Juan Garaizabal (born in 1971 in Madrid) is a conceptual artist specializing
in the creation and transformation of interactive spaces as a means of
artistic communication. He has experimented throughout his creative career
with different areas. An inventor, educated in drawing and with a degree in
management, he began in the 1990’s to turn garages, warehouses, bunkers, and
any kind of places into lofts, when no such concept existed in Spain. To
furnish them, he began to enlarge the format of his drawings and
installations, and this process of gradual enlargement –still in progress–
led him in 2005 to unveil his first monumental public work: he conceived as
a curator a humanizing settlement of the landscape by means of an outdoor
installation, using grand format fixtures. This gave way to a conceptual
installation which would intervene in important public spaces.
In 2006, he finished his first solo conceptual art piece “Bosque de Flores”,
a garden of giant flowers that was installed in the city of Valencia for the
America’s Cup of Sailing. The installation continues to illuminate the City
of Porcelain every night.
In 2008 he was hired by the Municipality of Bucharest to create the full
project of their “White Night”/ “Noaptea Alba”. It was there where he
developed the idea of Memoria Urbana (urban memory), the central theme of
his present work. The Memoria Urbana projects focus on valorizing and
recuperating architectural elements or historical buildings that have been
lost in the course of time. Among these are an outline of the Old City of
Bucharest, the Royal Palace of Valencia, the Bohemian Church of Bethlehem in
Berlin, the Palais des Tuileries in Paris, Old London Bridge or Paço da
Ribeira in Lisbon. Each of these and other monumental sculptural
installation projects require him to explore the most varied artistic
techniques in all type of preparatory works.
Juan Garaizabal works in Madrid and in Berlin, where since 2008 he has had
his main studio. He can write and speak fluently in Spanish, English, French
and German.