“I work with paper and cardboard. I write about transience”

La obra de Ester Partegàs (La Garriga, 1975) forms part of the imaginario de muchos de nosotros. His no-lugares – soulless airport waitresses – or the discussions of his passengers with bags on their heads marked an entire generation. Ahora return to Spain from EE.UU. with a large average exposure of the car which in the background are also two celebrants who awarded them the prestigious Guggenheim Prize 2025.

It was inaugurated in Es Baluard and on February 14 in CA2M. Exposition conceived in a circular fashion: it fills in where it ends and continues where it should take place.

Please. ?Tiny architecture Is it an exhibition in two places or two exhibitions?

Response. Yes, it may seem funny. I don’t like the word retrospective for Commissioner Bea Espejo, it’s a review of an average career and the two complement each other.

P. How do objects and things fit into your work?

R. i work hard always has a part of the regular subject. I am very interested in the things we live with that accompany us and become desaspercibids. In the last five years I have focused on the domestic space, but at the beginning of my career the objects of the public space were rather ephemeral and banal. I work with mass produced industrial products that lack magic, they are “all under 100” items. clothes baskets, basura bags that don’t seem to hold a soul.

P. It is a very large show that contains nothing less. Why the title?

R. “Arquitectura” refers to the everyday act of building and “minor” as an antagonism to the monumentality of architecture associated with power. There is an invisible architecture of actions and effects that historically relate to the world of women.

P. We have lived in New York since 1997. How did you go about the process of producing the exhibition(s)?

R. Of course, it complicated the logistics. Bea Espejo has been interested in working with me for three years to evaluate and compile these three decades of work and provide her with a story. But I made some piezas in Barcelona I have my big studio in Marfa, Texas.

P. Sculpting is a difficult discipline not only of working with the body, but also of storage and transportation.

R. Yes, it is, anyway My materials are light and affordable. Hago in a deliberate way, hablan of transience. I work with plastic, paper and cardboard in modules that I can handle myself. I like that the materials are changeable and looking for life.

P. Where can we go to Palma and where to Madrid?

R. In Palma, there are two workers connected to the island. I have a number of primitive architecture – such as dolmenes – where I replaced the stone in the pan. There he visited the talayots of Edad de Bronce and In the five-meter discussions, I reproduced two emerged mallorquinsI also have some scraps of baskets with clothes, from which I built a kind of aqueduct. Del The CA2M Museum is the most complete exhibition as a sculpture parkit is the museum of my imagination.

P. Imaginary environmentalist and anti-capitalist.

R. These designations do not equate to my work in this context. My imagination is personal and sensitive to the materials and objects of life. Using these calificativos carefully simplifies my work.

P. There is a political reading of his work, but it is not incidentally intentional.

R. Politics is a consequence, not a condition, and is formulated to work through my choice of objects: “poor” materials and manual work methods. I want to occupy the space between the inner world and the outer reality, where imagination and intuition are the main way of perception. To develop a slightly different reality, to show how other relationships are possible. This is how I work as a politician because I don’t reduce things to their transactional value.

P. Do we think about our work in Spain?

R. In 2000, they reduced my work to these labels, which put a lot of strain on meI hope that these exhibitions will offer new perspectives on my work.

P. Studied with Rebecca Horn in Berlin. what do you remember about it?

R. Coming to Barcelona was a radical change. There you were alone in the studio for weeks, even as famous as the least obvious professor. Todo muy hierarquico y medieval. Their classes were critical sessions to learn to watch.

P. Como resident in EE.UU. What is the impact of the second Trump era?

R. We feel aplastados. We’ve broken down everything we’ve achieved in the area of ​​inclusion and diversity. The environment is censored and threatened by cultural institutions and universities, many of which have canceled their programs and are self-censoring.

P. Are you planning to return to Spain?

R. If I tell you the truth I think about it every day.

P. Usted triumph ready.

R. It is true that Helga de Alvear gave me a lot of opportunities, especially in a personal crisis and also led to the economic crisis of 2008. It was very good for me to give myself this parentage to plant me again. In 2014, I moved with more power. I always know it, even if I’m not always strongmy work is a personal experience of my life and I want it to be that way. I look for this sensitivity to the impermanent and the inconsistent.

Q. Do you identify with your Spanish generation?

Answer: No. I have a similar way of working with some artists: David Bestué, Ludovica Carbotta, Esther Kläs…

Q. The idea of ​​a Guggenheim award, now?

R. I will continue my work, something like that just do it the same with or without beca. Explore the color and have a few pieces in bronze, something completely new to me.