Artists

El aliento de la tierra

Curated by Mariano Navarro Nacho Criado Mitsuo Miura Juan Navarro Baldeweg Adolfo Schlosser
Madrid
08.05.2512.07.25
Press
Press
Plano de mano_El aliento de la tierra Floormap_El aliento de la tierra
Press release

Art is not properly on the canvas or in the object, but in an intermediate place between the work and the viewer,
it is in a no man’s land, or rather, in a shared land.
Juan Navarro Baldeweg

 

In the 1970s, Spanish art witnessed the emergence of a new paradigm in the relationship between the artist, nature and the landscape, whose central elements were subjectivity, social interaction, and their potential development within traditional disciplines—especially painting and sculpture—as well as in new media, action-based, and conceptual approaches. The main protagonists were—but not exclusively—the artists featured in this exhibition: Nacho Criado, Mitsuo Miura, Juan Navarro Baldeweg, and Adolfo Schlosser, who established a new relationship between art and nature and expressed, with striking clarity, a different poetics in which minimalism, arte povera, land art, and conceptual art converge, along with process-based practices and certain derivations arising from the fusion of art and the physical sciences. The synergy among the bodies of work of these four artists conveys an intense seductive power and a profound evocative capacity.

Nacho Criado’s central motif is a kind of cultural anthropology, stemming both from his rural upbringing in an Andalusian village and from a distinct appreciation of aquatic, terrestrial, botanical, and meteorological elements, as well as a deeply rooted mythological symbolism drawn from the historical memory of his land.

Mitsuo Miura transforms the landscape into a site of experience and coincidence with the visual magic of its formulation, whether through numbers and dimensions, geometry, architecture, or objects placed in their exact and most revealing positions. The coast of Almería, in his series Playa de los genoveses, and the heart of the forest, in Paisaje silencioso, form the epiphanic core of his work, and of our astonishment.

Light, balance—and its indeterminacies—non-biographical gesture, the perceptual perplexities of the viewer, and a poetics that emanates from physical elements have guided much of the fundamental work of the artist and architect Juan Navarro Baldeweg. His paintings, sculptures, environments, and installations—where light, gravity, magnetism, or music trace a poetic definition of place—transform it into a space of meaning.

A common thread running through Adolfo Schlosser’s pieces is not so much the discovery of the geometry underlying natural forms, but the invention of another geometry—superimposed on or integrated into them—which, from the perspective of the artist’s work, reveals a secret order of the world.

Mariano Navarro

 

El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Barras azules sobre amarillo (detail), 1980. Latex on canvas. 200 x 300 cm
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
Nacho Criado, Escalonamiento (detail), 1969. Wood. 10 x 190 x 15 cm
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
Mitsuo Miura, Playa de los genoveses (detail), 1983. Oil on canvas. 150 x 100 cm
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
Juan Nava rro Baldeweg, La ventana 2019. Lámina de acero lacado de 1mm de espesor e impresión en papel en caja de madera, 1/4. 60 x 60 x 4 cm
Juan Navarro Baldeweg, La ventana, 2019. 1mm thick lacquered steel sheet, 1/4. 60 x 60 x 4 cm
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
Mitsuo Miura, Ejercicios Caligráficos (detail), 1971. Oil on canvas. 150 x 100 cm
Nacho Criado, Lona (detail), 1969. Painted wood and sailcloth. 169 x 72 x 13 cm
Nacho Criado, Lona (detail), 1969. Painted wood and sailcloth. 169 x 72 x 13 cm
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
El aliento de la tierra, 2025. Exhibition view, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain