Lanzarote: Manrique and the Volcanoes, Canary Islands 2016
A series for the Exhibition
"Transitions"
Heliconian Hall, October 2016
In 2016 I spent an enchanted month on the island of Lanzarote in the Canaries. I went there for the volcanoes, and discovered one of the most brilliant artists of the 20th century, and possibly the greatest collaboration between geological nature and artist/architect anywhere on the planet. The Canaries are a mid-oceanic ridge of still-active volcanic islands off the coast of North West Africa. A part of Spain, they bear the cultural traces of occupation by North Africans, Britons, Portuguese and Spanish. Lanzarote is the starkest of the islands, entirely shaped by volcanic activity, the most recent major eruptions occurring in the 18th Century.
The artist César Manrique (1919 - 1992) was born into this quiet, remote archipelago, and his youth amongst the volcanoes profoundly influenced him. He carried the visions and tactile connection to the lava with him to Madrid in 1945, where he studied and matured as an artist and absorbed the sensibilities of Spain’s great early 20th Century artists, especially Antoni Gaudi. In searching for “the definition of the elementary structure of things,” he joined the cohort of idealistic Spanish post-war painters whose non-figurative work revived that great tradition. An avid traveller, he moved to New York in 1965, participating in the mid-20th Century international modernist movement, with artists such as Pollock, Rothko, and Warhol.
But it was on his return in 1968 to Lanzarote, where he lived for the rest of his life, that he became the island’s transformative force. Its pre-eminent citizen, he oversaw the creation of architectural rules for housing and urban design. His sculptures adorn intersections and squares, his museums and venues burrow into the lava and perch atop volcanoes. Lanzarote is Manrique. From his buildings inside lava bubbles and tubes, to the visitor’s centre atop an active volcano, to the very look of villages and towns, one finds oneself inside his mind, and his fantasy island.
These pictures are fine art archival prints, available framed and unframed.
The artist César Manrique (1919 - 1992) was born into this quiet, remote archipelago, and his youth amongst the volcanoes profoundly influenced him. He carried the visions and tactile connection to the lava with him to Madrid in 1945, where he studied and matured as an artist and absorbed the sensibilities of Spain’s great early 20th Century artists, especially Antoni Gaudi. In searching for “the definition of the elementary structure of things,” he joined the cohort of idealistic Spanish post-war painters whose non-figurative work revived that great tradition. An avid traveller, he moved to New York in 1965, participating in the mid-20th Century international modernist movement, with artists such as Pollock, Rothko, and Warhol.
But it was on his return in 1968 to Lanzarote, where he lived for the rest of his life, that he became the island’s transformative force. Its pre-eminent citizen, he oversaw the creation of architectural rules for housing and urban design. His sculptures adorn intersections and squares, his museums and venues burrow into the lava and perch atop volcanoes. Lanzarote is Manrique. From his buildings inside lava bubbles and tubes, to the visitor’s centre atop an active volcano, to the very look of villages and towns, one finds oneself inside his mind, and his fantasy island.
These pictures are fine art archival prints, available framed and unframed.
"Inhabiting the Landscape:"
The Tahiche volcano from Calle Benito Pérez Galdós.The townscapes sustained or recreated according to Manrique’s architectural rule give Lanzarote’s villages and towns an austere unity; slabs of whitewashed walls with small Moorish embellishments reminiscent of, but quite distinct from, the Spanish Mediterranean. Everywhere, the volcanoes are tamed and brought into the human landscape as in the picture above – except in the wild reaches of the Parc Nacional de Timanfaya, site of the massive 18th C eruptions.
"Adorning the Landscape: Monumento al Campesino”
A sculpture dedicated to the farmers who worked so hard to create fertile land out of the volcanic sand, is located on a traffic roundabout, and displays Manrique’s use of whitewash and smooth abstraction against rough lava to shape his vision of the island – a magical transition.
"Recreating Nature: Lanzarote Cactus Garden"
This magical garden was created by Manrique in collaboration with botanist and cactus expert, Guillermo Paderno, in a basin created by 19th C farmers, who used camels to haul out volcanic sand to improve their soil. The black sand farms and vineyards (pictured at the top of the page), and the cacti introduced from the New World -ubiquitous throughout the island, define the interface between human activity, living matter, and lava in Lanzarote.
"Living Within the Volcano: Underground Lava Bubbles and Tubes House"
Manrique’s former residence and studio, Taro de Tahiche, is now his foundation’s headquarters. Once again, whitewash creates a luminous transition between human habitation and rock, All you need to know about Manrique’s extraordinary relationship to his environment can be gathered in this collaboration between vulcanism and architecture .