Guillermo Pérez Villalta

GUILLERMO PÉREZ VILLALTA (Tarifa, Cádiz, 1948).
"Sagrario de las doce puertas" (Tabernacle of the twelve doors), 1989.
Polychrome wood and bronze legs. Unique specimen of a series of six works.
It has slight marks on the wood.
Signed and dated on one of the doors.
Measurements: 95 x 50 cm (diameter).
This twelve-door tabernacle is a unique piece that belongs to a series of five other tabernacles, which vary slightly in color and shape. The artist's catalog explains that "The idea arose from the desire for a centralized piece of furniture, accessible from all sides, facing the piece of furniture that surrounds us and seems to look at us leaning against the wall. I thought of a ritual object that will perform the function of a shrine or tabernacle where to keep important things. Twelve, like the hours of the clock and the months of the year, could be the number of its faces and doors. To distinguish one from the other I devised mnemonic symbols that I made based on those of the Zodiac, but varying them according to what they suggested to me and that the user must link to his memory with the object he keeps. Four turtles, symbol of prudence, sustain it and an unreachable Grail is its heart".
Pérez Villalta was one of the leading representatives of the New Figuration in Madrid. He was awarded a scholarship by the Ministry of Culture in 1975, by the Juan March Foundation in 1980, and by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Spanish Academy in Rome in 1989. Among his awards are the National Prize of Plastic Arts in 1985, and the Medal of Andalusia in 1989. Since his solo debut in 1972 at the Amadís gallery in Madrid, Pérez Villalta has had many solo exhibitions in such prominent places as the Juana de Aizpuru, Vandrés, Soledad Lorenzo, Rafael Ortiz and Soledad Riera galleries, the National Library, the Estampa fair, the Banco Zaragozano and the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao. He has participated in group exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum in Tokyo, the Guggenheim in New York, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, among many others. Pérez Villalta is represented in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Artium in Vitoria, the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo in Málaga, the Fundación Juan March in Palma, the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, the Fundación Suñol in Barcelona, the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas, the Museo Colecciones ICO in Madrid and the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao, among other prominent contemporary art collections.