My boy, with such boots, we may hope to travel far, 2016
Alvaro Urbano
After graduating in architecture in Madrid, Alvaro Urbano (Madrid, 1983) studied at the Institut für Raumexperimente (UdK) in Berlin and deepened his knowledge working with Olafur Eliasson. Many of his artworks are based on a mix of historical and fictional elements. Urbano uses different art forms (e.g. video, performance art, sculpture, site-specific installations).
The artwork in Meran/Merano is located near the Gunpowder Tower. It is part of a bigger project conceived by Urbano for Art & Nature, consisting of fifteen sculptures integrated into the landscape between Meran and Dorf Tirol/Tirolo. Their forms refer to the rune symbols of the cryptogram in Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. The use of runes also draws a parallel between Urbano’s work and inscriptions of the Raeti, a confederation of tribes that inhabited the Alps in the Iron Age, thus linking historical facts and elements of science fiction. However, the project is even more ambitious (further sculptures will be created for locations worldwide), and entailed an uncommon exhibition in 2016, titled I and held at the Mole Antonelliana in Turin. Taking the expression “solo exhibition” to its literal meaning, the exhibition was visited only by a single, previously drawn person. The title I refers not only to the first-person singular, but also alludes to the Roman numeral and to the last rune of the cryptogram in Jules Verne’s novel.