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Updated: May 6, 2018

BY PHILIP LEDERER / SRQ DAILY / FRIDAY WEEKEND EDITION / FRIDAY MAY 4, 2018


As a sculptor, Jorge Blanco has been creating for 40 years. Working in powder-coated aluminum, large-scale and small, with his trademark whimsy and vibrant palette, he’s shown across the world, and collections of his work can be found on four continents. Galleries have mounted solo shows dedicated to Blanco from Venezuela to Italy, and even just down the road in Miami. “But never here,” he says, of his adopted hometown of Sarasota, where he’s lived for near 20 years. There have been plenty of group shows, and Blanco’s sculptures can be found around town, but never showing on their own. Now, with the opening of Solo Blanco at Alfstad& Contemporary last week, Blanco has the gallery to himself and couldn’t be happier.

Showing more than 15 pieces within Alfstad&, ranging from the handheld Mini Fire Fish to the 14-foot-tall Zephyrus nearly scraping the ceiling, Solo Blanco provides viewers with a broad initiation to Blanco’s world. Abstract or figurative, character-focused or object-oriented, functional or purely decorative, a jaunt around the gallery floor affords contact with several different aspects of the artist’s work. From sliced carrots to deconstructed fish to a bright yellow bench (from Blanco’s backyard), each hints at more in the wings, unseen for now but perhaps waiting in Blanco’s workshop. And for those curious as to process, a short video looping in the back room of the gallery offers a bit of insight.

“This is wonderful,” says Blanco, surveying the show. “And, for me, this is a great gallery.” From the architecture to the modern gallery aesthetic and lighting—not to mention sheer space available—it all seems to click. And for the artist whose Runners have graced Tamiami Trail for years now, their melon heads peeking out from the median underbrush as cars whoosh by, Solo Blanco represents a little belated recognition. “Sometimes I feel people know nothing about my work,” says Blanco. “So this is a new opportunity to me.”

In addition to Blanco’s sculptural work, the show features 12 original watercolors from the artist’s days as a celebrated cartoonist and creator of El Naufraga, or The Castaway. Premiering in the Venezuelean newspaper, El Diario de Caracas, in 1980, The Castaway became a national sensation, and when Blanco moved to Sarasota near 20 years later, he brought the character with him, publishing for a time in City Tempo, a precursor to SRQ magazine. On May 15, the gallery will release a limited edition series of prints for each image, with Blanco available to sign any purchased.

Solo Blanco runs at Alfstad& Contemporary through May 19. And with a record-breaking opening last week that saw more than 500 people flocking to the gallery for the artist’s first solo show, the question looms large—what took so long? “I’m curious too,” jokes Blanco.

Pictured: "Mina" by Jorge Blanco. Photo courtesy of Alfstad& Contemporary


Jorge Blanco, renowned for his colorful sculpture installations with the lyricism and grand proportions that heighten a viewer's sense of imagination, presents SOLO BLANCO at Alfstad& Contemporary, April 19 – May 19. This is Blanco’s first solo exhibition in Sarasota, where the Venezuela-born artist has lived and worked for two decades. “It brings me much joy to finally have my first solo exhibition in my adopted hometown of Sarasota,” says Blanco.


Jorge Blanco is celebrated for the geometric, often representational, and always playful, industrial-inspired sculptures he first fabricated from thick flat slabs of painted wood, bronze, and most recently aluminum. Playing off of Alexander Calder's Stabile's of the 20th Century, Blanco's stationary abstract sculptures can portray figures, and everyday objects, with few simple forms—a semi-circle and hole become a Picassoesque face on top of shapes perhaps pulled from a Miro painting that forms the foundation of the figure. The works, filled with humor and amusing proportions, evoke whimsy and delight. “My goal is to produce happiness,” says Blanco, “and, to have viewers of my work enjoy the beautiful part of life.”


In the early 80s, the artist began receiving recognition for a comic strip he produced about an exiled man on a tiny island with a single palm tree—the perfect setting for a comical Castaway. Simultaneously, Blanco was in charge of all graphics designed for the Museo de Los Niños de Caracas (Children’s Museum of Caracas), an institution comparable to a small Disney-land that aimed to teach children about science, technology, culture, and arts. It was there that Blanco created the Museum's mascot, a playful and curious child named Museito, as well as the institution’s entire collection of graphics, signage, publications, animations and promotional materials. That playfulness and whimsy, along with the art historical reference of Klee, Calder and Miro is apparent in all of Blanco’s internationally acclaimed sculptures.


While, Blanco’s sculptures can be found in private collections throughout more than forty countries, the increasing monumentality of the artist’s works can now be found as public sculptures in thirty locations spread over the continents of South America, Asia, and North America. The Alfstad& Contemporary exhibition will to be the first to include both large and moderately scaled works by Blanco in the same setting. Included are nine powder coated aluminum sculptures ranging from tabletop scale to the 14-foot grand scale, Zephyrus (Wind of the West, messenger of spring).


In continuation, Blanco’s 18-foot-tall BRAVO! sculpture will be unveiled as the City of Sarasota’s newest Public Artwork late summer this year. “This exhibition gives me the rare opportunity to feature some of my favorite large-scale Public Artworks at the same time as my newest smaller-scaled sculptures.”



Jorge Blanco exhibit shows artist's love for the simple joys in life, article by

Niki Kottmann Managing Editor of Arts and Entertainment for The Observer

https://www.yourobserver.com/article/jorge-blanco-exhibit-shows-artists-love-for-the-simple-joys-in-life

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