The Spanish artist Aryz is inaugurating the “VANITAS” installation on Thursday at the National Pantheon in Lisbon, designed for the main nave of the monument, which houses the tombs of several personalities from Portuguese history.
With the installation, which was presented to the press today, Aryz (Octavi Arrizabalga) recovers the Vanitas artistic tradition, which originated in the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, and, “by opening up parallels, invites the viewer to contemplate how this tradition interacts with the symbolism of the National Pantheon”.
The cultural platform Underdogs, which is promoting the installation, recalls that the Vanitas artistic tradition is “materialized in works of art that focus on the transience of life and the inevitability of death – in a reflection in dialogue with the National Pantheon”, a monument that “serves as a repository of collective memory and identity, a testimony to the lasting legacy of a nation’s heroes and illustrious figures”.
The diptych presented by Aryz, created in the artist’s studio and only later installed in the space, urges those who see it “to reflect on their own mortality”, while the National Pantheon invites “us to consider the perpetual legacy of those who gave shape to a collective destiny”.
The “VANITAS” installation, which will be open until June 23, is part of the Public Art Program of the Underdogs platform, and follows the artist’s recently created line of artworks for spaces of this nature.
The Spanish artist has already presented large-format installations, such as the one that will be in the National Pantheon, in places such as the Temple of Saint-Éloi in Rouen, France, the church of Sant Pere in Corbera d’Ebre, Catalonia, the Basilica of Santa Maria del Pi in Barcelona or the church of San Mattia in Bologna, Italy.
Aryz, who was born in 1988 in the US state of California and currently lives in Cardedeu, Catalonia, Spain, started out as a graffiti artist in the early 2000s, mainly in abandoned spaces around Barcelona.
In the meantime, he began to be invited to paint murals all over the world.
In Portugal, he left work in at least three Portuguese cities: Lisbon in 2011, Lagos in 2014 and Leiria in 2020.
At the same time, working in the studio “allows you to experiment with the possibilities of painting and develop concepts and ideas that the immediate nature of creating a mural doesn’t allow”.
In 2019, he decided to reduce the number of mural interventions and began to focus more on studio work, which led to the creation of large-format installations.
