After several appearances at the Juan Silió gallery in Santander, to which he has been linked for more than three decades, the works of sculptor José Cobo are presented for the first time in our space in Madrid.
As a result of in-depth research, his creative process is a continuum in which meditation and reflection on the human being is central. His relationship with nature, the social context in which he is inserted and the spirituality he develops are themes that evolve in his production, finding formal correlates in the different series he works on over time. Now, in El tejido de la luz he presents a selection of his latest works, sculptures mostly made in epoxy resin – a technique of his own invention-, which approach the installation. The dialogue of the pieces with the surrounding space is an essential theme for the sculptor, being in many cases the true protagonist of some of his creations: the space turned into a pure metaphor about our way of inhabiting the world and relating to our environment.
The title El tejido de la luz – The Fabric of Light – contains the key that underlies the pieces on display, alluding to the scientific theory that all existing matter is generated in the stars. This poetic statement unleashes the imagination of the artist who relies on the fruitful concept of fold developed by Deleuze to speak of that cosmic process of diversification that goes from light to the reality we know. Those infinite folds that in their becoming form the world, the folds of matter and likewise, the folds of the soul.
Pliegues de la materia aérea, Pliegues de la materia con línea y Pliegues de la materia subterránea re made of panels in which folds abound, in some cases worked in fabrics and stucco, with a leaden and neutral finish; in others with a glossy black finish of treated textile. All of them refer to the baroque movement, to theatricalization and representation. They recall the organization of the altarpiece itself, but they are panels without images. Some are still hanging, others are lowered and placed on the floor, apparently dismantled, detached from their representative function, desacralized, just presented, stripped of iconicity.
In an unsettling Hermafrodita, the subject matter seems not yet to have defined itself as a sex and maintains ambiguity. The figure of a body with a blurred face hangs curiously from the ceiling, uncomfortably showing male and female attributes. The sculpture seems to be unfinished, with screws still in place, as if it should have been placed in another position.
Two Meteorites of freedom, one idealized and the other internalized, are two approaches to Giacometti’s famous quadriga. If the Swiss artist expressed spirituality, Cobo turns it back to matter to talk to us about the concept of freedom of being, both in a generic sense and applied to the individual articulated in society. Two beautiful pieces that suggest complex contents that are very pertinent today.
Finally, in Metamorfosis, different isolated scenes are united in a larger dramatized composition. They are characters and objects in different situations, some everyday, others symbolic and surreal. Inspired by the strange abnormality lived in times of pandemic, this mosaic speaks of transformation, social behavior and the incidence of mass media.
The discovery of the ambivalence of light, already known to behave equally as wave and particle, meant for science to assume what seems more a miracle than a physical certainty. Thus life, which arises from matter, as well as our mind and our own consciousness as beings that think in turn the very matter that shapes them, capable of elevating this thought to a work of art, delving poetically into the fabric of light.
Lidia Gil
March, 25 – May, 27 2023
José Cobo
Galería Juan Silió
C/ Dr. Fourquet, 20, 28012. Madrid.
Tuesday – Friday,
11 am – 7 pm
Saturday,
11 am – 2 pm