Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

Copa [Cup]

Image caption
EVA LOOTZ

Copa [Cup]

  • 1990
  • Bronze
  • 158 x 72 x 30 cm
  • Cat. E_86
  • Acquired in 1991
By:
Isabel Tejeda

The sculpture in the Banco de España Collection is a large, golden bronze cup with a double chalice on a single stem and a single base. It is part of a series on containers produced by Eva Lootz in the early 1990s, and was first shown at the Juan de Aizpuru Gallery in 1992, in an exhibition in which the artist experimented with the scenic value of objects. It also featured other double cups, including one whose dual nature was apparent in the two sharply contrasting materials of which it was made: bronze and aluminium.

The first reading of these sculptures was obvious: they were cups. But they played with the iconic and metaphorical aspects of everyday objects, while at the same time introducing the idea of doubles and duplication. This is a theme that comes up frequently in literature all over the world, from Aristophanes to Robert Louis Stevenson (who addressed it in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Eva Lootz, however, has said that she had no literary references in mind but was merely thinking about duplication, like when she collected horse-chestnut husks as a child and found that some contained not one nut but two, of the same size and symmetrical.

The question of a single, fixed identity is hinted at in her double cups, but her vessels from which sand spills out address the topic of femininity more explicitly. Cases in point include Danaids and Infinite Task, in which bronze hands emerge from the wall, holding funnels which are losing their contents. The reference to the Danaids from Greek mythology is evident: they were forced to marry, but killed their husbands on their wedding night and were condemned to carry water in leaky vessels. The female references in these pieces hint at visual metaphors in the shape of the cups, of breasts and even vaginas: she has said that the many cups and vessels in her sculptures that allude to the idea of an opening are associated with loss and with womanhood. This is the first time that Eva Lootz addressed the issue of femininity in her word, but she has come back to it more and more as her career has progressed.

Isabel Tejeda

 
By:
Isabel Tejeda
Eva Lootz
VIENNA 1940

Eva Lootz moved to Spain in 1967 along with the Austrian artist Adolfo Scholsser. In Vienna she studied at the Institute for Film and Television and at the same time took courses in Philosophy and Art.

Her first exhibition in Spain took place in 1973 at the Ovidio Gallery. At that time, she was using materials such as paraffins, lacquers and felt and belonged to the post-minimalist school. She approached the poetry of objects in a style that led her to installations, a field which she helped pioneer in Spain. Coming into contact with the artists at the Buades Gallery was a turning point for her. This gallery was a focal point for discussion and experiences involving conceptual and plastic arts. Others who frequented the venue included Adolfo Schlosser, Spanish architect, painter and sculptor Juan Navarro Baldeweg and Chilean writer Patricio Bulnes. They took part in the exhibition 'En tres dimensiones' ['In Three Dimensions'] organised by the Caja de Pensiones Foundation in Madrid (1984). This exhibition set out new paths for expanded sculpture in Spain. As she herself said, it was an experiment in search of 'continuous art'.

Lootz then began to take the physical properties and processes of change in malleable materials (mercury, bronze, paraffin, dry ice, lacquer, cotton, sand, salt, etc.) as a starting point for tracking down their connections with history through mining, processing, trading and use; and for showing how those processes left their mark on the landscape and on language.

Her works have been shown at the Palacio de Cristal building of the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2002), the Contemporary Art Museum in Barcelona (1997 & 2014), the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country in Vitoria-Gasteiz (2015), the Círculo de Bellas Artes (Madrid, 2012), the Patio Herreriano Museum (Valladolid, 2015) and the Contemporary Art Centre of Galicia (Santiago de Compostela, 2016 & 2017). She has won the National Award for Plastic Arts (1994), the Tomás Francisco Prieto Award from the Real Casa de la Moneda (2009), the Award for Women in Visual Arts (2010), the Arte y Mecenazgo Foundation Award (2013) and the José González de la Peña Award (Royal Academy of San Fernando, 2014).

Isabel Tejeda

 
«ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair», ARCO (Madrid, 1992). «Year 1000 - Year 2000, Two Millennia in the History of Spain», Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire (Brussels, 2001). «50 Years of Spanish Sculpture», Jardins Du Palais Royal (Paris, 2001). «The Language of Birds», Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. MNCARS (Madrid, 2002).
Vv.Aa. Arco 92. Feria Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid, Arco/Ifema, 1992. José Luis Pardo, Estrella de Diego, Santiago Auserón, Catherine François, Enrique Juncosa & Eva Lootz Eva Lootz. La lengua de los pájaros, Madrid, MNCARS, 2002. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 3.