Homage to Gaudi, Catalan Architect (Spain)

Gaudi is considered the surrealist architect par excellence. His achievements can primarily be found in Barcelona, and include buildings, monuments, a design for a park in the heart of the city, as well as plans for the "Sagrada Familia", a cathedral that, 80 years after construction began, remains an immense building site.

The artist Hans J. Mettler allowed himself the pleasure of establishing an amusing and impertinent dialogue between some of the details of the cathedral and plants. Using creations from nature such as a cactus and a cabbage, he plays with similar or convergent forms and textures from the physical architectural drawing of this extravagant and playful architectural structure. The use of digital technology revives the technique of collage, and gives it a new and contemporary artistic language.

The hybridity in Gaudís architecture is again divided by the nature of the artistís work: first, by the integration of real plants, then by technical means (the use of photography and the computer).

February 2002