Combining materials that range from cardboard and textiles to bronze and found objects, Ángel Bados’s sculptures produce fascinating contrasts of form, color, texture, and mood. An artist and educator who began his career in the 1970s working in installation art, Bados changed direction in 1983 after moving to Bilbao, where he played a key role in the formation of Nueva Escultura Vasca (New Basque Sculpture). This group of like-minded artists, sharing an interest in formalist and theoretical languages, defined a new approach to Basque sculpture based on a constructivist heritage and the thought of Jorge Oteiza. Blending Minimalism and conceptualism with a sensitivity to the imbedded meanings of materials that recalls Arte Povera, Bados’s poetic works also engage in subtle social critique. Over the years, he hasn’t exhibited all that often, so his current exhibition, “Against forgetting. Tributes and offerings,” offers a special treat.
Robert Preece: While you have had many opportunities to exhibit your work, you have opted to do so infrequently. Why is that?
Ángel Bados: There isn’t one specific reason or argument to explain it. It might have to do with the fact that, for me, sculpture is not so much a profession as a way of life, or maybe a way of not losing myself in my relationship with others and with the world. For that to happen, the time I spend working on a daily basis needs to be free from any sense of urgency or external demands. It’s also true that I put the same level of commitment and focus into other activities like teaching, mounting exhibitions, and collaborating with friends on their exhibitions, as I do when I’m working on my own pieces. Maybe that’s why I’ve never felt like I’ve been out of the picture.
RP: How do you go about sourcing your materials?
ÁB: If we accept that the ultimate meaning of a work is decided between the abstract condition of its formal structure and the almost unbearably physical quality of the material used, which is what ultimately resolves the work satisfactorily, then there are two reasons, or non-reasons, behind the choice of material.
First, if we think about how the form comes into being, the material elements have to have a minimum degree of physical consistency and formal support, without overlooking how they align meaningfully with the representation, whether figurative or not, that is set in motion from the start. Second, when it becomes a satisfactory outcome, toward which representation is blindly feeling its way, there is no way of guaranteeing that outcome beforehand. Hence the importance of unconscious play and those little formal or material “inventions” that allow us to give shape to something that springs from desire but always and inevitably eludes us. This is the dual polarity behind my choice of materials and the use of real elements like glass vases, photocopies, or certain items of clothing that allude to the world we live in, though included as equally material components, even at the risk of getting it wrong.
RP: What sorts of things do you think about when making your assemblages? Are some finished quickly, while others might take months or years to finalize?
ÁB: Although some works might seem to be resolved through the combination of disparate elements, they are not assemblages in the usual sense that we associate with modern sculpture. I would say it’s more a case of organic formation, as if the pieces were modelled so that the blind and opaque sculptural mass would unexpectedly contribute to shaping a real “thing” that feels singularly necessary to whoever contemplates it. This is very different from the production of endlessly interchangeable objects that characterizes today’s market for all kinds of consumer goods, art included.
In this sense, I would say that even if you see pieces of similar size or formal behavior in the exhibition, there is no preconceived intention to develop a thematic series. The tension produced by the act of making, driven toward some unreachable beyond, leads to another attempt and then another, and another. You could say it obeys the imperative of “repetition,” as an original mark of jouissance [enjoyment], which Lacan identifies with the Unconscious: “it occurs only once, otherwise there would be no repetition.” Its enactment would be what guarantees “the difference” of one work in relation to those that follow and accompany it.
Perhaps that is why I sometimes feel as if I am “repeating” that primary scene, or the little landscape put together with whatever was at hand, that might have “saved” me from one of those first conflicts we all face in our formative years; and which now returns, unconsciously, to help me connect my longings and desires with each person who looks at the pieces.
RP: How did you go about arranging the works in this space?
ÁB: The process of arranging the sculptures in the gallery is similar in a way to how the components of each sculpture relate to each other. In both cases, what you are after is a space-time event that serves as a place of encounter with the viewer. As such, it’s neither about the correct distribution of works, nor about staging them, but about ensuring that the set of relationships transforms the physical space of the gallery to the point of making it disappear. If we accept the contingency of the place we’ve been given as yet another element in play, then the works will, in turn, offer us their own space.
Of course, it’s true that there’s always a preliminary idea of the spatial distribution, but that is subordinate to what happens moment by moment as the relationships between the pieces unfold. You could say that the active, bodily involvement of the person responsible for the installation re-enacts the performative quality of the sculptures in the studio. And if the operation is successful, then what we see is a kind of symbolic transformation of the physical space from which everything began.
RP: For viewers who are just learning about you, which four or five works in your history do you see as key to the development of your artistic practice, and why?
ÁB: As a rule, you realize over the years that the works you value most are those that have broken with your normal style or way of doing things. Almost always, they tend to come about unexpectedly when you are bold enough to push the boundaries of the techniques that you use every day. You could say that these pieces “come about on their own” or that they manifest as the unexpected enactment of what one hopes for every day but never manages to achieve.
I trained at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid when the neo-classical academy was on its last legs, and then, as a reaction, I moved toward what we used to call “alternative media” and, in my case, installation. After a while, I learned firsthand that such an approach somehow forced you to own—or be the master of—the staging of what one imagined. But then, working in Bilbao with several artists who were also influenced by Minimalism and conceptual art, although they were younger than I was, brought me face to face with sculpture, the place or task in which I still find myself today.
I am keenly aware of how much I owe to the direct contemplation of art and architecture from all styles and periods of history. For example, from Peter Zumthor to Rem Koolhaas, whose materiality—I believe that is the right word—reveals the different way in which each artist confronts and handles the sublimation inherent in the act of creation.
RP: Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently or that you would have liked to have spent more time on?
ÁB: I don’t usually look back, nor do I judge myself for possible mistakes or errors I’ve made. I couldn’t tell you why. I like to think that having art as my guide has allowed me to approach life’s events in much the same way as I approach sculpture in my studio: if I make a small mistake, I take it as a technical error that I will have to correct.
In this sense, contemplation and enjoyment of art throughout history have allowed me to move from one cultural model to another without obligation and, above all, without guilt, because we have to admit that the truth is always half-truths, or that it is not meant to be known, but waiting for art to embody it—as poetry.
“Contra el Olvido. Homenajes y Ofrendas” (“Against Forgetting. Tributes and Offerings”) is on view at Carreras Mugica in Bilbao through December 6, 2025.
