Artist: Carmen Calvo
Title: Oro y redondo del mediodía (Gold and Round at Midday)
Fecha: 2023
Technique: Installation
Materials: Orange peels and steel wire or rope
Dimensions: Variable
Exterior photograph: © Juan García Rosell
Interior photograph: © David Zarzoso
Cortesía de Galería Luis Adelantado (Valencia)
Todolí Citrus Fundació Collection
Donation by the artist
Memory is one of the central themes running throughout Carmen Calvo’s artistic practice. Since the late 1970s, she has developed a distinctive visual language based on the reinterpretation of everyday objects, found images and materials imbued with memory. Through them, she creates a visual universe in which the personal and the collective intertwine, inviting viewers to establish their own associations.
In Gold and Round at Midday (2023), the artist recalls a childhood memory deeply rooted in the Mediterranean landscape and domestic life. The installation recreates a large clothesline from which orange peels hang drying in the sun, evoking a family custom she shared with her father: once dried, the peels were used as fuel in the household stove, providing warmth while filling the house with the characteristic scent of oranges.
This everyday gesture was common in many Spanish households during the post-war years, when making full use of available resources was a necessity born of scarcity. That memory, linked both to domestic economy and to the sensory experience of the fragrance released by burning orange peel, has remained with the artist and re-emerges decades later in the form of an installation that transforms an intimate experience into a shared reflection on time, memory, and the evocative power of oranges and their fragrance.
The use of an organic material makes the passage of time an essential component of the work. As the peels gradually change in colour, texture and scent, the installation itself evolves, becoming a living work whose transformation forms part of the visitor’s experience. Time thus becomes another element of the artist’s visual language, turning an everyday gesture into a meditation on permanence and the transformation of memory.
As in much of Carmen Calvo’s work, the intimate experience transcends autobiography to become a universal reflection on the fragility of memory, the evocative power of objects, and the way memory shapes our relationship with the present. The artist presents viewers with an open work in which every element retains its capacity to suggest new meanings and awaken personal experiences.
Carmen Calvo (Valencia, 1950)
Carmen Calvo is one of the leading figures in contemporary Spanish art. Since the late 1970s, she has developed a highly distinctive artistic language in which everyday objects, old photographs, documents and found materials are removed from their original context and reinterpreted to create works of remarkable poetic and symbolic intensity. Her work explores themes such as memory, identity, the passage of time, and the ability of objects to preserve stories and evoke emotions.
After studying at the School of Arts and Crafts and the School of Fine Arts of San Carlos in Valencia, she furthered her education through a number of grants that enabled her to work and live between Madrid and Paris. These formative years played a decisive role in the development of her artistic language, establishing her as one of the key figures in the renewal of Spanish contemporary art.
Her international recognition began in 1980 when she was selected to participate in the exhibition New Images from Spain, organised by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 1997, she represented Spain, together with Joan Brossa, at the 47th Venice Biennale, further consolidating the international recognition of her work.
Over a career spanning more than five decades, Carmen Calvo has worked across a wide range of media—including installation, sculpture, drawing, manipulated photography, collage and assemblage—while maintaining remarkable conceptual coherence. Her work frequently begins with objects and materials that already possess a history of their own and which, once removed from their original context, acquire new meanings. Individual and collective memory, the fragility of identity, and the symbolic dimension of objects are among the central concerns of her artistic practice.
Her work has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions at institutions including the IVAM – Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Palacio de Velázquez, the Museu Picasso Barcelona, the Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània and Sala Alcalá 31 in Madrid, while she has also participated regularly in major international exhibitions and projects.
In 2013 she received Spain’s National Prize for Visual Arts in recognition of a career distinguished by her continuous exploration of image, memory and the use of diverse materials and techniques. Among her many honours are the Alfons Roig Award (1989), the Julio González International Prize awarded by the IVAM, and her appointment as a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos.
Her works are held in major public and private collections, including the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), IVAM (Valencia), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Bank of Spain Collection, Fundación “la Caixa”, Artium Museoa (Vitoria-Gasteiz), CAAM – Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria), as well as numerous institutional and private collections throughout Europe and the United States.
