60 x 44 x 30 cms. Oak   "Bird with Feathers", 1976 91 x 38 x 43 cms. Olon   "Bird in Cage", 1992 46 x 64 x 25 cms. Oak   José Subirá-Puig, 1972 Forêt de Sénart