
La Vida Breve (Hedera Iberica), 2023
Álvaro Urbano, La Vida Breve (Hedera Iberica), 2023; Metal, paint; Aprox: 310 × 185 × 12 cm
This work by Álvaro Urbano is a hand-painted metal sculpture resembling a sprawling vine plant.
Part of Urbano’s installation El Despertar, shown at La Casa Encendida, Madrid, the installation intricately reimagines a fiction behind the history of the Hexagon Pavilion, built for the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958. The pavilion was built by José Antonio Corrales and Ramón Vázquez Molezún, two young architects who won the competition for Spain’s representation in the World’s Fair. The resulting pavilion was a modernist, idealist construction far different from the realities Spanish society at the time. Today, the structure still exists in ruins, neglected throughout the years. The name of the work refers to the species of vegetation that can be found overtaking the premises in present time.

Photo by Marjorie Brunet Plaza