NOTES AND PRESS.

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF MANUEL CHABRERA

Standing in front of Manuel Chabrera’s work, the spectator cannot help but be completely exposed, alienated from traditional views, from social restrictions and imposed taboos. When faced with the work of an artist who has won the Silver Medal of the European Academy of the Arts and the Gold Medal of the International Salon of Prestige in Madrid, the spectator cannot remain impassive, because the work of Manuel Chabrera culminates in complicity with each viewing that surprise, find beauty, an ingenious beauty, a political commitment and a gesture of solidarity. Works of large format that speak of relations between man and his being, of reality, of compromise, of sensations, of feelings. Works filled with provocation.

Manuel Chabrera, the ambassador of art, for the first time in Granada, shows a selection of his works which, mostly in black and white, are the result of the artist’s own unsettledness. An exposition, "Manuel Chabrera", organized by the Spanish Embassy in Luxemburg, the Minister of Culture, the Investigation of Luxemburg, the Artistic Circle of Luxemburg, China Art Expo and by the Social Work of the Caja General of Granada, shows the essence of an artist who for too long has worked from the deepest of silences.

From each of the artist’s canvases flow his own shadows in black and white which emanate purity, essence, and stripped of traditional methods and free from the subjugation of an artist’s traditional craft, provoke new sensations... visionary even. His work is the culmination of all this in which Chabrera toys with space, shapes and architectural expression, as if they were a single element. So, in each of the artist’s expressions, the observer encounters an image of themselves, as if it were a mirror, avoiding social, historic and artistic stereotypes.

THE SPECTATOR’S ROLE

To this ambassador, who was until recently completely anonymous, the distancing between the public and contemporary art has been one of the biggest mistakes that artists have had to suffer. Conscious of the fact that the public is not an abstract mass, Manuel Chabrera looks for the compliance of the spectator, as his work is not completed until it is fruit of that strange union of feelings and ideas. The artist’s expression is at its fullest when he believes that he has said more than words themselves, when the viewer understands that he is deserving of this gift that one such as Manuel Chabrera gives us with his commitment to truth, with his searching, with communication and with society.

The artist’s commitment is not a vain compromise, it is a commitment which renews itself and is reborn in its own way of understanding life and in each one of the sensations that the knowledge of society produces. One idea, one news item, one moment, are each more than sufficient reasons for Chabrera to present us with a new space, an enormous world that, in black and white or in colour, evoke the simplest of beauties, in work that in itself emanate life.

Chabrera’s is an art of integration because when he paints, he is actually drawing. It is the art of lines, of black and white expression. His work encompasses abstract realism, elemental figuration, sponteneity, or even concepts, if they are fitting. He sympathizes to some extent with the creators of German and North American neo-expressionism, above all in the translucent social intention of their messages. An energy and a singularity that move the spectator are found on some canvases, on those that emanate movement and the architectural interpretation of he who knows technique perfectly.

His vision is constructed from inside out, in a clear experience of shadows capable of eerily suggesting light itself.

In its universality, his product evokes the East in its richest iconography, the aestheticism of Japanese art in its austerity of resources, poverty and simplicity, to German neo-expressionism, Pollock, the apparent superficiality of Pop-Art, primitive African expression, Goya, El Greco, Duchamp and even Picasso himself. Chabrera’s art surges from his own knowlege, from his own experience with art, from his convictions, and from his own life...

THE PRODIGIOUS TECHNIQUE

He creates his works starting with thick pencil marks and monochromes that surge from the inside out, accomplishing spaces in which the idea acquires presence and physical body. On occasions, the black, powerful, dense and unending pencil strokes become the only element in the piece. A present-day, contemporary piece in which one perceives his own vital experience. Deeply rooted in Andalusia, the painter has characterized his work with a personal style -offensive it may be- characterized by the technique of mixing oil, gauche and ink, a medium that has enabled his ideas, words and figures to take on a life of their own.

"Top models", "La modelo deseada", "La modelo iluminada", "Inés Sastre" or "Valeria Maza" are only some of the works by which Manuel Chabrera intends to offer the spectator a vision of the current reality from the imaginable possibilities of the painting. Contemplating the work of the artist, it is nearly impossible to tell where reality ends and where fiction begins. The dream of these two worlds is rendered realer than the spectator’s own perception when standing before Chabrera’s gift.

It is apparently not easy to approach the legacy of a Manuel Chabrera who has produced incessantly for more than thirty years. In spite of having worked for so long in silence, the artist has exhibited in the headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, in the gallery of the European Academy of Belgium and in cities in Florida. In spite of his silent journey, it can be affirmed that Manuel Chabrera has now become a true ambassador of art, capable of connecting with the public, above all with youth, that find an artist of committed work with the excitement of a show.

Raquel Paz and Sara Molina – Diaro IDEAL Granada Feb. 23, 2002

CHABRERA EXHIBITS A SELECTION OF HIS MOST RECENT WORKS, LOOKING TO NEW YORK

The architect and artist from Seville, Manuel Chabrera, presented this past January 28 a selection of his most recent work.

The exhibit, which captures the author’s individual world vision with a marked social character, has already been shown in Málaga and Madrid. Now, within the setting of cultural activities that mark the Spanish Presidency of the European Union, the work of Chabrera is being presented simultaneously in Luxemburg and Granada made possible by the Obra Social de la Caja General de Granada. Through his meticulous creative labour, through his research and through the opening of new ways of expression, Chabrera has won recognition in various countries in the Americas, Asia and Europe, by way of which his work has reached a large international audience, in spite of the fact that he has never wanted to sell a painting. Instead, he donates them whenever he finds a just cause.

His paintings, generally in black and white, on canvases of great dimensions, have impressed the public and critics alike. As a result of the events of September in New York the artist has included a series of five large-scale works (215x1000cm) with reference to the attacks, accentuating the social perspective that runs throughout this exhibit. In the Sala of Triumph some of these large murals are on display, for example, one entitled Liberation Nº 3.

The prestigious British movie music composer Terry Keating has created the music that accompanies the exhibit.

Chabrera has obtained international prizes en Paris, Peking and Madrid. His work has represented Andalusia in the headquarters of the United Nations in both Gineva and Montreal, in addition to participating in expositions in London, Chicago, Belgium...

RECOGNITIONS

Among other prizes and recognitions, Chabrera has been awarded the International Silver Medal, presented by the European Academy of the Arts, for two other works on bullfighting that are presently on display in Paris. In spite of the fact that he does not consider himself a painter of this genre, "I only have three or four works that represent bullfighting. I deal with whatever theme makes an impression on me," he points out.

The Special Prize of Honour, received at the Art-Expo of China, was particularly pleasant. The international jury highlighted the technical quality of the work presented by Chabrera: a collection of 15 miniature paintings in black and white, painted with oil, gauche and ink. They also kept in mind the extent of innovation of its proposed aesthetics.

Throughout all of this, Manuel Chabrera does not consider leaving his profession, architecture, for which he has also been recognized by the Town Council of Seville and of that which he indicates "is the most complete artistic expression because it integrates an infinity of elements: light, colour, volume..."

Javier Garcie- Gaceta  Universitaria Feb. 2, 2002

MANUEL CHABRERA :DANS LES FLOTS DE L'EXPRESION

LE PEINTRE ESPAGNOL ENGAGE UN COMBAT DE LIBERTE,l'ART ES L'ACTE, IL SE VIT.

Si le expressionnisme est souvent attribué á l'Europe septentrionale il n'en reste,pas moins qu'il est egalement présent dans l'Europe meridionale. L'expressionisme lyrique est né de la volonté de donner la priorité á l'acte créateur.

L'Eminent historien d'art René Huygue insistait tout au long de ses ecrits sur les diverses sources de la creation se prétan á L'art. L'une des plus accomplies selon luí est celle qui reléve du sans filtre dans l'acte createur. Une chaine d'union qui traverse les siécles de l'art, appelee les peintres de l'énergie Rubens, Vinci, Delacroix. De Kooning furent de ceux-là.

Actuellement, les cimaises de la Chapelle du Rham, sous l'initiative De L'Ambassade d'Espagne et du Ministére de la Culture de Luxemburg, accuille l'un de ces peintres représentatif de ce courant.

Manuel Chabrera est Espagnol, vivant en Andalonsie. Formé á L'arquitecture, i1 se spécialisera dans l'urbanisme. L'espace construit, reflechi, il le pratique. Quant à la peinture, le dessin; ils sont pour lui la liberté du «fact».

La peinture espagnole est bien connue pour son attachement á une sévére et sincere réalité du face-face. Chabrera le souligne dans ses peintures par une facture an trait vif, volontaire, virulent, chargé d'emotion que rien ne peut arréter :une veritable conquéte de l'élan vital.

Traits écorchés, issus de 1'abrupt non encore polis par la raison, tout est dans L'Acte premier. Les couleurs sont vives, pures flanquées á meme le support, juxtaposees l'une a l'autre san lien apparent avec le trail.

Paradoxe de l'humeur ou joie et tristesse chevauchent ensemble. Une addition de regards successifs ne laissant aucune possibilites a l`espace construit.

Ici le present ne s'y préte pas, il est l'espace meme d'ou émerge le flot

de toute créativité.

Néanmoins, on y decouvre une ordonnance nauturell dans le mouvement de ses peintures,l'expressionnisme est maitrisé.

L'écrivain Francois Cheng décrit assez bien cela: le trait en Orient est senti, en Occident est réfléchi ou alors soulevé par l'instinct.

Par ses nombreuses experiences de part le monde, Chabrera se fait l'architecte du présent, une ouverture qu'il qualifie lui méme de liberté, L'acte de peintre est pour luí issu de la pensee, l'étre dépasse l'individu.

Constance présence également de la figure feminine symbole par exelence de la creation.

L’architecte a ses heures construit le edifice, le peintre avec son present

croît dans le sentiment de vie.

Chabrera est de ces presences ou l'architecture, urbanisme, peinture et dessin

ne font que une meme chose: L'unite de l'etre dans le souffle du movement.

Le caractere monumental de son ouvre n'est pas assez mis en valeur dans cette exposition, il aurait permis d'apprecier le sentiment de liberte qui habite le peintre.

MANUEL CHABRERA ON THE WAVES OF EXPRESSION.

THE SPANISH PAINTER COMMITS HIMSELF POLITICALLY IN THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM. IF ART IS TO BE THE CREATIVE ACT IN ACTION, IT MUST BE IMMEDIATE.

Although expressionism is attributed to Northern Europe, it’s also present in the South. Lyrical expressionism is born of the will to give priority to the creative act.

Rene Huygue, the eminent art historian, throughout his work stresses the diverse sources of creativity that are produced within art. One of the most perfect, in his opinion, is that in which the creative act is revealed without a filter. A stream of thought that spans centuries, linking energy painters: Rubens, Vinci, Delacroix, de Kooning.

Currently the directive of the Chapelle du Rham, with the initiative of the Spanish Embassy and Ministry of Culture, receives one of the representatives of this school.

Manuel Chabrera is Spanish and lives in Andalucia. Educated as an architect, he specialised in urban planning, in constructed space, pensive, and besides all this, a practicing professional. As far as his drawings go, they are for him ‘acts of liberation’. Spanish painting is know for its severe and sincere affiliation face to face with reality. Chabrera underscores this by use of bright brush strokes, a will charged with unstoppable emotion: a veritable conquest of vital impulse.

Flaying strokes born of sincerity, without rational refinement. Everything is instantaneous, in the act. The colours are bright, pure, and mark the boundaries themselves on their supports, juxtaposing themselves against others, without apparent connection between strokes. A humorous paradox where happiness and sadness seem to parade side by side. Additional glances don’t leave the constructed space a chance. Here ‘present’ means a space where a wave of total creativity emerges. Nevertheless, the constructed space is unveiled in the natural order of movement in his paintings. This is mastery of expressionism.

The calligrapher Francois Cheng describes this perfectly in this way: ‘Strokes in the East are sense, while in the West they are reflective, and always found raised above instinct.’ Because of his numerous experiences throughout the world, Chabrera builds architecture of the present, like an overture that he himself labels ‘freedom’. The act of painting is, for him, void of reasoning since it is the being that overwhelms the individual. Also, there is the constant presence of the female figure, symbol par excellence of creation.

In his architectural moments he constructs buildings, while as a painter it is this ‘present’ which paints with vital feeling.

Chabrera in his presence in architecture, urban planning, painting and drawing is always the same thing: the unit of being in the impulse of movement.

The monumental character of his work in this exhibition hasn’t been valued enough. This time it is only the sense of freedom that overflows from the artist that has been appreciated.

Jean Marc Tosello- Le Quotidien Luxembourg 27.January 2002.

AN ARTIST WHO DOESN’T ALLOW INDIFFERENCE.

An exhibition travelling between Malaga, Peking, Madrid... Manuel Chabrera’s canvases, exhibited with the Patronage of the Ministry of Culture and the Spanish Embassy, are unveiled to the public in the Chapelle du Rham, before returning again to Spain and China.

Honoured with the Art Expo of China’s Special Prize in 2001, with exhibitions in London, Chicago and Shanghai, such as the United Nations in Geneva and Montreal, in his capacity as European representative. The Spanish artist plays his part, giving expression with symbols, words and colour. The aesthetic beauty or assertion of a critical attitude, be it accepted or rejected, by the opinions who advocate ‘art for art’s sake’ and ‘art with a social message’ are no more common today than fifty or one hundred years ago. Undoubtedly there isn’t any single answer for choosing one or the other, each time controversy is stirred up regarding a work of art that it is necessary to interpret. ‘Liberation nº5’, 11 September in N.Y. a tribute to the freedom of the world’s people’, is the result of a creative expression that has a history or a memory. The hand of Manuel Chabrera turns current or everyday issues upside down, and transforms them into artistic places, a muddle of drawings, angles and confusions.

Although initially the large-scale canvases impress and overwhelm the spectator, they later allow one to sort out bit by bit, not so much by its own image of the disaster, but rather by its own sensation and conscience. It is a painting exiled between the shores of naivety and abstraction, but where the title accompanies the spectator not allowing indifference; forcing you to stare attentively and anxiously.

The visitor will be able to see the stains of joyous colour, the childlike heads, the lines and angles; a telephone randomly appears in the composition like an enormous rupture in the frame, where the same children in the painting cling to each other at the edge of the Abyss.

‘Mercy’ and ‘Compassion’ in black and white, face each other and mutually recognise each other. Four bodies inhabit the canvas of them both, forcing the spectator to retrace their tracks over and over again to rethink its interpretation. With almost dance-like gestures, the artist’s figures unite their mutual solidarity, one by one the shadings of the strokes is increased in the furrows and lines of paint and Chinese ink.

Between the fun of the word-play of ‘Waiting for Che’, and the seriousness of its theme, Manuel Chabrera, (‘Cha’), questions the myth’s roots and his condition as artist. ‘Che’ Guevara, and ‘Cha’; one name can camouflage the other as if by mixing them, they become recognisable to each other. Chabrera doesn’t confirm it, but merely offers his paintings, where gentlemen advance -like those of Don Quixote- over the tortoise shell, and dance and march around this Cross and Scales planted in the middle of a never-ending canvas, displaying the dimension of Man as a focus of attention. Identifying itself with Justice of Hope.

Mariana Wathelet-Luxemburger Wort Luxembourg 28/Jan/2002

UN ARTISTE QUI INTERDIT L’INDIFFERENCE.

Exposition itinerante entre Malaga, Pékin, Madrid les toiles de Manuel Chabrera exposees sous le patronage du Ministére de la Culture de Luxembourg et de l'Ambassade d'Espagne se laissent découvrir par le public luxembourgeois a la Chapelle de Rham avant de repartír a nouveau vers l'Espagne et la Chíne.

Lauréat de «Prix Spéciaí International de L'Art-Expo China 2001», avec des

expositions a Londres, Chicago et Shanghai, et au siége des Nations Unies a Genéve et a Montréal au titre de représentant de L'Europe, l'artiste espagnol joue la force de son geste entre le symbole le mot et la couleur.

L'esthetique du beau ou l'affirmation d'une attitude critique, soit-elle refus ou ralliement, les criteres départageant <l`art pour l'art> de «l'art engagé» ne sont pas plus nombreux aujourd-hui qu'ils 1'étaient il y a une centaine ou cinquantaine d'annees.

Sans doute, il n'y a pas de réponse uníque pour de tels choix mais a chaque fois i1 s'agit d'une ouvre qu'il faut interpreter, résultat d'un geste de creation possédant une histoire, une mémoire. «Libération #5», «History: Sept 11 in NY. A tribute for people Líberty in the world»: la main de Manuel Chabrera se tourne vers l'actualité du quotidien elle la transforme en lieu d'art, trace des dessins, des angles. des confusions.

En un premier temp les toiles de grandes dimensions, refouilent, excluent,pour laisser s’organiser peu a peu, non pas l'image d'un desastre maís plutot sa sensation et sa consience .

Una peinture confinee d'abord entre les terrains de la naïveté et de l'abstraction, mais ou le titre accompagne le spectateur interdisant toute índiférence, et obligeant le regard à devenir attentif, hésitant.

Le visiteur verra des taches de couleur joyeuse, des tetes enfantines, des lignes, des angles, un combiné teléfonique.... ensuite il s`apercevra du hasard de la composition comme une enorme rupture, l'effondrement dans lequel désormais les mémes enfants du tableaux se figent a lì?

. ¿ «En attendant le Che»: Manuel Chabrera («Cha»), entre le rire de jeu et le sérieux du théme, interroge les racines du mythe et sa condition d'artiste. Che Guevara mais aussi «Cha», un nom peut en dissimuler un autre, comme i1 peut se mélanger a lui, le reconnaitre. Chabrera ne le confirme pas, iI offre seulement sa peinture oú des chevaliers avancent, a la maniére de Don Quichotte, sur le dos d'une tortue, dansent et marchent autour de cette balance-croix plantée au millee de la toile, incontournable, déversant la dimension de l'homme vers un point a atteindre, l'identifiant a la justice de son espoir.

Mariana Wathelet-Luxemburger Wort Luxembourg 28/Jan/2002

ADRESSE PRONONCEE A L’OCCASION DU VERNISAGE DE L’EXPOSITION DE MANUEL CHABRERA EN LA CHAPELLE DU RHAM- MINISTERE DE LA CULTURE-LUXEMBOURG

Manuel Chabrera est architecte, exerçant et professeur, professionnel avisé, attentif.

Manuel Chabrera est un homme calme et posé.

La sérénité et la paix de l’océan, grande plaine immobile, sont trompeuses : quand les alizés le caressent de leur souffle, qu’Eole, pris d’envie, se lève pour l’agiter, que l’ouragan impétueux le provoque, ses eaux placides grondent, tanguent, roulent et montent, les masses se dressent en pics et montagnes vertigineux, tombent – et avec fracas – explosent, creusant précipices et ravins dans ses propres entrailles.

Quand la colère est apaisée et le calme revenu, la déflagration impromptue laisse en nous l’empreinte de terreur et de respect.

Les innocentes toiles (anodin tissu tendu) dont Manuel Chabrera fait ses peintures, diffèrent de l’océan, en ce qu’après le déchaînement du peintre, elles ne s’aplanissent pas, qu’après l’éruption violente, elles ne se calment plus.

A jamais marquées des cicatrices de sa rage, elles gardent les traces calcinées de ses tourbillons et lacérations, les éclaboussures des pus et des encres, des boursouflures irritées-excitées, où dardent des regards tentateurs, aguichants ou ricaneurs.

Dans l’espace pictural qu’il embrase d’une ardeur incendiaire vacillent de broussailleux gribouillis autour de hanches ondulantes et de juteuses grappes de seins qui papillotent au gré de danses extatiques. 

Surprise ! que cette foisonnante énergie soit limitée … aux bords d’un tableau !

qu’elle soit contenue dans un cadre, poliment, comme pour se conformer à la bienséance.

Serait-ce expérience d’insulaire qui sait qu’au-delà des rives, la mer engloutit tout effort ?

Serait-ce sagesse humaine qui reconnaît que toute émotion comporte une fin … pour être suivie d’une autre ! 

D’Antonio Saura, ce géant du machisme ibérique, auquel on le sent apparenté par l’intrépide occupation de l’espace, la noirceur et l’énergie du trait, Manuel Chabrera se distingue par l’ironie …

Non pas le sarcasme nihiliste d’un Willem De Kooning – cousin spirituel cependant, par la fougue dionysiaque …

Son ironie est souriante, railleuse, compréhensive et affirmative de la vie. Son emportement n’est tragique, ni destructeur. 

Contrairement à la manière fauve d’Alechinsky, plus satirique, caricaturale, Chabrera respire une sensualité heureuse qu’il exprime avec tendresse, arborant une volupté non brimée, une lascivité sans gêne qu’une connotation ludique fait passer sans heurts.

Les forces telluriques sont présentes : les taureau, bouc et cheval – l’instinct animal débridé. La Terre-Mère aussi : Ses bourgeons, la sève, la chaire et le sang … Et il y a l’âme, impalpable, alerte, lumineuse, la danse virevoltante et l’humeur taquine.

Une impressionnante diversité servie par le trait - par une panoplie de traits ! (à la brosse, au pinceau, le fusain, la plume, la pointe …) - de traits nerveux, énergiques, qui courent avec la dextérité illuminée du calligraphe, qui devancent critique et censure.

Une peinture sensuelle, sans être impudique

énergique, sans être fruste

pleine de soleil, sans être amène

un art qui dépeint la vitalité douée de cette enviable harmonie méditerranéenne que nous nous réjouissons d’accueillir chez nous.

Jean Petit      Président du Cercle Artistique de Luxembourg 

WORDS OF WELCOME DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF THE MANUEL CHABRERA EXHIBITION. 22 JANUARY 2002 IN THE CHAPELLE DU RHAM-LUXEMBURG.

Manuel Chabrera is a practicing architect, a teacher, and an inquisitive and observant professional.

Manuel Chabrera is a calm and quiet man.

Just like the serenity and peace of the ocean, or great grasslands he is unsettled. When Trade Winds caress him with their winds, it is Aeolus seized this jealousy who raises to stir him, and the impetuous hurricane that provokes him, the calm waters are begin to swirl, the expanses become peaks, and spiralling mountains fall and explode in roars, opening up abysses in their own bowels.

When rage vanishes and calm returns, the echo of deflagration leaves us with a sensation of horror and respect.

The innocent canvases (tense anodyne weave) on which Manuel Chabrera paints differ from the ocean in that after unleashing the painting aren’t ever pacified again, because after the violent eruption they can never be calm again.

Thus, his outbursts of fury never stay, but the scorched traces of his turmoils and wounds remain, the explosions of paint and ink, the irritated and excited changes of direction, that goad the tempted, stalked, and mocked onlooker.

Swaying brush strokes wind round in the pictorial space where undulating hips, and sets of breasts thrill to the rhythm of static dances, embraced with incendiary ardour.

What a surprise to discover that this emergent energy is limited…to the edges of the painting! And that they find themselves contained in a clean and polished painting …as if to keep up good appearances.

Could it be like the experience of the islander, who knows that like rivers flowing into the sea, all his strength is swallowed?

Or could it be human wisdom that recognises that all emotion means an end …so as to be followed by another?

Antonio Saura, that giant of Iberian machismo, who likewise, feels himself related to the intrepid occupation of space, darkness and energy of the brush stroke. Manuel Chabrera stands out for his irony.

Not for the sarcasm or nihilism of a Willem de Kooking –another spiritual cousin– but for his Dionysian fury.

His irony is a smiling, radiant, understanding, affirmation of life. His trademark is neither tragic nor destructive.

In contrast to the more satirical and caricaturist Fauvist style of Alechinsky, Chabrera breaths a joyous sensuality that is expressed with tenderness, upholding an unbinding will. Lasciviousness without rebuff, that playful connotation allows one to experience without offence.

The telluric forces are present: the bull, the billy goat and the horse –the animal instinct unleashed. Mother Nature too, her shoots, her vitality, the flesh and the blood.

And Chabrera has an impalpable, alert, and brilliant soul, a swirling dance and a wicked humour.

A diversity expressed by the brush stroke, by a panoply of strokes! In brush, graphite, fine-point pen or pencil, in excited, energetic strokes that glide along with the inspired dexterity of a calligrapher going beyond criticism and censorship.

A sensual painter without being indecent.

Energetic without being damaging.

Full of sun without being sickly sweet.

Art that oozes the vitality derived from the enviable Mediterranean harmony, who we are delighted to receive in our home.

Jean Petit. President of the Luxembourg Artistic Circle.

CHABRERA AND PLASTIC OF GESTUALITY.

From the caves of Altamira and Lascaux, on through the Roman sfumati, finally arriving at Pollock, Tapies, or Motherwell, pictorial gestuality has always been present as a creative attitude in Western art, even before its enthronement in contemporary times.

However, amidst its multiple possibilities, there are two that should be differentiated: firstly, what he sets out to do, as a limit of action of his impulse, the periphery of the idea that he wishes to give expression to; and the other, that which, overflowing from him, deals with vague impulsive feeling, indefinable perhaps, like a thrust from the soul.

The first of these attitudes of impulsive plastic creativity lends its attention to silhouettes of things, and achieves it by a discontinued enveloping line that encircles the objective sensation which justifies the starting point.

The other, which is a pure flow, has no limits and its plasmation clashes and can even be confused with stains.

In the middle of both, we find the famous Virgie of Delacroix, or touches of impressionism, both although impressive in their execution, are the objective presence of the exterior world, as far as it is necessary to retain, at any given moment, what is really responsible for the pictorial attitude.

But this is not the question in bipolarisation mentioned above. What is unleashed here is sensuality, the desires of the body to which gestual attitude would be the plastic reply. And it is there that we find the strength and the force of these lines and blotches that stain and transcribe Chabrera’s desires.

They are born of an eye for sweet things in this setting, and are transferred to executive extremities that want to satisfy the desires unleashed by our pupils.

Everything is found captured in the apparently arbitrary strokes or lines (but which are actually wise in so much as shape retention of the desired body goes), which in accord with possession, demonstrate pleasure.

It’s Chabrera’s gestuality that this is all about, a display of high plastic sensuality, verging on the scandalous in his better moments, more than an imposing desire for expression, an idea or an undefined feeling, as happens with current abstract and informalist work.

The body, which he has tried to imprison, is always included, camouflaged, in Chabrera’s strokes. Perhaps this is what makes the artist state that his work is an erotic one.

It is, in the sense of unleashed desire and passion.

Arnau Puig - President de la Associacion Catalana de Critics d' ART. ACCA. Barcelona -Spain July 2001

MANUEL CHABRERA OBTIENE EL MAXIMO GALARDON EN LA ART-EXPO DE PEKÍN

El arquitecto y artista sevillano Manuel Chabrera obtuvo el Premio Especial e Honor , en competición con mas de 400 artistas de todo el mundo en la ART-Expo de China. La exposición inaugurada el pasado 24 de agosto 2001 en el monumental Centro de Exhibiciones de China , de 15.000 m2 ha recibido mas de 140.000 visitas y se ha consolidado como uno de los certámenes de arte con mas prestigio en Extremo Oriente.

El Jurado Internacional destaco la calidad técnica de la obra presentada por el artista sevillano, un conjunto de 15 pinturas minimalistas en blanco y negro, realizadas al óleo .guasch y tinta, y muy especialmente lo innovador de sus propuestas estéticas.

Según indico Chabrera, los cuadros presentados son de temática abstracta , orientada contra la globalización económica y se encuadran en la corriente de expresionismo abstracto.

<<El mercado del arte en China ha experimentado un importante crecimiento superior al 17 % anual debido al aumento de nivel de vida del país ’’ subrayo el mismo pintor.

Mas adelante explico como este éxito del arte español abre importantes vías de acceso al mercado artístico de mayor potencial del mundo.-‘’ Espero que esta puerta abierta sea aprovechada por mas artistas españoles’’-.

El artista sevillano expuso sus obras el año pasado en la ciudad oriental China de Shanghay, con motivo de la Expo Habitat organizada por la Oficina de Representación Comercial de España y el Instituto Español de Comercio Exterior.

Atlantic World-Pekin –China Agosto 2001

MANUEL CHABRERA GETS THE HIGHEST AWARD IN THE ART-EXPO OF PEKING.

Manuel Chabrera, the Sevillian artist and architect, in competition with more than four hundred artists from throughout the world, has won the Special Prize and Honour in China’s Art-Expo. The exhibition which opened on 24 August 2001 in the monumental China Exhibition Centre, has received more than 140,000 visitors and has consolidated itself as one of the most prestigious contests in Far Eastern painting.

The international panel of judges highlighted the technical quality of the work presented by the Seville artist, a set of fifteen black and white minimalist paintings, painted in oils, gouache and ink, and especially the innovator of their aesthetic designs.

According to Chabrera, the paintings presented are abstract in theme and orientated in opposition to economic globalisation, and are categorized under abstract expressionism.

‘The art market in China has experienced an important annual growth in excess of seventeen percent due to the raised standard of living,’ points out the painter himself. ‘Later I will explain how this Spanish art success opens up important inroads into the most powerful art market in the world. I hope that this foot in the door is taken advantage of by more Spanish artists.’

The Sevillian artist exhibited his work in the Oriental Chinese city of Shanghai, to mark the Expo-Habitat organised by the Spanish Office of Trade Representation, and the Spanish Institute of Foreign Trade.

Atlantic World-Pekin –China Aug 2001

MANUEL CHABRERA

When for the first time one finds oneself with Manuel Chabrera’s work, a feeling of curiosity is produced in the person contemplating it; they are drawings of long, violent, continuous strokes where smudges play in a space dominated by lines that, in spite of their attempts, are unable to stand out.

I faced up to, or better said, submerged myself into a world only known to me through academic texts, where world history is narrated. In the great Exhibition Hall of Italcable in Malaga, (the former premises of the first industrial firm of European-American cable communications) today only brings me memories of an already passed investigation. Here, two large… very large, drawings are found, (without apparent connection were it not for a smaller, discordant third) are mounted one in front of the other, attracting you in the beginning with a certain something, although you are unsure what it is.

One of the biggest proportions, ‘El Estrecho’ (‘The Strait’) of 10´ 4.5m, frightening, black, almost grey as a whole, designed with a strength that seems to come from our ancestors. Opposite this heart-wrenching space is the second huge canvas ‘Las olas dicen’ (‘The waves they say…’) 10´ 2.50, full of curves, where the symmetry has been replaced by an apparent carelessness. They stand out from their opponents, not because of their strokes that continue being deliberately chaotic and firm, but rather for their sometimes insulting colourings. and for their naïve tonalities, like those of the child that we all have within who wants to play up behind our parent’s backs. Now the marks have disappeared, the exhaustiveness of a situation expressed in the first format, the world’s greatest carried out like all the rest set out on canvas in oil and gouache and ink.

Just as my curiosity turns to surprise when faced with the examples I have mentioned and others of smaller format, suddenly, a stroke of lightning flashes that goes from Africa to Europe, the explanation as to ‘what?’ or ‘why?’ is ‘El Estrecho’ (‘The Strait’) versus ‘Las olas dicen’ (‘The waves they say…’) The third work ‘Compassion’ of 5.00´ 2.15m draws my attention to the other two sisters. A bridge stretched out by phantasmagoric figures with a graphic dynamic expression like a death dance searching for life. I overcome my curiosity, in this dimensional world made up of three open planes, become conscious, and find myself capable of understanding, of analysing, and of finally being able to express an opinion about Manuel Chabrera's monumental work.

Manuel Chabrera is a man of the Mediterranean who doesn’t want to be indifferent in the face of an oppressed black Africa without chance of escape, facing a glitzy Europe lit by Chinese lanterns from the fair, enticing you to approach her. Entry is made by way of a narrow bridge, apparently tame, but that keeps a terrible paw between its Herculean columns, in one of the most dangerous straits on earth; that of Gibraltar with its constant twilight flow that never arrives at the eternal balance that nature holds out.

Manuel Chabrera is trying, at least in the three paintings that I’ve mentioned, to search for urban planning amidst a black and white world. But in this attempt he is unable to overcome the integral, inherited terror, darkness and fright of the collective memory of the Phoenicians, the previous men of the Mare Nostrum, who were terrified when they attempted to sail the Mar Oceana from Africa in their exodus to a better life. These men expressed their anguish when they left their own large expanses, attracted by the colours of Northern lands. They also paid the voyage with their lives. Manuel Chabrera hasn’t been able to elude history’s magic. In the tiniest of details one can observe the thoroughly academic education of this great poet of graphic expression.

I would like to know how to communicate all the strength of some human states to my students on a huge blackboard, by means of this graphic expression painted rather than drawn by maestro Manuel Chabrera.

In Malaga, at the end of July 2001.

Pedro Portillo Franquelo.

Professor of Graphic Expression at the University of Malaga. Spain

CRITICA AMERICANA SITUA A CHABRERA ENTRE GOYA Y PICASSO.

La prestigiosa revista Art Focus dedica su numero 70 (pagina 22 y portada interior) al artista Español Manuel Chabrera, destacando los importantes paralelismos de su obra artistica con la tradicion creadora del arte Español y Chino.

La critica, impresionada por la magnifica Exposicion realizada en la sede del Organismo de las Naciones Unidas (ICAO) en Montreal (Canada) , proclama la alegria y sensualidad de sus lienzos llenos de vida y color Mediterraneos pero tambien de poesia y sensibilidad budista.

Chabrera que ha presentado en la Feria Internacional de Arte Contemporaneo de Madrid (ARCO 2001) su primer libro internacional de arte, producido entre España y America, ha obtenido un importante liderazgo de ventas, en este evento que se consolida como uno de los mas importantes de Europa.

Atlantic W. 12 de marzo 2001

A LINKING POINT BETWEEN ZEN AND FLAMENCO.

The most joyful moments are always brief. This is the case of the exhibition of paintings, great canvases and graphic designs of the Spanish artist CHABRERA in the luminous Atrium, the relatively new general headquarters of the ICAO in University of Montreal (Canada) Street, before moving on to Chicago and Shanghai. This painter and sculptor, who is also architect and urban planner in Seville, where he has taught architecture in the university. Painting and architecture is a productive combination: Le Corbusier was a cubist painter before becoming famous as a theoretician and creator of some paradigms of twentieth century architecture.

‘Just like the abstract expressionists, Chabrera fills his great canvases with brush strokes, stains and splashes of paint, that are later displayed from the ceiling.’

‘I set out sculpting the clay on a small scale and project myself towards greater (architectonic) dimensions, while the transformation of movement between line and colour is something that is produced naturally,’ says Chabrera.

The artist puts emphasis on strokes full of sensuality toying between lightness and density. He frequently complements blacks with dazzlingly bright Mediterranean primary colours.

The sensuality and passion harks back to the Spanish artistic tradition, of Goya, and Picasso at his height (post 1950 period).

From the Orient expressionists, fills his gigantic canvases with strokes, strains and blotches, that are then exhibited hanging from the ceiling. But Chabrera is also interested in pre-Christian Andalucia, that of the Phoenician-Romans and Arab; that is why he has participated in the search for historical ruins and has discovered ancient Phoenician cities. That is what all his brilliant painting is made up of. His art is full of sensual happiness, of the joyous style of life, particular to Seville, and of an enormous sense of humour.

Chabrera has received several important distinctions and international prizes. Recently he was admitted into the Museum of Latin American art in Florida and has exhibited in the Palace of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

Andre Seleanu -ARTFOCUS/70 MAGAZINE –CANADA. 

CHABRERA OPENS AT THE INSTITUTO CERVANTES –CHICAGO-ILLINOIS-USA.

To celebrate the 5th Annual Artist's Month in Chicago, the Instituto Cervantes has brought an exhibit by avant-garde Spanish artist and architect Manuel Chabrera to their centre in the John Hancock Building.

Chabrera, a native of Seville, has exhibited at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva , at cultural centres and galleries in London, Paris ,Brussels ..etc. He was awarded the 1998 International Silver Medal of the European Academy of the Arts and the 1999 Gold Medal of Modern Art from the Salon Internacional del Prestigio in Madrid.

Chabrera has produced highly original and personal work characterized by his choice of oils, gouache, and ink, and by superheroes, bulls, words, and pop culture figures as his subjects. Young people in particular identify with Chabrera, as he frequently refers to contemporary social issues and uses an Abstract Expressionist "action painting" technique, creating monumental proportions.

Manuel Chabrera's work embodies a style representing movement and the emotion of

the spectacle. Black, grey and white are the colours of this artist, whose work is very close aesthetically to that of the German Expressionists. His paintings have an energy and a singularity that move the viewer. Motion and architectural interpretation of the object are two elements inherent to his paintings, working to attract the viewer.

The architect conceives his paintings from the inside out instead of observing the traditionally established distance between the painter and the painted surface. His view is rather that of one experiencing space from inside out, as in looking out from the interior of a building. The result is a visionary world filled with mysterious shadows, but shadows amongst which we can make out a powerful beam of light.

Manuel Chabrera's exhibit is travelling from Montreal to Chicago and ending in

Shanghai.

Carmen Gonzalez-Paz Troya. Instituto Cervantes –Chicago. Usa- November 2000

THE SOCIAL VIEWPOINT OF MANUEL CHABRERA IS EXHIBITED IN ITALCABLE HALL. Carmen Martin Malaga.

Manuel Chabrera displays for the first time in Malaga a selection of his most social avant-garde paintings in the Exhibition Hall of Unicaja Italcable, where from last Tuesday 24 July to 30 August, a total of thirteen works by the artist from Seville, on canvas and paper, can be appreciated. They take root in his particular reflection of the immigration of, ‘those people who risk their lives to have a better future,’ declares Chabrera.

The painter, recognised internationally for his artistic career with the European Academy of Arts’ International Silver Medal 1998, and the 1999 Gold Medal of Modern Art from Madrid’s Salon de Prestigio, considers the Italcable Hall exhibition ‘privileged’, because it contains one of his most dimensional works, ‘The Strait’, a picture that holds a dialogue with another of his pictorial creations, ‘Las olas dicen’ (‘The waves they say…’). Both artistic expressions reflect what the artist describes as, ‘the vision of a person, who while looking out to sea, receives stories of others who want to come to Spain,’ adding that, ‘a link exists between this particular dialogue across the painting ‘Compassion’ that translates this social theme into black brushstrokes on white.’

Competitive art.

Manuel Chabrera is currently preparing another selection of his pictures on the same topic for the Peking International Exhibition, where he will be the only Spaniard displaying his work. Later Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture will play host to another compilation of his paintings between which one will be able to see those exhibited in Peking and part of those from the Malaga exhibition.

‘When Spanish art gets out there, it’s capable of competing, and doing well or even better than foreign art,’ points out the European Academy of Arts member, who considers that, ‘it is young people that can take art to the highest level, since they are the future for bringing Spanish creativity to the world,’ and he adds that, ‘the institutions are those which have to propel avant-garde art.’

This abstract realist painter blends his pictorial and sculptural work thanks to architecture, ‘where space, volume, light-play and the joy to live fit together… from it you can play with the elements that you need, either for painting or for sculpture,’ he specifies.

Diario Sur . Malaga . July 2001. 

MANUEL CHABRERA ADIEGO.

Manuel Chabrera Adiego, architect and urban-developer, recalls far away countries every day, but with more affection thinks of the light and magic of Sevilla, that Andalusian air that he has breathed since he was a child of two, and without doubt has had much to do with the awakening of that genius spirit that inspires few privileged beings. It includes those who preserve with full freshness the child that we all carry inside of us, maintaining the excitement for small things, the mind open to everything new that can enrich our souls, and the capacity to surrender to that which they love passionately.

Manuel persisted stubbornly in that which has been his devotion since childhood: the creative unrest, be it in architecture, sculpture, and also in the painting to which he dedicated his free time. And it was once more Marian, his wife, also architect and professional companion, who encouraged him to present his work in international exhibitions where he immediately had very important success and that have changed him into one of the most interesting and well-known Spanish artists on an international level. Exhibitions in London, Montreal, Geneva, Chicago, Shanghai, and Paris have provoked an important change in his life. His vocation is projecting his public figure further than his profession.

It is a privileged situation to which arrive only those elected by this "genius" that passes amongst us humans looking for fertile soil prepared for its exceptional fruits.

Q: "Manuel, in what moment did you discover that painting was something important to you?"

A: "Since I was young it was terrible for my parents, because I filled everything with doodles and little drawings. I learned to draw at a very young age under the influence of great masters such as Francisco Maireles or Manuel Alverez and it was my father who introduced me to Picasso when I was fourteen years old."

Q: "You studied architecture and won Top Prize in your class. Do you consider yourself a good architect who dedicates himself to painting, or an artist that looks to architectural formation and technique to channel this creativity?"

A: "We all ought to know something about architecture, of that fantastic territory in which creation becomes unlimited. I have learned that you can create indefinitely, with light and space, you can make from buildings to sculptures where you fit inside or paintings in which you can integrate yourself as one more part of an immense theatrical scene in which life is always intensely developing."

Q: "Tell us how the idea occurred to participate in your first exhibition."

A: "Although since I was sixteen I had always done small oil paintings or drawings to which I had given no importance, it was Marian, -who has great artistic vision-, who had the courage to present two of my works in Paris in an international exhibition (even though I objected). There, after a kind of controversy amongst the Jury, I won the International Silver Medal, and I later presented my works in more contests where I attained other important prizes."

Q: "From that moment on your status in the art world has been progressively more firm. How is this affecting you on a personal level?"

A: "Although I try to maintain a certain continuity in my rhythm of life, the obligations I have in other countries are becoming more frequent. Because of this I would like to put aside more time to enjoy my own beautiful homeland, memories of which lately have become more and more predominant in my work, which is filling itself with vital sensations that I have never before felt. - Just think that I have to spend almost two-thirds of my time travelling outside of Spain."

"To me Andalusia has a privileged nature that I fell in love with when I was just a child, because in a certain way I grew up playing in these lands, this beauty ?

INSIDE HIS PAINTINGS: MANUEL CHABRERA

When he paints, Manuel CHABRERA stands or crouches in the middle of the canvas stretched on the floor. The result of this close physical encounter between his body and the white canvas mediated by large ink or paint dripping brushes are his sombre, mostly black and grey paintings.

Like the 'Abstract Expressionist' painter Jackson Pollock half century ago, CHABRERA colonises the canvas, surrounding himself with its four sides, thus relinquishing the traditional methods and tools of the painter's métier: easel and palette.

With Pollock however, the very gesture of the act of painting became the subject-matter, his compositions a mere result and yet in spite of the violence of the physical act in which he engaged when he painted which shocked his contemporaries, the result are compositions of great delicacy and beauty.

'Action painting' was the name coined up by Harold Rosemberg primarily for the benefit of Willem de Kooning and it is perhaps de Kooning who provides the main source of inspiration, for CHABRERA's paintings remains firmly figurative albeit almost at ' Gestalt' level.

Whilst there are 'correspondences' between 'Abstract Expressionist' or 'Action painting' and CHABRERA's own expressionism, there are also important differences. Thus instead of privileging the action of painting aver the end result, he reversed the process by privileging again the physical object over the 'conceit'. In turns this is also altered whereby 'action' gives way to 'space': e.g. the architect conceiving his paintings from inside out, instead of observing the traditionally established distance between painter and painted surface, rather as one would experience space from inside out in a building. The result is a visionary world, a world filled with mysterious shadows but among the shadows we spy a glimmer of light.

Sanda Miller, March 2000, CANINNG HOUSE, London(U.K.)

Manuel Jose CHABRERA ADIEGO, de Tomares (E.). II est né á San Carlos de la Rapita (Tarragone). II fait ses études en architecture en se spécialisant dans l’urbanismee, jusqu'en 1975. II obtient alors le «Prix extraordinaire d'Archítecture » de L`hótel de ville de Séville. Il realise Le projet « Habitat d'émergence» pour L`Union Internationale des Architectes. Ce projet est

exposé au musée d'Art contemporain, de Séville, puis au Congrés international de l'U.I.A., á Madrid. II a fait des voyages d'études aux Etats-Unis, en Gréce, en France, en Angleterre, en Afrique du Nord et en Italia.

II publie des articles dans de nombreuses revues techniques et est professeur d'urbanisme á l'école d'architecture de Séville. II a aussi obtenu le Prix Cer-

vantes de sculpture, de l'hótel de ville de Castilleja de la Cuesta. II pratique la sculpture el la peinture.

BOLETIN L’ACADEMIE EUROPEENNE DES ARTS. OCT.1985

BLACK ON WHITE.

Black on white. Manuel Chabrera draws on the canvas his vision of men and their history. Black on white. The tear and the symbol balance their weight in a dramatic and poetic struggle, that nails its roots in the dreams of Goya. Black on white. Violent affirmation of the life that enlarges its voice until arriving to the yell in a monumental work that hides its intellectual refinement behind the mask of spontaneity. Black on white. Apparent negation of color and absolute search of light. The white is made meat and the black discovers for us the form of the spirit. The work of Chabrera is a poem written on a huge canvas.

Mario Antolin Paz

President of the Madrid Association of Art Critics. MADRID NOV.1999

MANUEL CHABRERA ADIEGO-- THE ESSENTIAL LOOK

What does it mean today to practice an honest and digneous profession? It means, simply, be located in "no man’s land". That is to say, its practicer, Manuel Chabrera, is a kind of warrior that it has been thrown to the mountain, prepared to be faced with all kinds of oppositions. He makes an independence statement, because that is, in fact, what it means to unite its forebodings and returns, to group the artisian, what is artistic and what is decorative.

We are, since, before a personage prepared to go against the current, prepared to manufacture an image of itself removed from the cliches and categories to the use.

Almost from his first steps he understood that one of the greatest wrongs that they have afflicted contemporary art is that of the separation between the public - that for him is not an abstract bulk, estranged and anonymous - and the accomplishments that the artist offers and in those which he materializes his ideas, his visual proposals.

The life of Chabrera is the product of a series of revolts. But his being thrown to the mountain is not for him a spectacle, neither much less one of those postures that end being the profitable development of the ideologies. His insurgence is, to put it into wordst, domestic. His ideas are not incarnated in the public sector, but in the private field, being integrated in its own existence. In that way, it results that the warrior fights without the pretence of being a ringleader.

THE MODEL AND THE SYSTEM

In few years, our artist lived the experience that goes from the dadaist affront to the informal indetermination and to the objectualistic "pop". But in the step through such experiences he never accepted the mechanical submission of the epigonions. As a huge warrior, a bothersome and uncomfortable insurgent, he crossed those artistic behaviors imposing his own conditions.

He understood that he needed to breathe fresh air, to seek the incorporation of the spectator. The public had to be there, within the works and immersed in his joint space - temporary; it ought to form part of his identity, so that the vision of each work comports the presence of the image of him who sees it, framing its attitudes, its movements and even its words.

The revolt of such a wonderful way of making, does not go against the innocent spectator that, when all is said and done, has no blame of the existing groundswell under the misleading appearance of the artistic mythologies interestedly promoted by the artist himself and by those who market the art, without our forgetting its critical commenta

Francisco Mairelestors. The desmitificating doubts of Chabrera go against being the "artist", being supported in his personal forebodings as well as in his individual returns.

THE PAINTING

The work of Manuel Chabrera introduces us into a wonderful world. Of dream, of potency-poetic, in the one which distress does not exist, in the one which we can come to touch what is beautiful, in that which everything belongs to us. With this has been opened to us the corridor toward the world of its own work. And this world that Chabrera is preparing for us, is a world where the drawing, in white and black, or in color, and the simplest beauty, suffice to give us an essence of that space that up until now we have only been able to envisage from afar.

In the study of the artist I have been able to prove, surprised, that painting is not reduced to wanting to make a luminous picture or merchandise of quality, repeating a series in a way already known. In the current art from the last contributions and experiences, the artistic work already supposes something else .

The meaning of this expression, of this vocation, and this opening toward meditation is that of a wide and brilliant exception; a plastic accomplishment of deep spirituality that acquires exceptional character in our world of overdone masification and consumation... What more can words say? Before your eyes, you have the work shouting at you its own life. The work of an authentic artist that creates without grants, eternal seeking of the truth.

Rafael Muñoz.

Critico de Arte Diario Sevilla Información. Artistic Director, Unicaja. FEB 2000.

MANUEL CHABRERA , THE ART OF THE LINE.

The art of the architect from seville Manuel CHABRERA is the art of the line . When he paints he is drawing in reality, normally in black color , adding in some works words , texts or letters.

He draws since he was fourteen years old as a consequence of remaining impressed with the painting of Pablo Picasso " Woman before a mirror"; this vision awoke to him his interest on painting.His work may be register within the Abstract Realism, work of elemental imagination and spontaneity, we can indicate that it has connection with the new creative savages of the German Newexpresionism (Penck, Lüpertz, Baselitz, Kiefer)and with the American Jean-Michel Basquiat , the childish appearance in his works endures a message , and many of the accomplishments accuse an evident social intention. The track paintings also accuse of Paul Klee, Picasso, Willem of Kooning, Alechinsky, Franz Kline, Twombly, Dubuffet, Saura and Fautrier.

Between the ironical and the tragical, CHABRERA speaks to us about the man,and the singularity of the images impregnatting all his work.

But it is useless to seek antecedent and to assign the work of CHABRERA in theAbstrac realism,as in the large artists ,as CHABRERA is. The style is the man and conversely.

M.Rufi Gibert.

Curator of the FLORIDA MUSEUM. Miami Usa 1998.

L’ACADEMIE EUROPEENNE DES ARTS

In reference to the painting , I have to outline the wide fan of technical topics ,the miscellaneous palette of our expository ,framework that made to emphasize the works represented by the painter:Manuel José CHABRERA Adiego ,citicen at Seville and architect by vocation and training, and self-taught painter by interest .

His colors,the target of the funds (the paper is the support) ,and the black of the outlines compose all the range of grays.

His painting , wild, suggests us force and spontaniety, the expression of his spirit states that is revolted before the realities or is joined in solidarity with them .

It is admirable that ,with this shortage of means, could suggest us different feelings and states of encourage being cost only becaused of the vigor of the outlines . I believe that it is his principal characteristic and it did not want to carry him with additionally courses but, in my mind emerges the question :

That it would make with the color ?

As architect Manuel CHABRERA plays with volumes and lights as well as the colors, seeking space harmonies where the man could find household backwater. I do not doubt that our painter could reach levels much higher ,I wait that next issues brings us other works in those which could read his development and renovation.

The Spanish section of the European Academy of the Arts , conceded to him the gold medal by his work and is pleased in congratulating him for its deserved appointment as member of the Hispanic museum - Latino -American on Florida.

Concha Ramirez.

ACADEMIA EUROPEA .Madrid.España November 99

MANUEL CHABRERA, AMBASSADOR IN PENUMBRA.

Buenos Aires, Geneva, London, Paris... the international critics support this artist, Sevillian by adoption and unknown to his city. SEVILLE

He is one of the most recognized artists outside of Seville, though his name hardly has echo in the city.

Architect by profession, Manuel CHABRERA has in his letter of merits the Silver Medal of the European Academy of the Arts and that of Gold of the International Salon of Prestige in Paris.

Furthermore, this Sevillian by adoption who was born in Tarragona can boast of having exhibited in spaces of renown such as the headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, in the salon of the European Academy of Brussels, and in other cities such as Florida and Wiesbaden, where he has pending to fix the date of an individual exposition in the WFK.

The two years in which he has accomplished these achievements do not amount to an accumulation of happy coincidences. CHABRERA continues his rising career in the world of the art as confirms the exposiction the exposition that is anticipated in April in the cultural space of Hyde Park in London and the one which he will inaugurate in June in Buenos Aires in a official organization dependent of the Government. These two international appointments will be seen mediated by the exhibit that he will present in Seville in the month of May and that, due to lack yet of a room, he will organize cooperatively with a cultural entity of the city.

The three expositional appointments will have as core an identical plastic analysis on the relationship between man and his environment. In them the artist will show, from abstract realism, a series of original works with certain connections with the creation of Goya, Picasso and el Greco, according to the commentaries of his work that have been formulated by figures such as Mario Amtolin Paz, president of the Madrid Association of Art and delegate reviewers of the fair Arte-Sevilla.

Manuel CHABRERA states that he draws off of reality before confronting the canvas. Painting for him is a means of evasion with that which manifests the worries that accumulate at the end of the day. "It is considered a daily labor, of a committed work. My painting derives from the sensations that I take from the reality and then I undress themon the canvas."

The silence in which rests his work in Seville as compared to the notable acceptance that it has had abroad it does not raise in the artist any resentment. In spite of all, he explains, "I feel recognized in Seville because always I carry it present within me. This city me has given me everything professionally".

The exhibit that took place in November in Geneva has been for him one of the most surprising successes that destiny has had for him. In it he presented a dozen works of different formats thanks to the negotiations accomplished by Francisco Barja, a microbiologist who works in Switzerland, who was greatly

impressed by the paintings that CHABRERA exhibited last year in the Gallery Isabel Ignacio. "They delighted him to the point of taking a catalogue that he later presented in the International Organization of Telecommunications."

His work was liked and it was selected to represent Spain in the International exposition that was welcomed by the Palais des Nations, headquarters of United Nations in Geneva. The event would open to him numerous doors since there he made contact with galeries that have made appointments for him to exhibit in Germany, England and Argentina. From the country of the Pampas he negotiates these days in Arco with the galery curators Diana Lowenstein and Ruth Benzacar.

PATH MORE THAN FIFTEEN YEARS OF ROBBING SLEEP

Since he was two years old Manuel CHABRERA has lived in Seville. Born in Tarragona, he conceives painting as the one interest from which he can not turn away. For it he robs himself of sleep since the majority of the hours of the day he employs in the architectural studio that he has on the Plaza Nueva of Seville.

As architect he counts on his having the prize that the Town Hall of Seville awarded to him for his studies. Some works of his are the bridge of Villafranco del Guadalquivir and an urbanistic project near the Santuario de Regla, in Chipiona.

He combines his profession with the painting that he has done since when he was 16 years old.

He has devoted himself to plastic art since he was fourteen - now he is 47 - when he was left facsinated upon seeing Picasso's painting Mujer ante un espejo (Woman before a mirror).

The achievements obtained in these two years CHABRERA owes to his consistancy, and in some instances, to the pledge of his wife that presented his work in competition. The obtained results, however, were not enough to encourage him to abandon architecture.

INMACULADA GARCIA.

DIARIO DE SEVILLA. Feb.14. 2000.

INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS OF A SEVILLIAN ARTIST

PAINTING.

Manuel CHABRERA it is a Sevillian architect and artist who triumphs in the most important world cities of culture.

Some weeks ago, a painting of his took presidence in the international exposition that was celebrated in the Palais des Nations, headquarters of the UN in the Swiss city of Geneva. After exhibiting in Germany, Argentina and England, Manuel CHABRERA begins the year 2000 with important appointments fixed in the agenda, as his next individual expositions are in New York and in the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee in Lausana.

DIARIO EL PAIS, JANUARY 10, 2000.

INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS OF A SEVILLIAN PAINTER IN THE UNITED NATIONS.

An exceptional painting of almost nine meters of height of the Sevilian artist and architect, Manuel CHABRERA, has ruled the International Exposition that has been celebrated in the Palais des Nations, headquarters of United Nations, which has its headquarters in Geneva.

CHABRERA has arrived in Seville for the Christmas holidays after the trip that from Switzerland has carried him for more than a month through Germany, London and Buenos Aires, and the one in which he has been received by the principal museums and cultural centers, for example; VKF in Wiesbaden, the Art Museum of Munich or the Spanish Art Museum in Buenos Aires, among others.

The Sevillian artist has presented in the United Nations a total of twelve works of different formats that have caused a great interest among the international public, between which it is meritorious to emphasize two magnificent works:’Los desconocidos’ (The unknowns), where the artist effects a conceptual tour through the history of the portrait in the painting, and ‘El Arbol de la vida’ (The tree of life), an exceptional painting of great size (850 x 220 centimeters).

In this last painting the artist in addition to demonstrating his dominance of huge pictorial dimensions, outlines the eternal problems of life and humanity within an evolutionary sequence.

The prestigious Spanish critic Mario Antolin, President of the Associacion of Critiqueof Madrid and also of the accredited Art Fair of Seville, has written of this exposicion: "CHABRERA's work is monumental, he hides his refinement behind the spontaneity, it is a poem written on a huge canvas."

The public success has been seen corresponded by critique, that has underlined the importance of the outlined artistic proposals, so that it is possible that since Picasso there has not been in Switzerland any other

Spanish artist that may have generated another international event of similar cultural projection.

He especially emphasizes the quality of the work presented in this exhibit, that mark a continuity in the line in the breaking process with traditional painting, to find new roads of expression in the dirrection begun by the famous painter from Malaga with Las Señoritas de Avignon, and the one in which a new artist returns to the inexhaustible task of defining the vectors of the future modern art, establishing an artistic bridge with the extreme east.

CHABRERA will move this exposition thereinafter to London, where it will be accepted by the Cultural Space of Belgrave, to later travel to this city during the month of April.

DIARIO SEVILLA IFORMACION. DECEMBER 20, 1999.

(r)WHEN I WAS YOUNG, THEY ALREADY DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO REWARD ME WITH¯

On the ninth he leaves for Geneva; where he will represent Spain in the homage that the Organization of the United Nations will pay to Jos‚ Luis Sert, who was the first architect of the Nations Society. He will carry with him to Swizterland twelve of his paintings, that he will attempt to sell in order to donate the benefits that the sales bring him to the nongovernmental organization Tierra de Hombres.

"What merits present for your designation as national representative?"

"The international gold medal of Madrid and the silver one of Paris have catapulted my work into mouth of the international critique that has accepted it in a surprising manner."

"And your jump into the pictorial scene, has it been recent, or is it something that has been kept in the shadows up until now?"

"I have been painting since the age ot sixteen, and in the School of Architecture, where I studied my carreer, there was a moment in which they no longer knew what award they were going to give me."

"How did you accomplish, then, what they fix on your work?"

"The credit is my wife's, who compelled me to present paintings, two years ago, in the exposition of the European Academy, in Paris, where they caused quite a sensation."

"Nowadays, can a person live exclusively off painting?"

"Life is so difficult these days, that I would say it is necessary to work on more than one thing to achieve getting ahead."

"With what style do you paint?"

"The critics have considered that my style of painting forms part of the abstract realistic current."

"Of the works that you will take with you to Switzerland, which is the one of the most value?"

"The painting that the critics have chosen with the greater pleasure is Desconocidos, although ‘El Arbol de la vida’, of 850 x 220 centimeters, is sure to to be seen in the exposition, as well."

DAVID FERNANDEZ.

DIARIO EL NUNDO. NOVEMBER 6, 1999

REVOLUTIONARY PAINTER: ACTIVE MEMBER OF L'ACADEMIE EUROPENNE DES ARTS, MANUEL CHABRERA ADIEGO HAS A VAST WORK, APPRECIATED FOR HIS REVOLUTIONARY TECHNIQUE AND HIS CLEANSING TECHIQUE.

The Sevillian architect Manuel CHABRERA Adiego, active member of the L'Academie Europenne des Arts and winner of the Silver Medal for his amplious pictorial work has decided to donate to the Fundacion Tierra de Hombres (Earth Foundation of men) the benefits of the sale of his next exposition that will take place in the Palace of the United Nations in Geneva from the 9th to the 19th of this current month of November.

This painter has a vast work, appreciated by the experts for his revolutionary technique and his thematic purification.

Fundacion Tierra de hombres (Tdg) , through this gift will reinforce its means, helping with the creation of a recovery center - with capacity for 200 children - in the neighborhoods of Lima with special needs.

JOSE MARIA GOMEZ.

DIARIO EL CORREO DE ANDALUCIA. NOVEMBER 5, 1999.

INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS OF THE SEVILLIAN ARTIST MANUEL CHABRERA

SEVILLE

The Sevillian architect and artist Manuel CHABRERA just returned from the International Exposition that has taken place in the Palais des Nations, headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva. CHABRERA has presented in the UN a total of twelve works of different formats that have caused a great interest among the international public. Among them has stood out a painting of almost nine meters of height.

The success of CHABRERA in Geneva has caused that since Picasso there has not been seen in Switzerland works of art that had so much recognition. The presented works mark a line of continuation with breaking trend from traditional painting that marked among other artists Pablo Picasso. After the success

reached in the United Nations, three individual exhibits have already been confirmed in London, Buenos Aires and Seville, which will held be in spring.

Diario de SEVILLA. MONDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1999

MANUEL CHABRERA, GOLD MEDALLIST OF THE EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF THE ARTS

The International Committee of the European Academy of the Arts has awarded to the Sevillian architect Manuel CHABRERA Adiego the gold medal of contemporary painting, on the occasion of the celebration of the Salon del Prestigio 1999.

At present, the artist has two expositions with the same theme. One is in Brussels and other in Seville, where a painting of more than eight meters, (r)El Arbol de la vida¯, is being exhibited.

DIARIO ABC. MAY 19, 1999

MANUEL CHABRERA, GOLD MEDALLIST OF MODERN ART, EXHIBITS IN SEVILLE

''YOUNG PEOPLE IDENTIFY WITH HIS PAINTING''

The gallery Isabel Ignacio accepts until 31st of May the first exposition in Seville of the painter Manuel CHABRERA Adiego, who recently has been awarded with the Gold Medal of Modern Art by the Salon International del Prestigio of Madrid. Of the exhibit, CHABRERA emphasizes the work ‘El Arbol de la vida’ (The tree of life), a metaphor on the evolution of the human being, that it has been catalogued by the experts as one of the largest of Andalusia.

The architect and painter Manuel CHABRERA Adiego, Gold Medallist of Modern Art of the Salon International del Prestigio of Madrid, exhibits since last May 4th in Seville a selection of 29 of his best and most recent works. This exposition coincides with other exhibits of the artist, one of which is taking place in the Salon de la Academia Europea in Brussels. Both agree thematically, since CHABRERA intends with his projects to offer to the public a vision of modern-day reality from the world of painting. In the opinion of the painter, (r)one would say that one is a extension of the other.

Of the exhibit, CHABRERA emphasizes the painting (r)’El Arbol de la vida’, a metaphor on the evolution of the human being, that it has been catalogued by the experts as one of the largest of Andalusia, with the impressive measurment of 210 cm in width by 850cm in height; and (r)’dobletes’, pictures of small format

baptized as such for their distribution to what is long and because (r)when they are purchased they double in thier value¯.

The paintings, created between the final months of 1998 and this year, are accomplished in oil, gouache and ink. The 19 paintings that compose this exhibit have been selected between different series of the author: the first and the last of the series of the dance, (r)Batman¯ and (r)Superman¯ of that of the Superheroes, the best of the Andalusian John Galiano of that of the mode, (r)los ojos¯ of the series of Francis Bacon and the double of the bull running of the series of the bull. It also includes three images of popular locations of Seville.

What calls the most attention to the author is the great acception that his work is enjoyed by the youngest members of the public: (r)young people can identify with the lines of my painting and it encourages me to continue with the black and white, since the color is discovered in the interior of the painting¯.

In addition to the Gold Medal of the’Salon Internacional del Prestigio’ that has been awarded to him recently, the Sevillian artist was awarded four months ago with the International Silver Medal for his series of the bull. His work was exhibited in the Galer¡a Europ Art '99, in Geneva, and he has been invited to participate in the United Nations in September with a exposition on refugees. His style has been defined by the experts as abstract impressionism, continuing the line of German impressionism. It is considered a very personal style of painting, that the Sevillians will be able to view at no cost through the next 31st of May in the gallery Isabel Ignacio.

MARIA JOSE VIDAL.

DIARIO ABC. MAY 18, 1999.

PAINTING , MANUEL CHABRERA.

His painting, that always moves inside the limits of expresionism, gets its strength from current affairs, from the people and the things that impact the artist through the media .

MARGOT MOLINA. 

EL PAIS DE LAS TENTACIONES. MAY 14, 1999

MANUEL CHABRERA studied architecture in Seville and received the Premio Extraordinario Fin De Carrera (Grand Prize at end of Studies) from the Town Hall of Seville, but painting and sculpture have been 'hobby' or his occupation in the late-night hours since the age of 16.

He is a member of the European Academy of the Arts with headquarters in Brussels and his exhibits have been shown in Sevilla, Madrid and Paris, where he has recieved the International Silver Medal of the Exposition L'UVA of Paris, 1998. To this reward one must to add the International Gold Medal from the Salon de Prestigio of Madrid, 1999.

CHABRERA is an honorary member of the Hispanic and Latin American Art Museum of Florida and this individual exhibit that he is now presenting is his first, simultaneously with another that is taking place in the Sal¢n Internacional of L'Academie Europeenne des Arts, in Brussels.

ROSA SIVIANES.

REVISTA EL GIRALDILLO. MAY, 1999

CHABRERA PRESENTS A PAINTING OF SEVEN METERS IN HIS FIRST EXHIBIT IN SEVILLE

The architect Manuel CHABRERA (Tarragona, 1952) will inaugurate today in the gallery Isabel Ignacio of Seville his first individual exhibit. CHABRERA, who has been painting since the age of 16, had never dared to show his work until, last year, he received the silver medal from the International Exposition L'UVA of Paris.

The sample, that will be open until May 31st, is presided over by a large painting, of seven meters of length by two in width, in which the artist has painted ‘El Arbol de la vida’ (The tree of life). "The tree appears firm because is rooted in a rock, which for me means the survival of mankind," comments CHABRERA, who likes to work in large formats.

"I have works on even larger canvases than this one, of 10x5 meters. That permits me to immerse myself within the picture, the sensation is more intensive as forming part of the work," assures the architect who has lived in Seville since the age of two.

The painting of CHABRERA, very close to the style of German impressionism, plays with black, gray and white. In one of his paintings, ‘La mirada de la pasion’ (The look of passion), the artist has introduced color.

It is considered a portrait of a woman in which the obscure tones have been intensified with red strokes.

The exhibit, that consists of 18 works on cloth and paper, is a selection of the work of the last two years. ‘Los ojos de Francis Bacon’ (The eyes of Francis Bacon) or Pensando en mayo del 68 (Thinking of May '68) are two of the selected paintings.

MARGOT MOLINA.

DIARIO EL PAIS. MAY 4, 1999

SEVILLIAN ART IN THE MUSEUM OF FLORIDA

The Sevillian painter and architect Manuel CHABRERA has been admitted to the Hispanic and Latin American Art Museum of the state of Florida, privilege reserved to a limited number of Spanish artists, which allows him to have one of his works permanently exhibited in this center.

CHABRERA was proposed as member of the mentioned museum by its own 'curator' (expert in art), M. Rufi-Gilbert, who became familiar with his work at the Miami International Art '99 and, afterwards, traveled to Seville to further investigate his painting, that qualified as "abstract realism" with an "elemental imagination and very spontaneous in infantile appearance but with a great social message".

CHABRERA (Tarragona, 1952; but inhabitant of Seville for many years) emphasized the important impulse in his career that supposes this admission, since it will permit him to exhibit in the next Geneva Art Fair Europ' Art '99 (14 to 18 of April), sponsored by the Batik International gallery and under the American flag "since that was the condition that they proposed to me".

In addition, his participation in the exhibit of Geneva, one of the most important of Europe, will be followed by his first individual exposition, that will take place in the gallery Isabel Ignacio of Seville from the 4th to the 30th of May.

LAURA BLANCO.

DIARIO DE ANDALUCIA. APRIL 5, 1999.

AWARD Sevillian in Florida.

The Sevillian architect Manuel CHABRERA Adiego has been admitted as a member of the Hispanic and Latin American Art Museum of the State of Florida, under whose flag he participated in the Geneva Art Fair Europ' Art '99.

EVE JIMENEZ.

DIARIO ABC. MARCH 24, 1999

MANUEL CHABRERA, NEW MEMBER OF THE LATINO ART MUSEUM OF FLORIDA

The architect and painter Manuel CHABRERA has been appointed member of the Florida Museum of Hispanic and Latin American Art. CHABRERA, Sevillian of 46 years, has been painting for more than 30 years, but never, up until now, had ever thought of being be devoted professionally to painting.

The architect contacted the directors of the museum when he attended the International Fair of Miami Art '99, and he had sent one of his works to the center in Florida.

CHABRERA, who has never done an individual exposition, will participate, with the Batik International gallery of Miami, in the Europ' Art Fair '99 that will take place next April in Geneva (Switzerland). His black and gray paintings on paper, that have an esthetic very similar to that of expressionism, are mostly portraits of public figures that have had an impact on the artist through the media.

CHABRERA, who anticipates realizing in May his first individual exhibit in the Isabel Ignacio gallery, will visit in June the Contemporary Art Fair of Buenos Aires (Argentina).

MARGOT MOLINA.

DIARIO EL PAIS. MARCH 19, 1999.

SEVILLE. Manuel CHABRERA AND COCA COLA.

The Santa Cruz neighborhood of Seville will be, in a couple of months, famous the world over thanks to the next commercial of the multinational company of Coca-Cola, that chosen it as scene for its advertisemt campaign.

A house from the end of the XIX century, restored recently by the studio of the Sevillian architect Manuel CHABRERA, has been the site chosen by the prestigious advertising director Tarsem, director of some announcements for well-known brands such as Levis, Nike or Sweeppes.

With a cost of two hundred million pesetas, the American producer Toadd Productions (that counts on a subsidiary in M laga), delayed four days in recording the story, entitled Running to the store.

For this, Tarsem made no changes to the house that served as stage, except to remove the carpets so that the original floors were seen, since from the beginning he was in love with the light, the color and the antique style of the building, whose restoration took eight months and it maintained its original image, as much on the outside as on the inside.

The architect of this careful work, Manuel CHABRERA, explained that his project was imposed by a previous one that proposed "pulling it all from within".

Against all odds, the work done by CHABRERA and his team (made up of some twenty prefessionals from Seville) constisted of dismantling all the original elements, from the typical Sevillian tiles to the locks of the doors (for which special antique keys have been created), restoring them and putting them back in place.

So it was with each detail of the building, therefore, according to CHABRERA, what was the most fascinating to Tarsem was that he "could not be believe that the house had just finished being restored".

In addition to the house, in whose second floor and terrace of the attic they have filmed some of the scenes, the typical close alleys of the neighborhood are the other stages in which the story unfolds. The commercial tells about a group of children that see a soccer game on television and have no refreshments.

An adult tells a young boy to go buy more. It is then that the action is moved to the street, since the small actor goes past the bars of the whole neighborhood - that are filled with people watching the game - and does not find the awaited drink. Finally he arrives at a shop filled with Coca-Cola but without a shop assistant.

For four days, the house and its surroundings have been 'taken' by more than two hundred professionals, the majority of which are American and English, and various trucks and vans. All a deployment of means to collect some images that, after its definitive assembly, will make Seville and its most typical

neighborhood go all around the world, "not to mention the money that the filming has brought to the city for housing and food for the team," according to CHABRERA.

Though the neighbors of the property, the majority of who areforeigners established in Seville, and the enterprise owners showed reluctance at the beginning, the insistence of Tarsem ended up convincing them.

The creator of ideas like that of a girl changing clothes in some public bathrooms in front of a supposedly blind person, or that of a game between soccer players and demons, considered for the advertisement other environments such as those of M laga or Brazil. However, after seeing the house and the neighborhood he was left without a doubt.

LAURA BLANCO.

DIARIO DE ANDALUCIA. FEBRUARY 10, 1999.

COCA-COLA FILMS THEIR COMMERCIAL FOR 1999 IN A HOUSE IN THE SANTA CRUZ NEIGHBORHOOD

A team of 200 has worked for four days.

A XIX house in the neighborhood of Santa Cruz (Seville) has been the stage selected by Coca-Cola to film this year's television advertisement.

For four days, a team of more than 200 persons directed by Tarsem, a packistani, has displaced the Santa Cruz square to accomplish the commercial Running to the store, that recounts the incidents of some children to obtain the popular refreshment. The house, in which lived the bullfighter Cañero, has been restored by the studio of Manuel CHABRERA.

Tarsem, prestigious producer that it has signed announcements for brands such as Levis or Nike, has selected as stage for the spot of Coca Cola a Sevillian house from the past century that was the residence of the mounted bullfighter from C¢rdoba Antonio Ca¤ero, and in whose facade have been preserved the tiles with his passes of bullfighting.

The building, property of a real-estate company, has been recently restored by the studio of the architect Manuel CHABRERA, who wanted to observe in all the details its nineteenth century spirit.

The commercial tells the adventures of some children that are left without Coca-Cola during the retransmission of a soccer game on television and decide to go look for it in a grocery store that Tarsem recreated in a commercial premise with a typical Sevillian decoration.

The filming began on Friday and concluded yesterday. "We were very surprised when the filming team contacted us. We feared that they would cause damages, but they insisted so much that we finally accepted," reports CHABRERA, who assures that in the restoration they have respected the distribution and the origianal materials of the building, which consists of two levels and an attic.

"We wanted to maintain the style and the appearance of the house such as it was in the last century adapting it to the current needs," explains the architect that it has worked eight months on the project.

"Tarsem was seeking the authentic flavor of Seville. He did not want anything to be touched. The only thing that he did was lift the rugs so that the antique floors could be seen," he indicates.

Tiles, steps and doors have been recovered to preserve the traditional character of the property. Even an Argentinian specialist dismantled all the locks and returned to replace them after repairing them.

MARIA JOSE CARRASCO.

DIARIO EL PAIS. FEBRUARY 2, 1999

THE EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF THE ARTS PRESENTS THE SILVER MEDAL TO THE ARCHITECT MANUEL CHABRERA.

Manuel CHABRERA it is an atypical artist. He carries a history of three decades of painting, sometimes compulsively, but he has never wanted to sell a painting. He gives them as gifts when he finds a just cause.

A Sevillian of 46 years, he remains in amazement since last month when the European Academy of the Arts presented to him the International Silver Medal of the Paris Exposition for two of his bullfighting works.

In the ruling of the contest it is afirmed: "Manuel CHABRERA is a painter of a style that any way you look at it is personal that does not leave room for indifference. His work represents movement and the emotion of the spectacle in the arena."

The contest, in which 130 artists have participated, has rewarded two of CHABRERA's paintings of bullfighting theme in those which the fight is reflected fr m a very special perspective. Black, gray and white are the colors of this artist whosework is very close esthetically to that of the German expressionists.

I am not a paintor of bullfights, I only have three or four works on bulls. I try any topic that impacts me and these paintings emerged when I arrived home this past summer and my son, a 10-year-old, was explaining a bullfight that was being aired on television to a 19-year-old American boy. The teen was viewing it for the first time and was horified. I attempted to represent in the work those two ways of seeing the event: as an art or as a crime," comments CHABRERA, architect and urbanist.

"It had never occurred to me to present my work in a contest. It was my wife, who is Aragonian and very perseverant, who was determined to send them in," explains the artist, who has also created sculptures and has belonged to the Academia Europea (Belgium) since 1985.

CHABRERA, who works in the amplious basement of his house in Tomares (Seville), robs himself of sleep to leave on paper its ghosts. "When at night I see the news, I am obssessed with all those terrible things that occured and go down to the basement to paint. There are times that I am awake until dawn," comments this painter, who loves large formats.

"In front of a canvas of 10 meters is where I feel the most comfortable. I use some very long hair paintbrushes that pick up a lot of ink and with which I can give endless strokes. I pass a mountain of time in front of the blank canvas because it is hard for me to begin, but when I achieve the impression that I carry within, I can't stop. I loseall concept of time, I go without eating and without sleeping," comments CHABRERA.

"I have more than 200 works in the basement at home and only I show them to friends. Since they awarded me the prize, I have shown part of my work to various Spanish galaries and almost all have agreed that it is considered very original work with a lot of strength. Now I have more reassurance and if they call me I would exhibit," he explains, lowering the tone of his voice, as if the fact that others recognizing the merit in his work shames him.

Architect by vocation, CHABRERA has painted since the age of 16 but it has never occured to him to leave his profession. "Architecture is magic because you can make sculpture and painting. You can break down a wall into bits of light. The space permits you to play with everything; therefore architecture is so complete," he assures.

His paintings are his form of expressing solidarity, anger, love or tenderness before the things that happen in this world. The artist has donated many of his works to nongovernmental organizations.

MARGOT MOLINA .

DIARIO DEL PAIS. DECEMBER 6, 1998.

SEVILLIAN WINS EUROPEAN PAINTING PRIZE

Seville.

At the age of fourteen, the Sevillian Manuel CHABRERA remained impressed upon seeing 'Mujer ante un espejo' (Woman before a mirror). The fascination that this Picasso painting evoked in him caused him to be "hooked" on painting, expression for that which tends to rob someone of part of their sleep. Thirty-two years after this experience, his passion for art has been rewarded with the International Silver Medal of the European Academy of the Arts, institution that has its headquarters in Belgium.

Fiesta de oro y sangre (Fiesta of gold and blood) is the title of the painting with which this architect has just obtained this distinction, to which a total of 130 european authors aspired.

In the creation of this work, CHABRERA was inspired by the emotion in a young American that was caused by a bullfight that he saw on television in CHABRERA's house, where he was staying as an exchange student.

"Whithout ever having felt any anxiety about showing my works in public, it was my wife who took charge of presenting the paintng in this european contest." As CHABRERA never gave importance to his paintings, he thought it suitable not to spread the news of the prize even not knowing the importance that the experts gave to his work, since "by ignorance I do not even know by what style it can be defined".

With that purpose, he consulted directors of galleries of Madrid, Barcelona and Mallorca, as is the case of Marlborough (from Isabel de Azc rate), Eude (Fina Furriol) or of Pelaires (from Federico Pinya).

All coincided, it explained, in inserting his artistic work within abstract realism and in outlining it as "personal, original and different".

The presentation of the award will not be motive enough, CHABRERA assures, to abandon architecture, the profession with which he has also obtained recongnition by the town hall of Seville.

"Architecture is the most complete expression because," he argues, "it integrates infinity of elements such as the wall, the light or the color. All can dance in the architectural space," adds the Sevillian painter.

If nothing else, the silver medal he received has served him as inspiration in his 46 years to devote more time to painting. Not in vain, he has plans to exhibit in the future part of his pictoral collection in an Andalusian gallery.

Furthermore, he is currently preparing a series of small pictures with color ink for the exposition that the European Academy will host in Madrid next January.

But in spite of the fact that he has been "animated" to present his paintings, CHABRERA asserts that he will continue working in this artistic manifestation "not for money but for need".

Painting is for him, he confesses, a means of expression with which he works out the worries and impressions that accumulate at the end of the day.

In this sense, he indicates without "arrogance nor vanity" as models El Greco and Picasso. "They are very personal painters that have seen the world through themselves, but have had the ability to explain it to the rest of us," indicates Manuel CHABRERA, who still shows his amazement of having recieved the prize.

INMACULADA GARCIA.

DIARIO DE ANDALUCIA. DECEMBER 6, 1998

SILVER MEDAL OF THE ACADEMY OF THE EUROPEAN ARTS AWARDED TO THE SEVILLIAN ARCHITECT MANUEL CHABRERA.

The Sevillian architect Manuel CHABRERA has received the International Silver Medal of the European Academy of the Arts for his painting Fiesta de oro y sangre (Fiesta of gold and blood), whose bullfighting theme has caused controversies in the panel of this society with headquarters in Belgium, that has chosen it from among 130 European authors.

Although he has painted since he was very young, this architect of 46 years never had given importance to his painting, which he considered an interest, and felt the same as he entered in the European Academy because his mother-in-law had sent in two her sculptures. And he participated in the demonstration organized in October in Paris because his wife sent in two of his paintings. EFE

DIARIO EL MUNDO. DECEMBER 6, 1998.

TOWARD THE INTEGRATION OF THE ARTS.

MANUEL CHABRERA , MEMBER OF THE ACADEMIE EUROPEENNE DES ARTS.

When the Academie Europeenne des Arts, established in Leuze (Belgium), named Manuel Jose CHABRERA Adiego as a member of the same, it did so in recognition to the singularity that in the work of this Sevillian architect supposes the conception of a space in whose game of lights and volumes fits the integration of sculpture and of painting.

"That, the integration of the art in the architecture, taking into account the functionality of the house, of the building, but furthermore filling it with poetics, it is what am attempting. To play with the space, the forms and the architectural expression of the matter and to try the light, the holes and the plans, as if it were a pictorial work."

"Yes, well, the most important thing is to move us at our level. Therefore, with poor elements, such as mortar or concrete, I feel obligated to create art, taking also into account our roots."

Manuel J. CHABRERA, son of a Castillian father and an Aragonian mother, was born thirty-four years ago in San Carlos de la R pita, Tarragona. Nevertheless, when he speaks of "our roots", it is Andalusia that he is refering to. He arrived in Seville when he was just two years old and now this architect thinks and feels Andalusian. When he finished his studies, with the mark of excellence, he recieved the Premio Extraordinario of Architecture from the town hall of Seville, with a project of urbanization about the zone of Santuario de Regla, in Chipiona.

This European recognition is added to that which in the Congress of the International Architects Union, in Madrid, his project of "Emergency Habitat" earned. This project was subsequently displayed in our Contemporary Art Museum. Since then, an intensive professional activity, some time of teaching Urbanism in the School of Architecture and an enthusiastic dedication to painting and to sculpture have all accumulated their share of anxieties.

"When I design architecture, I normally realize my projects in scale models, since they permit greater mobility than the plan. Models that every time became smaller, to understand better the global form, and in which, with the purpose of reaching the expression that is not procured with the wood because of its angles, I began to use clay to give form to each one of the pieces that, when integrated, composed a better unity. That was how I realized that I was making sculptures. As far as painting is concerned, going from the line to the color is something that is produced by itself . Architecture, sculpture and painting. Three forms of artistic expression that although were common to some of the large figures of the Renaissance, are not so frequent in the artists of our time."

"Renaissance," Manuel exclaims. "There is no better word to define all my anxieties, among which I also include engineering since I have the satisfaction of having designed the bridge of Villafranco del Guadalquivir. This is something that few architects have had the opportunity of realizing and that for me meant the challenge of combining the facet of economy in its construction with those of its functionality and, in all that it has of art, the beauty of its elements. But there is more," he adds.

"Those great geniuses of the renaissance, what they did was submerge themselves in burried Rome to extract its past, and, in doing so, the authentic roots of Andalusia. That it is what we, a group of friends, are seeking. We have had the satisfaction of discovering already two Iberian cities of which nobody was aware of the locations."

"Which ones?"

"LaHelia and Olontigi, two Phoenician settlements that are mentioned in various books of Roman authorship, that even minted coins until the era of Agustus. They were found, complete, in Aljarafe, not by using a pick and spade, but the brain. By using books and ancient itineraries and observing the landscape, which is also a good book.".

"What is your motivation?"

"Trying to discover the authentic root of Andalusian architecture, that was cut off with the Reconquest. The growth of the city concerns me, and this as element within landscape. Because of this I try to immerse myself in our roots in order to, by knowing them, attempt to collaborate in the task of building the future."

Without a doubt, the Academie Europeene des Arts will increase in its prestige with the incorporation of this young Sevillian architect.

MANUEL LORENTE. DIARIO ABC DECEMBER 28, 1985

HOME PAGE