Pello Irazu

Texts.: Rosa Queralt, Christian Leigh & Kevin Power.
Year: 1994, Page: 109
I.S.B.N.: 84-606-2000-X

Pello Irazu’s project is currently one of the most extraordinary and far reaching pieces of work within the artistic scene in Spain. His work is one of the most important contributions to contemporary Spanish sculpture.

His initial phase as an artist is linked to the debate on minimalism, conceptualism and the object-based derivations that arose during the first half of the ‘80s around the group of Basque sculptors in Bilbao. He shared his ideas and thoughts on sculpture with these artists, as well as his concern for formal procedures and the project concept crisis.

In this period, Irazu directs his work towards constructivist ideas, delving into the relationships found inside his own work, as well as the problems of language, which become progressively more complex when contextualised in an ever broader view of reality. As Rosa Queralt states “one of the most determining factors in the development of his sculpture is linked to the desire to make the image of his ideas deliberate, to achieve a more general dialogue that links his work to real world experiences, avoiding the object’s purely visual or representative values".

Since 1990, he has worked in New York.

His most recent work provides the viewer with an open and intense opportunity to reflect on reality and it acts as a context with which to create stories. For Kevin Power, Irazu’s current work “makes the viewer enter into the game, which in this case does not mean confronting minimalist phenomenology, rather providing a solution to the workings of the imagination, to the desire to think up alternatives. The legacy of this work leaves us with many conversation pieces that ask questions and suggest different visual possibilities”.

Likewise, this link with the viewer is created using the unusual relationship between the object and space, its presence in dialogue with the environment using scale (in which human size is a permanent reference), a concept that is stressed in the pieces created for the Embarcadero Palace project.

The catalogue published for this exhibition includes part of the work created by the artist during the last decade together with the work created specifically for Santander.

This exhibition continues the ARS programme at the Port of Santander, which began a year ago, and the port would like to thank the people and organisations that have made this event possible; the Soledad Lorenzo gallery, the authors of the texts and of course the artist for his interest and dedication throughout the project.

Port of Santander
June 1994

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