Complex Cities. Towards a New Artistic Landscape. Ester Pizarro
The architect's desk 5
Library
General public, Professionals
28 February 2019
Since 2015, MACA has proposed meetings in a conversation format, centered on art and architecture. Reflecting again
on the relationships between architecture and art, understanding the process of construction and reconstruction of architecture from a more artistic or philosophical point of view, leads us to delve deeper into this proposal. In the MACA Library, the last Thursdays
of each month, from September 2018 to May 2019. Esther Pizarro was born in Madrid in 1967. She graduated in Fine Arts from the Sculpture Department of the Complutense University of Madrid in 1990, where she obtained her Doctorate in 1995.
Her training was completed thanks to various scholarships that allowed her to travel abroad, among which the following stand out: Artistic Creation Grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation of New York; Plastic Arts Production Aid from the Community of Madrid; Plastic Arts Grant from the Casa de Velázquez, Madrid; Generation 2000 Grant, Caja de Madrid; Plastic Arts Grant from the Academy of Spain in Rome; Plastic Arts Grant from the College of Spain in Paris; Predoctoral Grant for Research Personnel Training at the Complutense University of Madrid. Between 1996 and 1997, she resided in the United States with a Grant from the Fulbright Commission and the Ministry of Education and Culture.
She has received various awards and honorable mentions, among which the following stand out: Grants for Creation and National and International Mobility 2022/2023, Madrid City Council; Art Promotion Grants, Support for Creators, Artistic Creation and Production 2022, Ministry of Culture and Sports; Ramón Acín Research Contract 2021; Grants for Creation in Visual Arts from the Community of Madrid 2021; Grants for research, creation and artistic production in the field of Visual Arts 2020, Ministry of Culture and Sports; Buitblanc Award 2019-2020, Contemporary Culture Las Cigarreras, Alicante; VISIBLES Award 2018, Art and Women Competition Comarcal Center of Humanities Cardenal Gonzaga Sierra Norte, CCHSN, Community of Madrid; Antón Grant for Sculptural Creation and Research 2017; Project awarded in the XX Call for Visual Creation Aids Proposals 2016, Assistance and Cultural Fund of VEGAP; Acquisition Award XVII Competition of Plastic Arts Sala El Brocense, Provincial Council of Cáceres; Acquisition award IV International Biennial of Plastic Arts City of Alcorcón, category: urban sculpture; realization of an artistic intervention project titled "Postal Codes"; First Prize Plaza de las Libertad/es, international ideas competition for the planning and construction of a space for freedom in Seville, MGM Morales+Giles Architects, in collaboration with Esther Pizarro and Hackitectura.net; El Ojo Crítico Award from Spanish National Radio in the Plastic Arts category; Pámpana de Oro Award in the LXI National Exhibition of Plastic Arts of Valdepeñas in Ciudad Real; Finalist in the Mariano Benlliure Sculpture Award 2000 of the Villa de Madrid Awards and Second Prize XXII National Sculpture Competition of Caja Madrid.
She has exhibited individually at the Provincial Council Hall of Huesca; College of Architects of Madrid (COAM), Mercadal Hall; Euskalduna Urban Hall, Bilbao; Las Cigarreras Cultural Center, Alicante; Tabacalera, La Fragua, Ministry of Culture and Sports, Madrid; Tabacalera, La Fragua, Ministry of Culture and Sports, Madrid; Sculpture Center of Candás Antón Museum, Candás, Asturias; Metrópoli Foundation, Madrid; Royal House of the Mint Museum, Segovia; MataderoMadrid; Casa Asia, Barcelona; Royal Hospital, Granada; San Telmo Museum, San Sebastián; Tomás y Valiente Art Center, Hall A, (CEART), Fuenlabrada; Official College of Architects of the Canary Islands COAC, Las Palmas District; Barjola Museum, Gijón; Antonio Prates Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal; Circle of Fine Arts, Madrid; Raquel Ponce Gallery, Madrid; Ponce+Robles Gallery, Madrid; Manuel Ojeda Gallery, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; Isabel Ignacio Gallery, Seville; Teresa Cuadrado Gallery, Valladolid; Liquid Space Gallery, Gijón; Carmen de los Mártires, Council of Granada; Saura Hall, Council of Huesca, Huesca; Gallery B, California State University, Long Beach, United States; Casa de Velázquez, Madrid and Municipal Arts Center, Alcorcón, Madrid.
Among her most recent group exhibitions is her participation in Spain Arts & Science LAB in Belgium. Embassy of Spain; Cervantes Institute Krakow, Poland; Laboral Center for Art and Industrial Creation, Gijón; I Biennial of the South of Panama; Miller Building, City Council of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; Venice Architecture Biennial, Spain Pavilion, Venice, Italy; Spanish Cultural Center in Lima, Peru; Cervantes Institute and Academy of Spain in Rome, Italy; Oraziano Museum - Palazzo Orsini, Licenza, Rome, Italy; XVIII Cerveira Biennial, Portugal; University Museum of Alicante; Dasto Art Center, Oviedo; Caja de Madrid, Traveling throughout Spain; Academy of San Fernando, Madrid; Raquel Ponce Gallery, Madrid; Municipal Arts Center, Alcorcón, etc ...
In recent years she has worked on interventions in public spaces with temporary and permanent character: Call for Artistic Interventions in Public Spaces of Barbastro, Project "The Legacy of Culture", Huesca, Spain; Sculptural Park of the Dehesa Boyal, Las Navas del Marqués, Ávila; Pradolongo Park, Madrid; Plaza del Pueblo, Alcobendas, Madrid; Palace of Exhibitions and Congresses, Mérida; West Lake Park, Hangzhou, China; Casino de la Reina Park, Lavapiés, Madrid; San José de Ocoa, Dominican Republic; Arganda del Rey Metro Station, Madrid; Fráncos Rodríguez Metro Station, Madrid and Municipal Board of Latina, Madrid.
She has created specific installations for different spaces, among which the following stand out: "Space Debris :: Constellations of Waste", Euskalduna Urban Hall and Las Cigarreras Alicante; "#NiUnaMenos", Comarcal Center of Humanities Cardenal Gonzaga Sierra Norte, CCHSN, Madrid; "[MAFD] :: Mapping Active Fire Data", Tabacalera, La Fragua, Madrid, Sculpture Center of Candás Antón Museum, Asturias and Euskalduna Urban Hall; "Liquid Stained Glass" Can Prunera Modernist Museum, Sóller, Mallorca; "Liquid mapping :: connected to..", Euskalduna Urban Hall and Ponce + Robles Gallery, Madrid; "Digital Diamonds: Cloudscape" and "Blue Backbone: Datascape". Program: Cities Art, Ecobox, Metrópoli Foundation, Alcobendas, Madrid; "A Japanese Garden: Topographies of Emptiness", Project carried out within the framework of the Dual Year Spain-Japan 2013-2014, Touring: MataderoMadrid, Nave 16, Programming Line: Large Scale. Madrid; Casa Asia, La Purísima Pavilion, Modernist Complex of the Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona; San Telmo Museum, San Sebastián; Royal House of the Mint Museum, Segovia and "Mobility Maps. Patronizing Madrid", Tomás y Valiente Art Center (CEART), Fuenlabrada, Madrid, Spain.
Her collaboration in Universal Exhibitions with large installations stands out: "Skin of Light", Bilbao Guggenheim ++ Pavilion, Shanghai World Expo Exhibition 2010, China and "Urban Fossils", Exhibition Design: GPD (General de Producciones y Diseño), Acciona Pavilion, Expo Zaragoza 2008, Spain.
Her work is represented in various collections such as the Academy of Spain, Rome; City Council of Valdepeñas, Ciudad Real; Casa de Velázquez, Madrid; Alberto Jiménez-Arellano Alonso Foundation, Valladolid; Astroc Foundation, Valencia; Antonio Prates Foundation, Portugal; Valencian Institute of Modern Art, IVAM, Valencia; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Madrid; Ministry of Environment, Madrid and Caja de Madrid Collection, Madrid.
In the academic field, she directed the Department of Artistic Creation and Theory of the Arts at the School of Art and Architecture of the European University of Madrid during the academic years 2002-2005. She currently combines her teaching activity as a professor of sculpture with academic research, focused fundamentally on the study of the interrelationships between art, architecture, landscape, urban space, data and complexity. During the years 2020-24, she belongs to the School of Doctoral Studies and Research (EDI) of the European University of Madrid, as a Senior Researcher. Currently, and since 2025, she is linked to the Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies of the Creative Campus of the European University of Madrid, where she directs the Research Group: Creative Ecosystems and BioDesign Lab (EcoBD Lab). She has four recognized Research Periods (Sexenios) from the National Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation (ANECA).
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Alicante whose collections are formed by works created fundamentally in the twentieth century. They range from the so-called avant-gardes to all the approaches and artistic manifestations that took place in the decades of the second half of the past century. They are expressed on different supports and materials, with diverse dimensions and techniques. In turn, the temporary exhibitions are related to these collections and allow for expanding or deepening some aspects of contemporary chronology. However, contemporary architecture is absent from both the permanent collections and those temporary manifestations.The architecture of the MACA itself, a project created and directed by the Sancho Madridejos Studio, is a beautiful building of great functional efficiency. The syncopated projection of horizontal and vertical spaces establishes a formal order based on the geometry and texture of the materials used in construction, while revealing a kind of tension resolved by the overhead passage of light, a kind of "felt" spirituality more emotional than real.The MACA proposes in a conversational format, meetings around art and architecture around the architect's table. In the MACA Library, the last Thursdays of each month, from January to May 2015.This first cycle will consist of different manifestations. The first and fundamental one will show works by an architect related through his vital and professional activity to the province of Alicante. The selection criterion will be conditioned by the modernity of the proposals, understanding that modernity, first of all, in a chronological sense, attending to those architectures and architects who were protagonists and participants in the advent of contemporaneity. The exhibition of some models will allow for offering three-dimensional models, reclaiming the model as such, as the authors of the Renaissance defended. And to illustrate the complete work process, sketches and preliminary drawings will be shown alongside the project plans and notes developed during the construction process. All of this with the ultimate aim of understanding and grasping in some way the constructed space.The architect's table, a table from 1912, real and present (deposited in the MACA by its owner Alfonso Navarro Guzmán), serves as an ideological foundation to link the exhibitions and will serve as the material support for the models so that we can traverse, while dreaming, the imagined space.
