MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) Chengdu is pleased to announce the exhibition “Soul of Paper” of renowned Spanish artist Cristobal Gabarron. It features sixty-nine paintings and six monumental sculptures curated by philosopher Sami Naïr of The Alhambra Towers Group, currently on show in the Museum gardens and recently exhibited at the Beijing Today Art Museum after completing its world city tour which began in 2009. The other 10 sculptures from this group are currently on show at Nixia Auditorium-Guangdong Museum Plaza in Guangzhou.
The paintings are distributed throughout all the interior galleries of the museum, creating a very unique single-artist show, in which visitors can enjoy two previously unexhibited series from 2010. The Africa Paintings are made up of twenty oil-on-paper works that Gabarron created following a scientific trip he made to Kenia and Tanzania with a group of anthropologist. The other forty-nine oil-on-paper paintings - The Blue House - depict an intimate and idyllic refuge of the artist, a journey through another dimension where humans live in harmony with their souls.
For those interested, “The Painted Word” is the title of next Thursday's master-class at Chengdu Fine Arts University, 19.00 - 20:30, China.
About the artist
Born in Mula (Murcia), Spain, Cristobal Gabarron received his early artistic training in Valladolid before pursuing his career in France and Italy. He currently divides his time between Spain and the United States. Gabarron centers his work on the idea of the life of individuals and the coexistence and development of human values. Throughout his 50-year career, Gabarron has been commissioned by public and private organizations across the world to create noteworthy and unique art pieces for special occasions, for example, the Olympic Mural for the Barcelona Olympic Games (1992), the Encounter Mural for the Universal Exhibition of Seville (1992) or the sculpture Atlanta Start (1996). His collaboration with the United Nations has spanned most of his career, starting in 1986, when he designed the World Peace Stamp to celebrate the UN International Peace Year, and continuing with his artwork for the UN New Millennium Summit (2000) or the Millennium Chapel (2001), and in October 24, 2015, a monument entitled "Enlightened Universe" exhibited in New York's famous Central Park, and unveiled by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in celebration of the UN's 70 Anniversary. Prominent cultural institutions like the IVAM - Valencia Institute of Modern Art-, the Museum of Modern Art in Gdansk, Poland, or the Oscar Niemeyer International Cultural Center in Spain have held retrospective exhibitions of Gabarron’s work. This is Gabarron's eighth exhibition in China in the past sixteen months, an uncommon honor for any contemporary western artist.
About MOCA Chengdu - Museum of Contemporary Art
MOCA Chengdu is a non-profit Museum, established in 2011 by the local government that serves the 15 million citizens of the city (5th largest in China) as a Contemporary Art Museum, an Educational Center, and a Center for Academic Research. It is also a point of reference for the whole province of Sichuan (80 million people). The goal of Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum is to become China's most influential academic and professional standard for an urban public art gallery. The Museum's collection is mainly composed of contemporary art paintings, but also includes many other art forms such as multimedia, sculpture and video, from artists such as Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, Zhou Chunya, He Dongling, Zhang Xiaogang, Wang Guangyi, Zeng Fanzhi, Liu Xiaodong, Liu Wei, Yu Hong, Zhan Wang, Sui Jianguo, Xiang Jing etc. Zhan Wang’s 'Gift from Paradise' was especially created for the opening of MOCA Chengdu.
Chengdu is one of the most important economic, financial, commercial, cultural, transportation, and communication centers in Western China. Chengdu also hosts many international companies, mostly from the high Tech industry and more than 12 consultancy firms. More than 260 Fortune 500 companies have established branches in Chengdu due to huge Western Chinese demand. In 2006, China Daily named it China's 4th most livable city.
Courtesy of the artist and MOCA Chengdu.
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-17:30
Closing days: Monday (holiday postponed) free admission
Address: high-tech zone, Chengdu, Sichuan, China Chengdu tianfu software Park, C1, Chengdu contemporary art museum, West building
Post code: 610041
Email: chengdumoca@Hotmail.com
Phone: 028-85980055 (10:00~16:00 per day)
Official site: http://www.chengdumoca.org
Official Micro-Blog: http://weibo.com/chengdumoca
Official douban: http://site.douban.com/121686/
