| Ángeles Agrela | Fran Baena | Los Bravú Julio Anaya Cabanding | Yann Leto | Daniel Núñez Miguel Scheroff | Laura Vinós | Juan Miguel Quiñones |
| Fabien Fryns Fine Art is pleased to announce its second Dubai exhibition, Iberian Contemporaries: The Resurgence of Spanish Art.Curated by Nicholas Foulkes, this new exhibition provides a platform for a series of emerging artists, all but one represented by the YUSTO/GINER gallery in Marbella, Spain. The Iberian Peninsula, and Málaga in particular, has become particularly associated with some leading cultural institutions, such as the Picasso Museum and the Pompidou Málaga, playing an important role in the flourishing of a new generation of artists and witnessing a long-awaited resurgence of Spanish Contemporary Art. Expect a diverse range of subject matter and unique takes on artistic media, including painting, work on paper and sculpture, featuring works by artists Ángeles Agrela, Fran Baena, artist duo Los Bravú, Julio Anaya Cabanding, Yann Leto, Daniel Núñez, Miguel Scheroff, Laura Vinós, and Quiñones. Note from the Curator Nicholas FoulkesI am thrilled to be working with Fabien Fryns Fine Art to realise this group show spotlighting the work of a new generation of Spanish artists.This show began life as a magazine article I wrote examining the emergence of what I identified as the school of Málaga. In terms of art history Málaga is primarily known as the birthplace of Picasso, but now there is a new spirit of expression galvanizing the region. Over the past two decades, the historic port city and its surrounds have been transformed into a vibrant cultural hub witnessing the opening of internationally renowned world-class museums. Simultaneously the reputation of the faculty of fine arts at Málaga University and various other local fine art institutions have attracted some of the most interesting new talent to live and study in the area. Marbella also benefits from the presence of the incubator gallery YUSTO/GINER, which continues to play a crucial role in nurturing the sort of talent now emerging from all across Spain.Thanks to this richly nourishing background a new generation of artists has flourished. Most noticeable is the phenomenal success enjoyed by Javier Calleja whose winsome humorous and touching works have entered major collections and risen dramatically in popularity in the last few years. What this exhibition proves beyond doubt is that Calleja’s success is not an isolated phenomenon.This show is by no means an exhaustive catalogue of the output of a new wave of Iberian artists. Instead, it is intended to give a small taste of the abundance of talent to be found in the Iberian Peninsula with a selection of works by artists Ángeles Agrela, Fran Baena, artist duo Los Bravú, Julio Anaya Cabanding, Yann Leto, Daniel Núñez, Miguel Scheroff, Laura Vinós, and Quiñones. What emerges is the strength of individual vision and the range of artistic expression. The witty and challenging conceit of a portrait that does not show the face results in the haunting mystery of Ángeles Agrela’s portraits of women, whose features are largely, sometimes almost completely, obscured with hair forcing the viewer to look at the exquisitely rendered and brightly patterned clothes. Los Bravú, the name taken by Dea Gómez and Diego Omil, create work in a classically contemporary style that interprets the world of Antiquity and its mythology with millennial eyes. Reinterpretation of past masters is also at the heart of Julio Anaya Cabanding’s investigation of what we value and prize as fine art, reworking familiar masterpieces on discarded cardboard, fittingly for this show he has prepared a work inspired by the Málaga-born Picasso. The oeuvre of the sculptor Quiñones approaches the same fundamental question of what enters the pantheon of fine art by using noble materials such as marble and alabaster to elevate our perception of playful objects recalling a childhood world of water pistols and rocking horses, skateboards and most famously his celebrated Dracula ice creams that transform an emblematic Spanish ‘treat’ into monumental sculpture using the techniques of centuries past.Although powerful and polyglot the voices represented in this exhibition are harmonious too and the song they sing is of a long-awaited revival of Spanish art ‘resurgence’. Fabien Fryns Fine Art Unit 17, Alserkal Avenue Street 8, Al Quoz 1 Dubai, UAE |
