ANTONI MIRALDA. ZAPATO GÓNDOLA.

First conceived for the Spanish pavilion at the 44th Venice Biennale in 1990, this work belongs to the Catalan artist’s Honey Moon Project, a symbolic link between the statue of Columbus in Barcelona and the Statue of Liberty in New York.

The bride’s ‘shoe’ belongs to the props of the Statue of Liberty itself and its union with Columbus as a symbol of the link between continents, of the festive as a collective manifestation, themes that are very present in Miralda’s work. As part of the trousseau, the shoe becomes a symbol of a universal activity to carry out a deconstruction of prejudices in an already global world.

A work belonging to the collection of the Reina Sofia Museum Foundation, Zapato Góndola, after sailing through the canals of Venice, arrives for the first time in Spain in the city of Valencia, where it was exhibited at the Bombas Gens Cultural Centre between April and November 2023, and now continues its journey to Cadiz as a symbol of the encounter with the land from which Columbus left for the Americas. The landscape of the forest of the Fundación Montenmedio Contemporáneo, the encounter between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, witnesses in his day of the exploits of the great navigator, are reinvented with the offering of Zapato Góndola.

On loan from the Fundación Museo Reina Sofía, Zapato Góndola will remain at the Fundación Montenmedio Contemporánea for a year, accompanying the rest of the site-specific collection of international artists from the Dehesa Gaditana, inviting viewers to reconsider their relationship with art and the everyday experiences that surround them as the artist wishes.