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Manolo Valdés at Miami Beach

Press Release - Contact: Marnie Goldman, Harrison & Shriftman
(305) 534-0008, mgoldman@hs-pr.com

MIAMI BEACH, Fl. (November 1, 2007) – The City of Miami Beach and Marlborough Gallery are pleased to present an exhibition of monumental bronze sculptures by the renowned Spanish painter and sculptor, Manolo Valdés.  The exhibition features nine works and is free and open to the public. The exhibition is on view from November 3 through February 28, 2007.

“ We are thrilled to bring a breathtaking exhibition by acclaimed Spanish artist Manolo Valdés to Miami Beach for the first time,” said Jeremy T. Chestler, Chairperson of City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places. “Mr. Valdés is a luminary in the art world and his monumental works will be a cultural force on the beach.”
The exhibition consists of four sculptures depicting female heads, their calm facial composure and structured equilibrium offset rhythmically by dynamic ornamental head-pieces. Two of the four works, all of which measure over thirteen feet high, were recently on display in New York’s Bryant Park. Accompanying these forms are five elegantly imposing figures based on Diego Velázquez’ Reina Mariana from the painting Las Meninas. In these works, Valdés draws inspiration from an art-historical motif, as he does in much of his work, using his own visual language to skillfully play tribute to one of the great masters.

Valdés’ approach to art is to use the past and present "como pretexto." He focuses not on the subject, but on the way the art is created. For Valdés, the subject is simply the first step. As explored in his regal sculptures on Washington Avenue in Miami Beach, his work is about the process and journey in creating the art.

Valdés has received honors and commissions from Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Venezuela. In 2005, a large exhibition of his sculptures of both Infanta Margarita and Reina Mariana opened to critical acclaim in Paris at the Palais Royal, then traveling to Switzerland and Spain. In 2006, several of these sculptures were featured at the Desert Botanical Garden in Arizona, the first West Coast venue for Valdés’ work. Most recently, a group of Las Meninas were on view during the Helsinki Festival in Finland, from May-September 2, 2007. In 2002, as part of Parks & Recreation’s public art program, Valdés exhibited a monumental bronze sculpture entitled La Dama on Park Avenue. Currently a traveling exhibition entitled Manolo Valdés: Monumental Sculpture, is on view in Seville, Spain. Through 2008, it will tour Barcelona, Bilbao and Saragossa to coincide with the World’s Fair.

Valdés completed two of his most important commissions to date in 2003: three monumental bronze sculptures, Las Damas de Barajas, which were created for Madrid’s highly acclaimed new international airport, and La Dama del Manzanares, which presides majestically over Madrid’s Parque del Mazanares and is his largest sculpture at 45-feet high. In 1999, Valdés was the official representative of Spain at the Venice Biennale. Recent retrospectives of Valdés’ paintings, sculpture and graphic work have been held at the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2002 and Madrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in 2006. An important solo exhibition at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul, France, was also held in 2006.

Valdés’ work may be found in more than 40 public collections, including the following: Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany; Menil Foundation, Houston, Texas; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Modern Museet Art, Stockholm, Sweden; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Museo Nacional Centre de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.

The City of Miami Beach established an Art in Public Places program in 1984, following the example of successful programs in cities such as Philadelphia and Seattle. By ordinance, 1.5 percent of the cost of city-owned construction projects is set aside for "works of art in public places other than museums which enrich and give diversion to the public environment." To carry out this mandate, seven citizens of Miami Beach with special expertise and experience in the arts are appointed by the City commissioners to the Art in Public Places Committee.
Founded in London in 1946, Marlborough Gallery is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading contemporary art galleries. Marlborough’s Midtown Manhattan gallery opened in 1963 and over the course of four decades has held important exhibitions by David Smith, Kurt Schwitters, Ben Nicholson, Wassily Kandinksy, Adolph Gottlieb, Barbara Hepworth, Jacques Lipchitz, Franz Kline, Francis Bacon, Richard Avedon and Larry Rivers, to name a few.

In addition to the new Marlborough Chelsea, which just opened at 545 West 25th Street, New York, Marlborough is a global organization that comprises Marlborough Fine Art, London; Galería Marlborough, Madrid, with an annex in Barcelona, Spain; Marlborough Monaco, Monte Carlo; Galería A.M.S Marlborough, Santiago, Chile, as well as its long-established site in New York City at 40 West 57th Street. Marlborough is proud to support this exciting exhibition in Miami Beach of works by Manolo Valdés. This is an important sculpture show for residents, as well as visitors, to enjoy.