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

Collection

La casa de mis sueños IV [The House of My Dreams IV]

Image caption
FLORENTINO DÍAZ

La casa de mis sueños IV [The House of My Dreams IV]

  • 1993
  • Welded iron rods
  • 71 x 57 x 16 cm
  • Cat. E_110
  • Acquired in 1995
By:
Isabel Tejeda

Untitled belongs to Díaz’s CA-SA-CÓ-MO-DA [Comfortable House] series. Four drawings of the same size in which we can make out pieces of a bed and other items of household furniture, drawn in black Conte pencil on paper over which the artist has placed a metal mesh that adds texture to the images. The use of elemental materials is a constant in Díaz’s work and can be seen in his sculptures and in his installations and drawings. However, that does not make his work any less evocative and there is always a disturbing underlying charge of meaning and emotion in them. In his The House of My Dreams series (1993), Díaz directly confronts the problem of the habitability of the spaces. In his scathing work, the sculpture generates pieces depicting an uncomfortable space that is insufficient to accommodate life, barely suggested by the thin iron bars of the structure that barely protrude from the wall to which they are fitted.

The idea of the home is present in both works. In CA-SA-CÓ-MO-DA, the simplified image of the bed and of the room — in which there is just the slightest hint, perhaps, of part of a wardrobe — serves to shape Díaz’s discourse on the near and the habitable. The austerity of the room hinted at is further intensified by the dialogue created between the sheet of paper and the metal mesh, denouncing the dehumanisation of the home or perhaps, society itself and the individual who lives in it. A clear, acidic and ironic criticism – visible from the conceptions of the titles of both works – strips bare the crude capitalist advance and forms the backdrop to Florentino Díaz’s work.

Isabel Tejeda

 
By:
Isabel Tejeda
Florentino Díaz
Fresnedoso de Ibor (Cáceres) 1954

In 1978, Florentino Díaz, born in Cáceres, trained as an engraver at the Madrid Central School of Arts and Crafts, where he currently lives and works. Despite being essentially self-taught, his artistic language was marked by his attendance at the Current Art Workshops at the Madrid Círculo de Bellas Artes run by Albert Ràfols-Casamada, José Guerrero, Manolo Valdés, Hernández Pijuan and Antonio Saura. His time in different Germany cities including Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin consolidated the poetics of his pieces, which stand between sculpture and installation.

Deeply involved in the emotional and social agenda of his time, Díaz uses themes with a strong emotional engagement for the viewer, as could be seen in his involvement in the ‘Open for Works’ programme at the Matadero in Madrid (2015). For the occasions, Díaz installed a shack made out of rubble under constant rain. Inside the shack, he screened various videos with pictures of anonymous 20th century lives, taken from albums he picked up at flea markets. The essence of the povera material shifts the attention of the viewer who, in Díaz’s work, draws on a direct and tremendously powerful, evocative and emotive iconography, encompassing acidic metaphors on the current situation of contemporary society. The constant central themes in his prolific output refer to the idea of belonging, to the concept of home and of the inhabited space (such as cities) in relation to the possibility or impossibility of coexisting in places that are constantly changing and ever more fluid.

Florentino Díaz has staged numerous solo shows. These include his exhibitions at the Espais Centre d’Art Contemporani de Girona (Girona, 1995); the Ibero-American Museum of Contemporary Art (Badajoz, 1997); the Cáceres Museum (2001); the Barjola Museum (Gijón, 2004); and the Caja de Burgos Art Centre (2007). Apart from his solo shows, Díaz has taken part in international exhibitions and fairs, such as Arco (Madrid, 1995-2008), Art Chicago’96, Art Cologne (Colonia, Germany, 2000), Zona Maco - Contemporary Art Mexico (Mexico City, 2010 & 2011), Doméstico 2000 (Madrid, 2000), Matadero (Madrid, 2015), the Busan Biennial (South Korea, 2002) or the Pamplona Visual Arts Biennial (1999).

Isabel Tejeda

 
 
Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 2.