THE FOUNDATION FROM MANOLO PAZ’S POINT OF VIEW

I was born in a small village where people were very busy in the fields but had no connection with the world of art. What it did exist was a very interesting kind of art – the art of agriculture, that one of working the land, farming. I thought that if potatoes or corn could be planted in this area, then sculptures could be too. My idea was to create my own space where I could work and show my art, integrated into the landscape. And what better landscape than the place where I was born, at the mouth of the Umia River (Castelo, Cambados).

Thanks to my interest in sculpture I travelled to other places and visited their museums and architecture. My experiences in New York and Japan, as well as in other countries in the world, made me think that my home village was a good place to develop a museum. When we came back from New York in 1994, the idea came to my mind again and we started to enlarge a piece of land that I had inherited from my parents. The space became bigger and bigger in order to exhibit my work outdoors, and this is how we started to give shape to the Foundation. Works from the end of the 1970s to the present can be seen here.

This is a unique space in Galicia, and the concept is similar to that of other parks, such as Chillida-Leku’s, Henry Moore’s or Isamu Noguchi’s, museums designed by the artists themselves. My studio is also inside the Foundation, and both spaces coexist harmoniously. The studio is the place where I create, where I have the idea. Then the sculptures can be produced in other locations, like quarries, industrial workshops or even the space where the work of art is going to be.

The Foundation has visitors from all over the world, so this spot in Cambados has become part of the international artistic route of sculpture parks. The philosophy of the Foundation is also to make the new generations interested in contemporary art from an early age through school visits, workshops…

However, the most important goal of this project may be to appreciate nature, to try to take care of it and respect it because it is where we live. If we respect it, it will be generous to us. It is mankind’s greatest legacy. The land of the Foundation is also shaped, it is part of the integrating conception of sculpture and reinforces the natural space, because for me landscape is the best set.