What does Eduardo Chillida, Antoni Tàpies, Joan Miró, Jaume Plensa or Pablo Palazuelo have to do with a pair of heels? The answer is that everyone in some way inspired the designer Sarah Navarro in his creations.
Third generation of a family of artisans and shoemakers from the city of Cookedin Alicante, an area with a renowned shoemaking tradition, Navarro moves his models from the shop windows to the Gravina Museum of Fine Arts in Alicante (Mubag) for this exhibition which presents fifty works of contemporary art that dialogue with 97 pairs of his most emblematic shoes.
Art you wear on your feet
In this first exhibition that combines art and design at the Mubag, Begoña Deltell, curator of the exhibition, has dealt with the exhibition discourse with contemporary artists. Her works belong to a private collection which Navarro built for more than 30 years.
A first purchase at the Valencia Furniture Fair when he was an interpreter at just 17 was the seed of his desire for collecting, collecting works which, in the end, inspired by her facet as a designer.
For Navarro “art is a universal and international language” and the works in his collection are a source of emotion, emotions that take on a life of their own in footwear you drew.
The 53 works of art on display are part of Sara Navarro’s private collection and are pieces that have inspired some of her most iconic shoes.
The sample uses as hilo conductor to Dorothyprotagonist of The Wizard of Ozwhich Deltell uses to track a parallelism between his adventures and the life of Sara Navarro regarding the designer’s “round trip” from Elda to the world and then returning to her roots in Alicante after moving her residence from Madrid.
Art and design in dialogue
The eighteenth-century building that houses this museum, a palace built by the Count of Lumiares between the Postiguet wall and the Santa María steps, in the historic center of Alicante, these days you can see works by Antoni Tapies, Eduardo Chillida, Pablo Palazuelo, Jaume Plensa, Equipo Crónica, Alfonso Albacete, Guinovart, Jannis KounellisLucio Muñoz, Rafols Casamada, Yutaka Mori, Max Pam, Joan Miró, Alexanco, Hernández Pijuan, Nicola de María, Jus Juchtmans and Arnulf Rainer.
There are also pieces of Isabel Córdoba, Judith Egger, Estefanía Martín Serna, María Luisa Sanz, Antoni Llena, Cristina Otero, Alberto Datas, Alberto Grassi, Pedro ChillidaIgnacio Llamas, Ginés Sánchez Hevia, Alex Cano, Avelino Salas, Jordi Alcaráz, José Manuel Ballester, Linarejos Moreno, Pablo Genovés, Eduardo Nave, Dionisio González, Javier Calleja and Guillermo Peñalver, as well as Pamen Pereira and Fuencisla Francés.
53 paintings and one hundred shoes
Total, 53 works in front of 97 of the models most emblematic of this creator, who founded her own company in 1979 and who has since placed her brand, Sara Worldcutting edge.
Her accolades include the FEDEPE Award for Entrepreneur of the Year 2002 or the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts Artes 2005. More recent are the Silver Star of the Community of Madrid (2014), Golden Cherry of Valle del Jerte (2014) or Solidarity Heart of the Tejerina Foundation (2014).
The exhibition, which can be visited until next June 25, 2023open to the Mubag from Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 to 20:00 and on Sundays and public holidays from 10:00 to 14:00.
They are also offered guided tours for groups and guided weekend passes (Saturday at 18.00 and Sunday at 12.00).
