Cristian Diez Sanchez
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At the core of his work is the human figure. How expressions and movements relate to its environment. Often it is about the confrontation between him and his environment that always arrives at violence, repression and cruelty of power against the people. History has a tendency to repeat itself
Often working in a series, isolation and loneliness, lack of dialogue and misunderstanding are recurring themes.
The concept of Arte Povera is linked to the work carried out with the use of basic materials and tools and related also to the concept of Minimalism simplifying the figure to its limits and achieving a strong expression with minimal elements.
The work is completely defined by these two concepts: adding Brutalism to Minimalism.
Due to the expressive violence of the works, the expression is reduced to their minimum.
The simpler the figure, the cruder is the reality it expresses, without traps or veils. The idea of going to the base, taking out everything that could be superfluous, shown in recent series where bare cardboard is the only material used for the work, has been a constant in his work.
This is where Rationalism appears because nothing that has been done is improvised; each step of the different stages has been planned and nothing is out of order.
On the other hand, in the work carried out, the theme varies constantly since it is a way of constantly forcing the imagination, with the need to have several projects in a row waiting to enter when another is finished without interruption; even also developing two different projects at the same time to keep the mind always working.
Where the passion is there has to be work and more work.
And within all these variables of the work, the human being and his ability to connect with others is the constant that connects everything.
Expressed in different states of abstraction and in different ways of relating to others, loneliness is a constant that ends up giving the order to the entire work.
To see the human being surrounded by people who not only don’t help but also create barriers and make it even more difficult to build relations with others.
We know that living together is difficult, and sometimes people look for ways to make living together even more difficult when the value of individualism trumps all others.
The combination of the concepts developed before the Covid arrived, become more evident on the periods of lockdown that happened as a result of the pandemic comes together in the moments when the work is expanding and starting the relationship with technology and the industrial world making also the artist in protagonist of his action and at the same time as a subject of reflection on the relation with the environment and in his work, mixing the world of trades and technological process with the concepts of minimalism and Arte Povera
The work that kept moving in between the values of decomposition, solitude and movement in a moment of personal lockdown, previous to the pandemic, opens up as a reaction against Covid to new ideas and a different vision that implies movement and exercise to fight the pandemic. Dancing and Workout become the healing motives of the work. Exercise to clean mind and body and movement, related with music, working as a personal instrument and also as a way of relating to others sharing experiences.
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Born in Santiago de Chile he spent his youth working with copper in a family arts craft business that opened his mind to the world of sculpture.
He studied architecture in Chile before moving to Barcelona in 1976 where he began working as an industrial designer.
And what should have been a short period turned into nearly 30 years working as an industrial designer, graphic designer and image consultant, with different companies.
And starting in 2000, he expanded his skills in home renovation for several years and almost in parallel he was in charge of the development and management of a website of a tourist apartment company.
It was not until 2014, when his work began to slow down, that he was able to look back to the incipient work that had been left in the Santiago arts craft workshop and decided that it was time to close the gap between of that period.
Having studied drawing, metal engraving, architecture and with all the years of experience as an industrial and graphic designer, he started out as a self-taught working in sculpture and using the materials closets to him and to the workshop that needed to be completely transformed, from the old design studio to a more or less suitable place to develop the incipient work.
The place itself with its many limitations to be a true sculpture workshop, since it has very little natural ventilation. So as a first step and experimentally, he decided to use the materials that could be more related to his previous works as a designer, and with which he could work more easily; cardboard and recycled cardboard boxes, some pieces of wood, normal glue and acrylic paint to start his work, adding also boxes of Tetra Brik and dust marble.
Using very cheap materials allowed him to work intensely through the years without having to be in financial trouble.
Working all this time manually with basic tools and recycled material has been an interesting exercise at the level of practice and development. This has served to highlight the meaning and importance of learning in the manual trades of artisan work in an industrialized world, in turn recovering in some way the organization of the work learned from an early age in the artisan workshop with the family, the importance of the arts and crafts.
The concept of Arte Povera is intimately linked to the base of the work carried out with the use of very basic materials and tools and also to the concept of Minimalism, trying to simplify the figure as much as possible to achieve a forceful expression with minimal elements.
The work carried out is completely defined by adding Brutalism to Minimalism due to the expressive violence that the works, reduced to their minimum expression, manage to take from the creative base of their interior. The simpler the figure, the cruder is the reality it expresses, without traps or veils. The idea of going to base taking out everything that could be superfluous, shown in recent series where bare cardboard is the only material used for the work, has been a constant in his work.
This is where Rationalism appears because nothing that has been done is improvised; the different stages have been planned to be able to build on them the following steps. Everything is simply planned and organized and nothing is out of order.
On the other hand, in the work carried out, the theme varies constantly since it is a way of constantly forcing the imagination, with the need to have several projects in a row waiting to enter when another is finished without interruption; even also developing two different projects at the same time to keep the mind always working. Where the passion is there has to be work and more work.
And within all these variables of work the human being and his ability or not to connect with others is the constant that relates everything. Expressed in different states of abstraction and in different ways of relating to others, loneliness is a constant that ends up giving orders to the entire work.
It is recurrent to see the human being surrounded by people who not only do not help but also can also create barriers and make it even more difficult to build relations with others. We know that living together is difficult, and sometimes people look for ways to make the living together even more difficult when the value of individualism trumps all others.
This moment of greater isolation as a consequence of the Covid pandemic, has shown more clearly how people react as individuals without thinking that the true solutions must be global on a global scale and not only protecting small groups; rich countries use all the resources they have, leaving all the rest of the world behind, not realizing that they will not do well that way.
And all this time of reflection has allowed to see all the work carried out with a clearer perspective, even knowing it almost from the beginning, that the work with recycled packaging cardboard, due to its characteristics, results in finished pieces being very fragile, even easily being damaged by the effects of humidity. It is clear that to the low investment in materials, has allowed working with great freedom, speed and efficiency; without having to be linked to the world of galleries and without having to transform creative work into money. Taking this into account, the work carried out during these years has more the characteristic of prototypes or models, of projects to be developed in the future. It has been a very creative and fruitful learning period that must now be expressed in a different way. When working the pieces the feeling was that they should be of much larger sizes, not possible at the time, where the viewer is no longer passive, but can interact with the work, walking underneath, playing around or just having the feeling that the viewer can form part of the work.
In the years to come, after having being working with only recycle cardboard packaging as a base for the past few years, the work will need to get to other dimensions. In this last year and just as a beginning some experiments have been carried out in plywood and Corten steel as a first step of the evolution that has to come.
A complicated future like the current one, when things have gotten more difficult, to get involved in industrial processes and come into contact with metal workers, foundries, wood workshops and the different new technologies of today’s world such as digitization of work and involvement in 3d prototypes for industrial processes.
The difficult moment also in which external financial resources will be needed; the craftsman in his workshop will need to go out and ask for support of Patrons or Sponsors and Curators to be able to transform the prototypes into real pieces of much larger sizes. It is the project of the future mixing the personal work of his workshop with the manufacturing processes; a great challenge full of unknowns that will need the support of investors to move forward.
Maintaining the concepts of Arte Povera and Minimalism that are the basis together also with the Rationalism of the work and the Brutalism as a way to impact the viewer who needs to become part of the work as well, the artist does not want to get away from his work but wants to be protagonist together with the viewer, making him not only a spectator but also a participant in the work, to share the experience. The future is ahead to see.
em description
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Exhibitions
-1973 - Group Exhibition of Crafts and Engravings, Taller de la Chimba, Santiago de Chile.
- 1973 - Craft Group Exhibition, Bellas Artes Museum in Santiago de Chile.
-1974 - Participates in the International Exhibition of Crafts of the Americas, University of Denver, Colorado, United States of America.
-1975 - Solo Exhibition of Engravings and Drawings, Barcelona Gallery Art, Spain.
-1975 - Participated in the II International Biennial of Art in Valparaiso, Chile.
-1975 - Participated in Traveling Exhibition through different cities of the United States and Canada, organized by the Smithsonian Institute for two years.
-1980- Participates in the 7th International Biennial of Creativity in Interior Design, Kortrijk, Belgium.
-2002 - Solo exhibition of drawings on paper and mixed media on canvas and wide format in Punto Arte and Pilar Marti Galleries, Barcelona, Spain.
-2019 - ARTBOX.TALENT Zürich
-2020 - Luxembourg Art Prize 2020
-2020 - ARTBOX.PROJECTS Zürich
-2020 - ARTBOX.PROJECTS Barcelona 1.0
-2021 - ARTBOX.PROJECTS Zürich 3.0 SWISSARTEXPO 2021
-2021 - Luxembourg Art Price 2021
-2022 - ARTBOX.PROJECTS WORLD 2.0 Urbansite Gallery. Switzerland
-2022 - The Body Language - ITSLIQUID Art Space - The Room - Venice
-2022 - CANVAS INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR 2022 - ITSLIQUID Art Space - The Room - Venice
-2022 - Rome International Art Fair 2022, 2nd Edition – Medina Art Gallery
-2022 - PREMIO COMBAT PRIZE
-2022 - PREMIO CITTA DE BARCELLONA
-2022- 4 BIENAL DE BARCELONA
-2022 - BIENNALE VENEZIA MODIGLIANI OPERA VISION
AWARDS:
-1981 - Prix de la Generalitat to the Agustí Lamps Catalogue overall the work presented by Cromoarte SA in the Graphic Arts Competition XX, V Competition of Catalunya and IV Premi de la Generalitat
-1983 - Chosen by Interior Design Magazine (USA) Nessen Agusti (PRAGMA) Collection as one of the best products of the year.
-1984 - Two designs selected in the ADI-FAD Awards (DOGMA Collection)
-1991 - The Woodpecker Lamp Collection is selected in a Community of Castilla La Mancha Awards.
-1999 - One design finalist in the ADI-FAD Awards (SAC Lamp)
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Artwork by Cristian Diez Sanchez
