Outdoor art in Matarraña to stir consciences

Cretas (Matarraña)The dialogue between art and nature can produce memorable experiences. French artist Christian Boltanski (1944-2021) is remembered for his exploration of the trauma of the Holocaust and the theme of personal and collective memory. He often did so with installations that leave a strong emotional mark due to the old photographs he used, the dim lighting, and the rather claustrophobic nature. Also moving, in a seemingly very distant context, is the work itself. Animitas, one of the most striking works in the sculpture park that the Albarrán Bourdais gallery has in Cretes, in Matarranya, within his touristic author architecture project Solo Houses and an ecological winery called Venta d'Aubert. Precisely, the starting point of the visit is the old building that now functions as the winery's headquarters.

Instead of filing cabinets, clothes and images, in this work Boltanski used around two hundred Japanese bells hanging from thin rods, whose chimes can be heard before you find them on the way. "In Chile the animitas "These are the small photographs that are placed in the place where someone has died in an accident to remember them," say the guides, Marta Coll, from the gallery team, and Julia Cajaraville, the director of Solo Houses. "It's a very sentimental, very profound work, which gives you the feeling that there is someone beyond, when you disappear. Animitas It aims to provoke reflection on the ephemeral nature of existence and on relativizing the fear of death.

This year, the gallery organized the fourth edition of the trail through its sculpture park, with some of the more than twenty works that comprise it renovated. "The entire team has worked hard, and we want to put the route [known as the Solo Sculpture Trail] on the map not only locally but also internationally. The vision from the beginning has always been long-term," says gallery owner Christian Bourdais, who runs the business with his wife, Eva Albarrán. "The works didn't magically land here; rather, we've done very precise work so that the sculptures are integrated into the landscape." The route is about 3 kilometers long and lasts approximately an hour and a half. Admission costs 5 euros and is free for those under 18.

Critical artists and the most optimistic

The selected artists work primarily in dialogue with the site, the call to be aware of the climate emergency, and politics. "There are artists who respond to this world in a very critical way, and others ask how we should be to solve it and live together," says Albarrán.

In the first section, you can see the industrial structure by Portuguese artist Pedro Cabrita Reis, reminiscent of a tree or a flower, and the sculpture made of stones and mirrors with which Alicja Kwade plays with public perception. To continue the path, you must cross a bridge by Iván Argote, whose engraved motto states that the way to salvation is to be together, to avoid reaching the point of no return in the political situation. Further on, there is another sculpture with text. It is an intervention by the Danish collective Superflex: a manifesto consisting of a set of stone blocks of different shapes on which you can read the foundations for holding an interspecies assembly.

Three of the other most impressive works reach the halfway point of the route. One is No? Future!, the car with a message by Jordi Colomer that was on display at the MACBA exhibition dedicated to him last year. The second, Orbital, is a disturbing terrestrial sphere by Mona Hatoum made of iron and cement. "It's a planet created from destruction; these balls resemble pieces of debris, as if they were the result of a bombing," she says. And the third of the works is a set of colossal raw marble blocks balanced by Mexican artist José Dávila. In the middle of the landscape, these rocks are placed on the edge so that they support each other. "I've been working for many years trying to make visible the force of gravity, which is invisible, but at the same time omnipresent," says Dávila, whose other work can be seen at the beginning of the route.

Later on, Jordi Colomer, with a metallic pacifist banner, and Claudia Comte with Burning sunset, a six-meter-high mural whose colors evoke the increasingly wildfires. "With his poetic vision, Comte warns us that these fires, even if they are wild, are not accidental but caused by human action," the guides warn.

And one of the most striking installations on the final stretch of the journey resembles a theater stage and a five-seater stall. It's by one of the driving forces of French minimalism, Olivier Mosset. "What's interesting about Mosset and other French minimalism artists is that they used the purest forms and the purest colors, and getting rid of the artistic gesture and ego was a way of democratizing art," say Coll and Cajaraville.

The Albarrán Bourdais estate covers 200 hectares, 18 of which are vineyards. In addition to the Solo Pezo Von Ellrichshausen and Solo Office KGDVS estates, the gallery owners plan to open a 25-room hotel designed by Chilean architect Smiljan Radic in 2028.