- The exhibition, which is open until 1 June, brings together the latest productions made by the artist as part of the BilbaoArte studio grant in 2023-24, and her subsequent stay in the Otxarkoaga Opengela studios.
- The works are the result of her research into sculpture and the plasticity of the materials used and emulated by the masses of folds represented in the cloaks and fabrics of Renaissance and Baroque sculpture, or classical Greco-Roman sculpture, from Classical, Baroque and Renaissance sculpture.
- Access to the exhibition and the programmed activities is free of charge. There are also several guided tours in Basque and Spanish, adapted to LSE (Spanish Sign Language).
- As complementary activities, a collaboration with the designer and creator Miriam Ocáriz and the presentation of the book of the exhibition have been programmed.
An expansive occupation exhibition´s image. URIBITARTE40 hall.
(Bilbao, April 10, 2025).-“An Expansive Occupation” is the title of the latest production by the Navarrese artist Amaia Gracia Azqueta, within the framework of the BilbaoArte scholarship with studio assignment in 2023-24, and her subsequent stay in the Otxarkoaga Opengela studios. The works, the result of her research into sculpture and the plasticity of the materials used and emulated from classical, baroque and renaissance sculpture, dialogue with each other generating a set of pieces that function as a specific installation for the space that houses it, the URIBITARTE40 Hall of the BilbaoArte Foundation.
The project, which can be seen from 11 April to 1 June, will be completed with several guided tours in Basque and Spanish, adapted to LSE (Spanish Sign Language) on 30 April and 14 May at 19:00 h.; a collaboration and discussion with the designer and creator Miriam Ocáriz on 8 May at 19:00 h.; and a presentation of the book, on 22 May at 19:00 h., edited on the occasion of the project together with Juan Pablo Huércanos, deputy director of the Oteiza Museum, curator and author of the text of the publication, published on the occasion of the project together with Juan Pablo Huércanos, deputy director of the Oteiza Museum, curator and author of the text of the publication. Access to the exhibition and the programmed activities is free of charge.
THE EXHIBITION
- Title: An Expansive Occupation
- Artist: Amaia Gracia Azqueta (Pamplona, 1985)
- Where: URIBITARTE40 Hall (Paseo de Uribitarte, 40. 48009 Bilbao).
- Dates: From April 11 to June 1, 2025
- Opening programme: 11 April, Friday, 19:00. Opening.
12 April, Saturday, 12:30 pm. Guided visit with the artis
.
Amaia Gracia Azqueta works on the notions of time, temporality and resistance, speed, perdurability and their logic within contemporary art. In previous projects she has worked with concepts such as the mountain, territory, identity and affects. His processes, mainly sculptural, are complemented by the production of images that he integrates into his installations.
“An Expansive Occupation” is linked to the artist’s previous lines of work and evolves towards new parameters. Her artistic proposal is based on and gives continuity to “Floating Cloak”, a project selected in 2023/24 at the BilbaoArte Foundation under the modality of a grant with studio assignment, which alludes to the masses of folds represented in the cloaks and fabrics of Renaissance and Baroque sculpture, or classical Greco-Roman sculpture, from which the artist takes nostalgia as her premise.
This feeling of longing for the past and reflection on temporal space is inspired by Japanese culture and the term “Nagori”, which is the residue left after an event, translated into the outline marked on the sand as a result of the trail of water and foam left on the surface by the action of the tides. A trace marked on the previous one that allows the artist to approach abstract concepts such as time or temporality through the sensitive and the affections. Something that the artist connects with the autobiographical, and makes her reflect on the expired and mortal nature of the human being that follows the linear course of time in a unique sense; or on the random work of art, which for the artist is where ‘that moment’ is found that becomes an event in the form of an idea, work or project, and keeps the artist, just as one waits for the wave to break and leave its mark, in a continuous task, in a continuous search and in a continuous wait.
Amaia Gracia Azqueta raises the lack of structure in contemporary society and the use of plastic as a liquid material to symbolically deal with temporality and resistance, in a clear allusion to the writings on “liquid modernity” coined by the Polish-British sociologist, philosopher and essayist Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017).
The exhibition project, “An expansive occupation”, is a story and a declaration of what is happening. A set of pieces that function as a site-specific installation, among which we find everything from small photographs taken with a mobile phone and printed in the format of a domestic photo belonging to the everyday life from which the artist understands the meaning of sculpture; to large installations such as the one made in collaboration with the artist and designer Miriam Ocáriz, in which she fuses contemporary art and fashion, and delves into the plastic properties of the clothes represented in classical sculpture; Or a final group of more experimental pieces made of polyvinyl acetate, fibreglass and iron structures that occupy the exhibition space and connect some proposals with others, just as waves flow, time passes, or concepts are diluted and mutate in the era of contemporary post-modernity.
AMAIA GRACIA AZQUETA , ARTIST
Lives and works in Bilbao
Artist-in-residence at BilbaoArte in 2011 and 2023-24
@amaia_gracia_azqueta
A visual artist, she starts from the position of workshop practice and approaches her work from an autobiographical point of view. Her mainly sculptural processes are complemented by the production of images. She has previously worked on the mountain, territory, identity and affects. She is currently researching the notions of time, resistance, speed, durability and their logic within contemporary art.
Gracia Azqueta has participated in residencies and received grants such as Casa de Velázquez (French Academy in Madrid), the BilbaoArte Foundation, the Plastic Arts Creation Grant from the Basque Government, the Plastic Arts Grant from the Government of Navarre and the Bizkaia Provincial Council’s artistic production grant, among others.
He has had solo and group exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, CDAN / Centro de Arte y Naturaleza de Huesca – Fundación Beulas in Huesca, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Huarte, Sala Rekalde in Milan, Centro Cultural Montehermoso in Vitoria-Gasteiz, the Ciudadela in Pamplona, Museo de Navarra and Espacio Marzana (Bilbao), among others. His work forms part of the collections of the Museum of Navarre, the CDAN in Huesca, the Government of Navarre, Bilbao City Council, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia and the BilbaoArte Foundation.
@amaia_gracia_azqueta
PROGRAMME AROUND THE EXHIBITION IN THE URIBITARTE40 HALL
- OPENING PROGRAM
Opening and public presentation
Friday 11 April, 7:00 p.m.
Guided visit with the artist
Saturday 12 April, 12:30 p.m.
Free admission.
- GUIDED VISITS
Simultaneous guided tour in LSE (Spanish Sign Language) and spoken language
Wednesday, 30 April (Basque), 7:00 p.m.
Wednesday, 14th May (Spanish), 7:00 p.m.
Free admission.
- CONVERSATORY with Miriam Ocáriz (artist and designer) and Amaia Gracia Azqueta (artist). Moderator: Mireya Martín Larumbe (visual artist, researcher, curator and teacher)
Thursday 8 May, 6:30 p.m.
The Bilbao creator and designer Miriam Ocáriz and the artist Amaia Gracia Azqueta will hold a conversation on the relationship between contemporary art and fashion from a personal perspective. The visual artist, gender expert and teacher Mireya Martín Larumbe will moderate the conversation.
Miriam Ocariz is pursuing a degree in Fine Arts and Fashion studies as a complement to each other. Prints and fabric designs come together with the construction of form from the plane in her work, generating a rich proposal open to the connection of practices so close and yet pigeonholed in parallel worlds by the specialised critics. Amaia Gracia and Miriam Ocáriz, in an attempt to show the connections and links that they understand as a common language, will talk about the need and the limits or lack of them between both worlds. This conversation will be accompanied by coffee and pastries.
Free admission.
Miriam Ocáriz
@miriamocarizmiguel
@miriamocarizstudio
#miriamocariz
www.miriamocariz.com
Miriam Ocáriz (Bilbao, 1968) has a degree in Fine Arts and a degree in Fashion Design. Between 1998 and 2010, she was a regular on the Gaudí Barcelona and Cibeles (Madrid Fashion Week) catwalks, where in 2002 she won the LÓreal award for the best collection. Between 2004 and 2006 she was Creative Director of Armand Basi Woman. In 2010, she joined forces with the Japanese group HP FRANCE for the distribution of her collections in Japan. Her clothes have been distributed in many countries and sold in some of the best international boutiques and department stores such as Colette Paris, Barney’s New York, Harvey Nichols Hong Kong or Isetan Tokyo.
In 2015, he took a turn to return to his origins. He returns to drawing as the essence of his work and develops it in constant experimentation, taking it to objects, garments, fabrics and accessories, with the idea of progressively developing new ones. In this new stage, he has held exhibitions in different art galleries where all the elements of his imaginary coexist in installations that make up a wider universe than the one he had been proposing in his previous stage.
Mireya Martín Larumbe
(Pamplona, 1980)
Visual and audio-visual artist with a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and a Masters in Sociology, Visual and Gender Sociology from the Public University of Navarre (UPNA). In her artistic practice she poetically develops, through drawing and experimental animation, themes such as the production of subjectivities and the experiences linked to identity and its expressions. bly influenced by feminist thought and literary creation, as well as by experimental cinema and music, she creates installations based on the intimate relationship of the sense of each of her projects.
In his latest works, the tension between life and death, or the impulse of the perverse and the sinister, dialogue with issues such as beauty, desire or the exuberance of nature.
Throughout her artistic career, Mireya has received several prestigious grants, awards and has participated in various residencies, including Fundación BilbaoArte. The exhibition of her works has led her to present them internationally in cities such as Madrid, Paris, Long Beach, Bilbao and Palermo.
- BOOK PRESENTATION: ‘An expansive occupation’, with Juan Pablo Huércanos (Deputy Director of the Jorge Oteiza Museum Foundation and curator) and Amaia Gracia Azqueta (artist).
Thursday, 22 May, 19:00 h.
On the occasion of the project, BilbaoArte is publishing a monograph dedicated to the artist’s latest productions. With the design by Gorka Eizagirre (who has extensive experience in the design of exhibitions, books and contemporary art publications); photographs by Erika Barahona Ede (artist and coordinator of the Photography Department of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao); and theoretical contributions by Juan Pablo Huércanos (deputy director of the Oteiza Museum and curator). In the book, produced and printed by La Trama, Huércanos analyses in depth the artistic practice of Amaia Gracia Azqueta in an attempt to leave a mark and record her proposals in contemporary historiography for the future. The book will be available free of charge at the Sala URIBITARTE40 from 22 May. On the same day, at 19:00 h, the artist will be in dialogue with Juan Pablo Huércanos and they will discuss some of the lines of work developed in this project.
Free admission.
Juan Pablo Huércanos
(San Sebastián, 1971)
Juan Pablo Huércanos is trained in cultural communication and art management. He holds a degree in Information Sciences from the University of Navarra, a postgraduate degree in Management and Direction of Cultural Companies and Organisations from the Complutense University and an Executive Master in Project Management from the University of Valencia.
He has participated in artistic projects with various institutions such as the University of the Basque Country, Centro Huarte de Arte Contemporáneo, La Casa Encendida in Madrid, Instituto Cervantes in Paris, University of Navarra, Centro Cibeles, or the Koldo Mitxelena Centre in San Sebastian, among others. He is the author of numerous articles on contemporary artists published in El Mundo, Diario Vasco, NAV7 magazine, Artco magazine, El Valor de la Palabra-Annual magazine of thought, Euskonews, Poliédrica Palabra, Nuestro Tiempo, LUR, EGIAR, or Eutopías.
He is currently deputy director of the Oteiza Museum, curator of the Mendiburu-Inda Collection and works as an art consultant and curator in the field of sculpture and publishing. He has been coordinator of the plastic arts area of ‘948 Merkatua, Mercado de las artes de Navarra’ in the 2017 and 2018 editions and member of the Technical Commission of Artistic Programming of the 2019 edition of ‘948 Merkatua’.
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