|
Excerpt:
(1) Maximo Rojo, Alcolea del Pinar, Guadalajara. Close
to Bueno's house lies Maximo Rojo's sculpture garden.
Born in 1912, Rojo educated himself while doing his
military service. It was not until he retired from work
in 1979 that he made his first sculpture from cement
on a wire armature, thereby beginning a frenetic period
of activity during which he made hundreds of rich and
colourful works. Using an expressionist style Rojo recreated
many episodes from Spanish history, literature and Christianity.
The works form an exceptional visual encyclopedia in
which traditional knowledge coexists in an unusual juxtaposition
with figures and episodes from popular culture.
|
(2) Francisco González Gragera, Los Santos de Maimona,
Badajoz. In Los Santos de Maimona, Badajoz is one of
the most surprising and spontaneous constructions in
the whole of Spain. The artist and owner is Francisco
González Gragera, an imaginative and enthusiastic master
builder and talented draughtsman, who since 1988 has
been building himself a 'weekend' house in which organic
curves and intense surface textures predominate. Gragera
demonstrates a clear preference for trencadís, a technique
much used by architect Antonio Gaudí which consists
of cladding walls with a mosaic of broken ceramic tiles.
From the outside several turrets, curved stairs and
a hemisphere forming the bathroom can be seen, finished
off with a royal crown. Flowers and trees of ceramic
and cement are scattered around the surrounding area,
and the site calls to mind illustrations of distant
paradises in children's storybooks.
|