Soledad Sevilla. Saving Beauty

On the occasion of the FLORA flower festival the C3A presents an installation entitled La salvación de lo bello [Saving Beauty] (2019) by Soledad Sevilla (b. 1944, Valencia). Derived from a 1986 work by Sevilla called Leche y sangre [Milk and Blood], the new installation resumes the investigation she began 25 years ago, using red carnations, this time using as her conceptional departure point the book Saving Beauty by the South Korean writer and philosopher Byung-Chul Han. Once more, the artist advances the paradigm of beauty as a radical position at the current stage of development of contemporary art. This view is a controversial one amongst the many factions of today¿s art world, and it stands in opposition to the abject as a post-modern theme. In her new work 32,000 red carnations climb and merge with the brutalist concrete walls of the building, in a challenge to the structural by the organic. Another component is the analysis of geometrical forms that evoke post-minimalism or counter-criticism of the formal.

Soledad Sevilla studied at the Sant Jordi School of Fine Arts in Barcelona. In the 1970s, after she had worked for a time at the Computation Centre at Madrid¿s Complutense University, Sevilla began to use geometry as the normative basis for her pictorial work. She is also known for her immersive installations that intensely relate architecture with painting. Her solo exhibitions have included major shows at the CAAC Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville,  the IVAM in Valencia, and at the Palacio de Velázquez in Madrid. She has been awarded the National Visual Arts Prize and a Gold Medal in Fine Arts.

Contributors:

FLORA. Festival Internacional de las Flores

Escuela Andaluza de Arte Floral

Fundación Ernesto Ventós (Barcelona)

Download exhibition labels.

Photo Album on Flickr.