Click here to access the route link on Google Maps
INTRODUCTION
Distance: 7.39 kilometers
Technical difficulty: Low
Route type: linear
On this urban route, you can enjoy a variety of modern art sculptures that will undoubtedly surprise you.
From abstract pieces to figurative works, each sculpture has its own story and meaning.
Modern art created by some of the most influential contemporary artists internationally.
A fascinating tour that transforms the streets of our city into an open-air museum.
The route has been designed to be accessible and enjoyable, with strategic points where visitors can rest, reflect, and enjoy the surroundings.
Each sculpture is accompanied by an informational plaque that provides context about the work and the artist, enriching the educational and cultural experience.
______________________________________________________
1. LIAM GILLICK. I can't answer that question - it's a matter of conscience.
Location: Plaza Mayor
Liam Gillick creates a simple but meaningful sculpture. A space for reflection, a platform for discussion and exchange. A large aluminum cube, on the sides of which is a phrase that alludes to the artist's conscience and, at the same time, to that of the viewer. "I can't answer that question, it's a matter of conscience," prompts the observer to reflect on the question he himself would avoid answering.
Beyond the work's aesthetic significance, Gillick's interest focuses on the current processes of communication, negotiation, and discussion between people and ideas, as well as the bureaucratic systems that govern these relationships. His aim is to encourage dialogue and reflection among viewers by emphasizing the social function of art.
2. DOMINGO SÁNCHEZ BLANCO. Replica of the columns from Luis Buñuel's film Simon of the Desert
Location: Jaén Street with Tarragona Street next to CP Luis Buñuel
Domingo Sánchez Blanco and Luís Buñuel share an interest in the figure of the stylite Saint Simon and his Column. In Simon of the Desert, Buñuel recreates with irony and dark humor the life of the 4th-century ascetic who spent forty years atop a column in the Syrian desert, from which he preached, and where Satan himself appeared to him, transfigured into a seductive she-devil.
Domingo Sánchez Blanco is a surprising and provocative artist. His works include performances, videos, installations, paintings, and sculptures. Fully involved in the creation and interpretation of his pieces, he has repeatedly climbed columns, such as those in this installation, dressed as a flamenco dancer, resembling a high-heeled stylist. A critical but humorous work that connects with Buñuel's film.
3. SOL LEWITT. Curved Wall
Location: Paseo de Valdelasfuentes
Sol LeWitt is a key artist in the development of conceptual art, proposing a new concept of creativity that exalts the value of the idea and its planning at the expense of the artist's craftsmanship. For Sol LeWitt, the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the artistic work, and execution is a mechanical act delegated to others.
Sol LeWitt always uses humble materials, white concrete blocks of the same dimensions. Curved Wall speaks to LeWitt's interest in curvilinear forms, but also in simplicity, logic, and clarity.
A soft, undulating shape that contrasts with the roughness of the material and invites us to focus on the perception of the idea that lies within a work of abstract art.
4. JAUME PLENSA. The Heart of Trees
Location: South Park Fuente Lucha
Seven sculptures, seven bronze bodies, as many as musical notes, each embracing a cypress tree. Jaume Plensa has become an essential artist in public spaces, not only for his numerous interventions, but also for his ability to connect his sculptures with both the viewers and the environment.
The human figure is the protagonist of his work, and although Plensa uses his own body as a model, he does not intend to represent himself. Each of us is unique and unrepeatable, but we are part of a society, a culture: the relationship between the particular and the general, the fragment and the whole, the small and the large, is the central idea of his work. The body ends up as something inert and unchanging, yet the tree will continue to grow and one day will cover the face and overflow the human figure. The body and the tree as metaphors for the physical and the spiritual.
The body is a container for words, ideas, and data. Jaume Plensa is a lover of words and music, words that permeate his sculptures, works full of power and poetry that, with eyes closed, invite reflection.
5. RUI SANCHES. Untitled
Location: Galicia Park
The thin sheets of steel accumulate to form shapes until the figure gently emerges. Each sheet is designed and worked one by one, in a slow construction process, in which the sculpture is built from the bottom up, following the geometric layout on some sides and sinuous organic forms on others.
The viewer is led to walk around the pieces to discover the differences between the various profiles. They are two modules facing each other, in dialogue, which, as Rui Sanches points out, thrive on the relationships established between them, with the space in which they are located, and, most importantly, with the viewers.
6. RICHARD LONG. Braga Circle
Location: Andalusia Park
Richard Long's work is closely linked to Land Art. His creations use the landscape and the most basic natural materials: stones, mud, grass, seaweed... It's always a light, simple intervention that avoids monumentality and is, in many cases, ephemeral. He doesn't aim to provoke major changes; he simply leaves a trace, a mark, a sign. His most iconic works are the result of his long walks in remote locations around the world, from deserts to glaciers, but he also creates work inside galleries and museums and in public spaces like this one.
A circle of red stones marks the chosen spot, a simple response to how he feels about this natural environment. The circle is simple, neutral, abstract, yet powerful, evocative of ancient rituals, mysterious traces left by our ancestors. Long, the walking artist, invites us to reflect on our relationship with nature, always fragile, always changing.
7. ANTHONY CARO. Streaker Flat
Location: Andalusia Park
Anthony Caro has played a key role in the development of contemporary sculpture. Born in 1924, he rejected traditional modeling and sculpting techniques, as well as the use of pedestals. By placing welded metal sculptures directly on the ground, he introduced a revolutionary perspective into three-dimensional art, involving the viewer more intimately in the sculpture's space.
This work belongs to the series called "Flat," which explores the flat effect of forms through large, heavy metal plates with sharp, curved edges that multiply the sculpture's viewing angles and lend it dynamism. Anthony Caro uses industrial materials to combine energy and harmony through the strength of steel and its rusty texture, evoking tension and balance, weight and lightness. The dialogue and contrast it establishes with Richard Long's work located in the same park is interesting.
8. MANOLO VALDÉS. Queen Mariana (La Menina)
Location: Roundabout of Paseo de la Chopera and Salvador Allende Boulevard
Velázquez's work has inspired painters of his time, as well as contemporary artists, such as Manolo Valdés. The portrait of Queen Mariana is a painting that Valdés has reinterpreted numerous times throughout his career, demystifying it, taking it out of context, and offering a new, contemporary, and relaxed vision of an artistic icon. The monumental queen reappears simplified, reduced to its basic forms, yet at the same time charged with great expressive power.
Texture plays a very important role for this artist and is a connecting point between his work as a painter and a sculptor. Once the volume is created, he looks for stains and imperfections in the material, highlighting its cracks and imperfections. Scale also becomes an expressive resource that allows us to consider new perspectives and points of view of the work.
9. ILYA KABAKOV. Rosenthal: pianist and muse
Location: Arab Garden of the Jardín de la Vega
Of Ukrainian origin and resident in the United States, he is internationally known for his installations depicting living conditions in post-Stalinist Russia, where he worked as an unofficial artist for over 30 years.
To create this sculptural project, Kabakov explored the public spaces of Alcobendas until he chose the fountain in the Jardín de la Vega. As one of many artists, his work contributes to enriching this beautiful Moorish garden. The sculpture is born from the space, from the musicality of the water, from the romantic atmosphere of the surroundings.
A highly evocative piece, perhaps a symbol of the mix of hope and fear with which an artist confronts his muse, inspiration, or perhaps the viewer.
10. STEPHAN BALKENHOL. Man Moving
Location: Salvador Allende Boulevard
Steven Balkenhol's work speaks to his interest in reintroducing the human figure into contemporary art. These sculptures depict ordinary men and women, undefined, impersonal, belonging to the present, mirrors of each and every one of us.
Balkenhol seeks objectivity and neutrality in human representation. As he himself points out, they are beautiful, quiet figures who speak volumes and nothing at the same time. As viewers, we sense this man as familiar yet distant at the same time. The pedestal helps to display the piece from a certain height, but without the intention of hierarchical isolation.
The artist offers us the beginning or a fragment of a story of contemporary men and women, but does not tell us the ending, which we, as spectators, must complete.
