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Javier Machimbarrena: “We must try to bring contemporary art to the people and to tear down stereotypes”
“Art, in general, is something that still intimidates today. Furthermore, if we talk about contemporary art and even more, about abstract art, it is very difficult for those not from Nordic or Anglo-Saxon countries to approach it… Here, in southern Europe, in Spain, what reaches the public in general is figurative art, which is recognisable, and easier to understand and interpret.”
The San Sebastian artist Javier Machimbarrena, who combines his passion for painting and sculpture with an outstanding career in the field of design since the 80s, has been based in Campo de Gibraltar for more than three years, and until the beginning of 2019 he run a studio-gallery in Pueblo Nuevo de Guadiaro.
Last summer, the studio launched an original initiative: a series of “Dialogues” in which leading artists from within and out of the region have taken part.
Joseba Sánchez Zabaleta, Fátima Conesa, Pepe Barroso, Judith Borobio, and Javier’s own daughter, Andrea Machimbarrena, are some of the artists who have co-starred in these “Dialogues” to date and which this Basque artist, who is moving his workshop to his home in La Alcaidesa, wants to continue through 2019, even if it means looking for other premises to hold the dialogues and as he contemplates new projects.
“We artists do what we do because it is what fulfils us, what intimately satisfies us, but, obviously, there is also a need for expression, to communicate, which is what motivates us… At least, this is how I conceive encounters between artists, and it is here that I understand the meaning of the guided tours of galleries and exhibitions: it is not a question of ego or vanity, but of trying to explain how your work has been conceived in the studio, how you live it … and also, why not, to try to bring art closer to the people, to tear down those clichés and those stereotyped ideas that create a distance with the public.”
It is in this effort to shorten distances, that we are sometimes able to get people to approach unconventional art, to learn and look, while they dare to ask (and ask themselves) questions.
“The other day someone asked how you can tell when a non-figurative work is finished, and that’s where you, as the artist, have the opportunity to try to explain the pact with beauty, and the conviction that such a work is not an isolated individuality in itself, but it is part of a whole, of an invisible process, of a context that has to do with time and space.”
What he will always treasure from the south, where he arrived with his partner thanks to a temporary invitation (an exhibition in Benahavis), and to which he felt strongly attracted is the light and above all, the warm welcome he received.
“When we arrived, we started, little by little, to get to know artists and works, and we loved what we saw… There is a lot of talent in this area, a lot, that’s why it bothers me that studios and galleries, like the one Nando Argüelles had in Sotogrande, have to close after just a few years. In the end, only alternative for many artists is to set up workshops at home and organise small private events, at which we almost always find the same people…”
Machimbarrena, lived intensely through the golden age of design in Spain; his extensive work includes the design of Italian cutlery, tableware, centrepieces, and the interiors for restaurants of chefs like Mugaritz or Martín Berasategui, in San Sebastián, the sculpture next to the Kursaal business centre in Algeciras, and the interior of a mountain restaurant on the border between Navarre and France.
He maintains that the most important thing in an artistic work is “that it is honest, that it has its own language and that it tells a truth.”
