Juan Garaizabal

Juan Garaizabal (Madrid, 1971) is a plastic artist, sculptor and engraver. He is internationally known for his monumental public sculptures. His project, Memorias Urbanas, (Urban Memories), recovers significant elements of the cities, filling gaps of extraordinary memories and generating debate on urban planning, history, and the role of contemporary art.

His work stands out not only for his personal discourse, but also for his own techniques, worked by himself in his workshops in Madrid, Berlin and Miami; carpentry, electricity, plasticity and masonry. He uses the combination of materials and introduces elements such as wood, concrete, glass, brick, motors, led light to cause the most interactive sensation of contrast in time, the avant-garde and history.

Garaizabal has been lucky that people and institutions from different cities of the world bet for his vision to rescue, with sculpture, extraordinary and very specific stories from each place. A pagoda in Seoul, a palace in the Tuileries in Paris, balconies in Havana, a temple in Palmyra or a church in Berlin; behind each missing element there is just human dreams.

In addition to the recovery of these energies, he always works with a strong environmental awareness of efficiency and recovery in the use of materials (Artnet Magazine, Nov 2019). His role as an artist does not end with the creation of the sculpture. This is rather the principle of the true role, which is to create debate in the society. (Manifesto Urban Memories (Manifest der Urbanen Erinnerungen, Sept. 2007, Berliner Morgenpost)

To accompany the debate and participate in the media and films with which provokes him, he speaks 6 languages: Spanish, English, German, French, Italian and Chinese.

Submitted by Proyecto H / Galería Hispánica