Spark Assoc.

In collaboration with THE TIME GALLERY (Tokyo, Japan), Spark Art Management/SPARK+ presents ART WINDOW at The Peninsula Hotel in Ginza, Tokyo's most sophisticated retail and hospitality destination. To be maintained as an year-round show case for international contemporary art, the inaugural window features a sculpture by Venezuelan-born artist Rafael Barrios.

 

OBTUSE (2013)

Polyurethane lacquer on stainless steel

Edition 3/5

120 x 65cm

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About RAFAEL BARRIOS (1947-) and his OPTICAL ILLUSION SCULPTURES

 

Walking along Park Avenue in the spring of 2012, New Yorkers could not help but notice the monumental, intriguing, hovering-in-the-air sculptures. Lining the Park Avenue Mall from East 53rd to 67th streets stood nine of master sculptor Rafael Barrios' delightfully colorful creations, invited by The Fund of Park Avenue, The Park Avenue Malls and the City of New York Department of Parks & Recreation. This consortium has been selecting and presenting works by celebrated artists in New York's public spaces since 2000, among them: Will Ryman, Robert Indiana, Manolo Valdes, Tom Otterness. Louise Nevelson, Yoshitomo Nara and Fernando Botero. 

 

Barrios was the second Latin American artist to be invited to exhibit on Park Avenue after Fernando Botero. All nine monumental sculptures in the exhibition were snatched up by collectors within one month of the opening. As of summer 2014, Barrios' monumental sculptures are also electrifying the streets of Saint-Tropez, France. 

 

Barrios was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and raised in Venezuela. He lives between Miami, Paris and Caracas. Recognized as one of the most innovative contemporary Latin American artists, his work has been characterized by the alteration of the observer’s perception, manipulating form with the intention of dislocating our convictions about what we believe we see. Barrios creates a territory where the laws of gravity seem not to exist, one in which objects rise freely over each other; where volume appears balanced in space. Volume is virtually modeled and modified in form, depending on distance, shifting with the position of the observer and the changes in light throughout the day.