Esperanza D’Ors

(Madrid, 1949)

Desnudo con abanico

1985

black dyed cement

116 x 50 x 50 cm

Inv. no. 34675

BBVA Collection Spain



In her declaration of principles, this artist –a granddaughter of Eugenio D’Ors– explained the two basic premises of her work as a sculptor: her social commitment and concerns and her interest in the human figure, or, perhaps better said, in humanism. As opposed to the dehumanisation of contemporary art, whose paradigmatic expression can be seen in abstraction, figuration stands for a return to formal tradition, though in her case she uses the figure as an object to protest against social reality.

Her sculpture is not realist, but more symbolic and idealist. She takes the human figure as the core of her practice, distancing herself from any other figurative element, either animate or inanimate. Her schematic nude bodies return to the symbolic dimension of her figures, and are transformed into a vehicle to protest against the social plights of our time, as is the case of her work with immigration which she depicts through the undocumented migrant.

Her work contains classical echoes of the Mediterranean ideal, fusing models from different origins, from Greek to Etruscan and even Egyptian.

In this Desnudo con abanico from 1985, she combines the disciplines of architecture and sculpture almost as if it were a mural, with its depth calling for an architectural element to sustain it.