Three hours, though not the only one of its kind, cost the enthusiast a maneuver to move a piece of graffiti wall from one place to another. From the farm to the museum. This is the journey Jesús Arrúe dedicates to singer David Bowie to save him from destruction.
During the morning, previously framed urban artwork iron, wood, foam and plastic, removed from property on Calle Beneficència. It was loaded onto a truck with a crane, moving with great care from the streets of the neighborhood to the Carmen Center.
When he got there, he settled in the monastery. And it will stay there for a year. This is when the artist needs to find an alternative site.
Madonna’s magic wand
The work, which gained international recognition after the singer Madonna repeated it and ordered a painting from Arrue, was in the same danger as any other work on display: it would be lost. The farm fell under the digging and only the facade remained And with that, his loss. After several discussions with numerous groups, an agreement was reached to include it in Centro del Carmen’s funds. But temporarily, because as its director, José Luis Pérez Pont, assures, “this space is for temporary exhibitions only. There is no permanent exhibition.” Moreover: “urban art exhibitions were carried out with works on their own walls, which later logically disappeared.”
“I feel like I’m in labor,” said Arrúe, pleased with the staging. A brigade from the construction company said, “I think it’s unique in history. Other graffiti has been recovered from its walls, but this one, including the wall itself, is unique in my opinion.. I can definitely say that in Spain and in the world as well. It was technically difficult with a project that took a month to realize. As an artist, I know this is a pride. I was never a prophet in my country, and to be now, perhaps with all that, is very important. For me and for art in general”.
Discovery”
It wasn’t easy. First, exit the building on Calle Beneficència. unharmed. It was laid in the vehicle as if it were a large sarcophagus. The cost of digging a particular tomb was on its own: it required both some iron supplements and a view of the planks. This left behind a polyurethane foam cover and a large plastic. So there was no lack of staging, a special “discovery” that dropped the black bag that covered it. A shot that met with applause.
“At the moment I just feel the emotion anyway. There was a moment to shed tears. Almost none There’s a lot of work behind it, and the beautiful thing is that the result is there.”
The graffiti was painted between May and June 2019, next to the author’s former painting studio. In his own words, it was “a tribute to an era in the eighties, to the neighborhood and its cultural movements.” Arrúe couldn’t have imagined then that the magic of social networks would do everything else. And she admits that this wand has done her a great favor. “All this promotion earned me a lot of commissions. I’m tired. After all, painting is what I dedicate myself to, albeit multidisciplinary. I’m a person who happens to be. I hope this serves to further consider Valencian artists.there are many and very good ones”.
Member of the Citizens’ Assembly, Fernando Giner, who was one of the first to make visible the need to save the painting from digging, and to whom the artist himself did not hide his gratitude, did not miss this.
Perez Pont he called the action an “exercise of legitimacy”. It can be seen by anyone who enters the Gothic monastery. “It’s a place for contemporary art that combines the history of Valencia with modern art and contemporary creativity. Over the years we’ve managed to establish one thing and another dialogue.”