Serie Venecia 19, 1960
In Ángel Ferrant’s constant search to renovate the sculptural language, from the end of the fifties until his death he worked on a new concept of changing forms that he called ‘infinite sculpture’. These works are made up of mobile pieces that can be fitted together in various ways, as in the Sèrie Venècia (Venice Series). Produced between 1958 and 1960, the series was presented at the 1960 Venice Biennale. There are nineteen iron sets formed by a variable number of assembling units (a minimum of two and a maximum of fourteen), so that the final form of the work is susceptible to multiple variations. This open or infinite sculpture invites the viewer to participate in the creative process by trying different combinations and possible developments. The artist thus nullifies the distance between the work and the viewer, while invalidating the myth of the finished work.
The work in the MACBA Collection has a special complexity, with seven units and five singular couplings forming the assembly. The artist photographed this sculpture in six different positions. ‘Spurred by chance and disconformity, I have ended up with an infinite sculpture. A game of removing and replacing in which the first steps or stumbles reverberate along the same path’, as the artist explained in 1961 on the occasion of the exhibition Ángel Ferrant. Infinite Sculpture at the Museo del Parque, Bilbao.
To exhibit the Sèrie Venècia, the artist was given his own space at the 30th Venice Biennale, which earned him international prestige. He died months later. Shortly after, the New London Gallery included his work in the group exhibition Ten Sculptors, where he showed alongside sculptors such as Anthony Caro and other younger names associated with radical modernity.
Technical details
- Original title:
- Serie Venecia 19
- Registration number:
- 0034
- Artist:
- Ferrant, Ángel
- Date created:
- 1960
- Date acquired:
- 1988
- Fonds:
- MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
- Object type:
- Sculpture
- Media:
- Iron
- Dimensions:
- 152 x 90 x 130 cm (height x width x depth)
- Credits:
- MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
- Copyright:
- © Ángel Ferrant
- It has accessibility resources:
- No
The MACBA Collection features Catalan, Spanish and international art and, although it includes works from the 1920s onwards, its primary focus is on the period between the 1960s and the present.
For more information on the work or the artist, please consult MACBA's Library. To request a loan of the work, please write to colleccio [at] macba.cat.
If you need a high resolution image of the work, you must submit an image loan request.