Cristina Iglesias at Skulpturenhalle
03.09.2021 – 12.12.2021
Curated by Dieter Schwarz
Cristina Iglesias’ works break with the traditional notion of sculpture in that she works with architectonic elements, most notably passageways, and also integrates fictional and fluid elements. Her architecture situates the viewer in an indeterminate situation between indoors and outdoors. Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, for instance, is a sequence of spaces formed by the kind of freestanding terracotta features found in Moorish architecture. Growth comprises walls filled with branches, leaves and roots – not blossoming trees and plants, but casts of them; the plants thus become artificial nature. Flowing water forms a counterpoint as an uncontrollable element. The water of the fountains floods in and then recedes again, revealing the hidden world of plants inside. Entering the Pabellón de Cristal, we glance down through the gridded floor into the depths and encounter an imagined subterranean world reminiscent of fantasy fiction.
Iglesias has photographed models she has built of her works, and has then enlarged them and silkscreen printed them onto copper plates. These life-size images show a labyrinth of spaces staggered into the depth, but with no central perspective. The copper plates are reflective, so viewers see themselves and their surroundings in the fictitious spaces, thus becoming part of a reality from which they are excluded – a situation that defies resolution. Iglesias’ path has led from intimate architectures to works in outdoor spaces where the sculptures are surrounded by real nature. Her painstakingly executed models depict pavilions, corridors and labyrinths. The interior is conceived as a path through an imaginary world of shadows, at the end of which the visitor steps into the light of reality.
Dieter Schwarz