Miquel Navarro: Wall City

Miquel Navarro (Mislata, Valencia, 1945) is considered one of the most singular voices in contemporary Spanish sculpture. Wall City (1995–2000) —recently acquired for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao’s Permanent Collection and presented now for the first time in the Museum—is representative of Navarro’s work, who began his artistic endeavor painting and drawing in the mid-sixties. By 1973 he executed his first City, part of an ongoing series of cityscapes, modified architectural structures constructed from a broad range of materials.

Navarro’s cities generate arenas for the confrontation of ideas. Throughout his career, he has continually proposed a revision of our notions of space, construction, place, and of our own bodies as a singular measure of the human and the city. Inspired by modern urban patterns, his sculptural landscapes are replete with architectural elements acting as formal vehicles for our city-shaped experience.