Take a trip to the Valencian Institute of Modern Art (IVAM) in the city of Valencia and enjoy the exhibition Julio Gonzalez David Smith. Un dialogo sobre la escultura, an artistic tribute to two seminal figures in modern sculpture, which is on at the museum until 1st May.
This exhibition examines the interesting tangle of convergences and affinities that shaped a fertile artistic dialogue as a decisive change emerged on the horizon that would give rise to modern sculpture.
Julio Gonzalez (1876-1942) was strongly rooted in Barcelona's modernist movement, a friend of Picasso and an early exile in Paris, but also trained in the realistic and figurative aesthetic of traditional arts and crafts.
David Smith (1906-1965), on the other hand, born in Indiana, had a tough apprenticeship as a welder on the industrial assembly line. But artistically he was educated in New York's distinguished Arts Students League alongside Arshile Gorky and Willem De Kooning, and soon discovered the contagious derivations of the second European vanguard that were starting to land in North America.
Ultimately, Julio Gonzalez David Smith. Un dialogo sobre la escultura (Julio Gonzalez David Smith. A dialogue about sculpture) is an exhibition of work by two artists of their time who approached iron and tempered metal with extraordinary sensitivity.
