Europe

Artist: Josep Maria Subirachs

Title: «Europe»

Year: 1984

Media: Calatorao stone

Edition: unique piece

Size: 96 x 51 x 34 cm

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This work belongs to the period of the New Figuration. It is a sculpture made of Calatorao stone that takes the sculpture entitled Daphne, from 1979, as a formal model. Although the former deals with the classical myth of Apollo and Daphne, the latter is distanced from that myth in order to highlight the Praxitelian curve that it had used. To do so, the artist has divided the female torso in two, so that the void left between the two halves takes the sinuous and dynamic shape of the aforementioned curve.

Subirachs was a very meticulous artist who never left anything at random. The title chosen by the artist, Europe, takes us to the times of the Cold War that began after the end of World War II and lasted until 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and 1991 with the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, a period during which Europe was divided into two blocs, the capitalist and the communist. For this reason, Subirachs presents us this sculpture divided into two halves.