12 panels; dimensions of each: 49 x 49 cm; digitally manipulated images
with texts from the artist’s original work to create 2 dice 50 x
50 x 50cm. Produced for the exhibition “Juego de Dados” at
the Centre Civic Ateneu Fort Pienc, Barcelona, 22 June - 8 July 2004,
under the auspices of the Universal Forum of Cultures on the themes of
Peace, Diversity, Sustainability.
8 artists from 8 countries, 2 dice by each artist = 16 dice. Visitors
to the exhibition can participate, using the dice like building bricks,
throwing them as in a game of chance, creating a dizzying number of possible
juxtapositions, bringing together the different worlds and view-points
of the artists, creating new combinations each time, opening up new possibilities
and encouraging new ways of seeing the same images. Considered as assemblages
of elements there are 24 to the power of 16 combinations ( = 12,116,574,790,945,106,558,976).
Considered as sculptural objects the possibilities are beyond number.
Rea Stavropoulos 2004
The first presentation of Juego de Dados opened in Barcelona in June 2004
under the auspices of the Universal Forum of Cultures whose themes were
Peace, Diversity and Sustainability.
Javier Quintanilla’s proposal to the eight artists involved in the
project was for each of us to create 12 panels, 50cm x 50cm each, for
two dice covering issues relating to the evils and injustices of our world:
the condition of women, the exploitation of children, war, the environment,
corruption, famine.
I worked on the project in Florence and sent the 12 separate panels to
Barcelona, with drawings and instructions as to how each set of six panels
should be assembled to form the dice.
A separate edition of the dice was produced for the exhibition in Brazil
at the Centro de Cultura Mario Quintana, Porto Alegre, December 2005.
After my mother’s death in March 2005 I started to work on a series
of powerful, life-size figures which I loosely describe as “Angels”.
These figures assert the materiality of the body but also suggest our
links and aspirations towards the immaterial. When I started to draw the
angels it was with the idea of the strength, vulnerability and fragility
of the human – these apparent contradictions which make up what
it is to “be human”, but also of an energy that transcends
the human, our aspirations and “intimations of immortality”.
Angels provide a link between the material and immaterial and suggest
our own potential for transformation and transcendence. So it seemed appropriate
to include these Angels in my contribution to the book that we are presenting
as a homage to Lewigue and which will be exhibited in Porto Alegre.