Paisaje II

February 2019

“PAISAJES”
It is nature that sets before us the really beautiful landscapes, perceived to a greater or lesser degree by the supposed admirer, who does not ask himself, or investigate, asking the landscape the reason for such beauty, that is, if the idea of the beauty of the earth has any meaning for him. Then the traveller builds upon that landscape, only thinking about building and not knowing too well what true building consists in.
The spaces that we traverse and in which we live are always landscapes, be they mountains or valleys, squares or avenues, stadia or theatres. A room is a landscape in which one experiences joy and suffering. It can be said that landscapes talk, because they suggest concepts and moods to us. Besides natural landscapes, there are the landscapes resulting from the work and imagination of man. It has always been man’s will, his need, to play a part in the landscape. In the distant past, he was forced to do so by the need to defend himself and seek shelter from the dangers of obscure forces that besieged him, from the terror arising within his mind, which he assuaged and fought with his arts. Later he discovered farming, which, besides providing him with food, gave him a deeper understanding of the life all around him, so that he could carry on living.
Upon attaining the evolution of the forms of perception and thoughts aroused by the landscape itself, these suffer a complex and unexpected transformation. Every step towards an ever better description requires the contribution of something that is qualitatively new, of something original beyond technique. Thus, at one point in the past harmony was only names pronounced instinctively, but instinct brings messages with it, and the works that men carried out then surprised him pleasantly, because they blended in with the harmony of the surrounding landscape.
Now the landscape is almost always something remote to us, our awareness of the influence exerted by the landscape on our perception is blocked, and our perception no longer comprehends our relationship with it, which is and must be, despite us, much more intimate than we believe, and hence we should know that sadness not only belongs to the immense plain.
Today man builds on the landscape without thinking about it, without taking into account that “living” landscape that, as such, is a source of emotions, suggestions and ideas.
The landscape-sculptures that I have made out of metal in the past year are the result of my aim to discover and construct other landscapes, which, just like natural landscapes, have the ability to evoke at any time a whole range or set of different – and hence new – feelings in the traveller or stroller contemplating them from a distance, from above, or traversing a succession of inner spaces in which to lose oneself and find oneself
La Peraleda, 9 de diciembre de 1997
Pablo Palazuelo, “Paisajes”, El País-Anuario 1998, Madrid, 1999

Exhibitions

• GALERÍA SOLEDAD LORENZO 1997, n/c, col. ill. p. 16 (bottom) and col. ill. p. 17 (top) (titled “Maquetas para paisajes”)
• MUSEO CASA DE LA MONEDA 1999, n/c, col. ill. p. 57
• MACBA 2006-GUGGENHEIM BILBAO 2007, n/c, n/r, cat. p. 328 (dimensions: 23 x 63.5 x 72 cm)
• BANCA MARCH 2010, cat. No. 86, col. ills. p. 155, cat. p. 181 (dimensions: 23 x 72 x 73.5 cm)
• FUNDACIÓN FRANCISCO GODIA 2012, cat. No. 85, (2) col. ills. pgs. 180-181, cat. p. 215 (dimensions: 23 x 72 x 73.5 cm)
• MUSEO PABLO GARGALLO 2013, cat. No. 75, quoted cat. unpaged (dimensions: 23 x 72 x 73.5 cm)

Literature

• FIETTA JARQUE, “Pablo Palazuelo se descubre como un ‘astrónomo del arte’”, El País, Madrid, 22/X/1997, quoted p. 36 (on “Maquetas para paisajes”)
• Multiple Authors, “Pablo Palazuelo, escultor de la geometría”, Sur, Cádiz, 25/X/1997, b/w ill. unpaged (photograph by Barriopedro of Pablo Palazuelo, next to the work (detail) at Galería Soledad Lorenzo)
• Multiple Authors, “’La Razón recomienda”, La Razón, Madrid, 23/III/1999, b/w ill. unpaged
• MNCARS 2005, n/c, col. ill. pgs. 148-149 (two positions) (dimensions: 23 x 63.5 x 72 cm)
• JOSEP MASSOT, “Palazuelo, descubridor de formas”, La Vanguardia, Barcelona, 14/XII/2006, b/w ill. p. 35 (view of the exhibition at the MACBA)
• CARMEN BONELL 2006, quoted p. 148