EQUIPO 57
Composed by:
Juan Cuenca. Puente Genil, Córdoba, Spain. 1934.
José Duarte. Córdoba, Spain 1928- Madrid, Spain. 2017
Agustín Ibarrola. Bilbao, Spain. 1930- Galdakao, Spain, 2023.
Juan Serrano. Córdoba, Spain. 1929-2020.
Ángel Duarte. Aldeanueva del Camino, Cáceres, Spain 1930-Sion, Switzerland, 2007
Created in 1957 in Paris (France), the group lasted until 1962, although the official dissolution occurred in 1966 following the Berne (Switzerland) exhibition.
Heirs of the most extreme tendency in concrete art, the members of Equipo 57 are an important reference for various generations of Spanish normative artists. Indeed, acknowledgment of their work continues to increase both at national and international level.
Their position, always radical, questions issues such as authorship itself, which the members of Equipo 57 renounced, and the direct influence of art in society: art as a driving force that can change society, as a revitalising, fundamental element to awaken people’s consciousness consciences.
Their artistic concerns ranged from experimental cinema to architecture, interior and industrial design, not forgetting painting and sculpture. The development of furniture holds an important place among their works, bringing simplicity and beauty to designs that only now are beginning to be common in creations.
One of their most important contributions is the formulation of the Theory of the Interactivity of Plastic Space, developed in 1957, and applied in all their subsequent artistic production.
The brief but fruitful trajectory of the Equipo 57 allowed their works to be seen in important public spaces in their time; and in recognition of that trajectory, MNCARS gave them their first important retrospective exhibition in 1993. Other exhibitions have followed that important show and have added to the understanding of one of the most enriching, interesting and original contributions of Spanish Art to contemporaneity.
