Balmaseda’s work is never innocuous—it unsettles, provokes, and challenges. In a world where much of contemporary art leans into aesthetic self-indulgence, his installations dare to discomfort.
Take, for example, the dehumanized swarm of crabs in Migratory Route or the amputated horses in Fixed in Contemporaneity—these are stark, visceral confrontations that leave viewers on edge.
Yet Solo aire, Balmaseda’s latest exhibition, offers a moment of pause. Rather than visceral forms, we’re presented with a surreal collection of inanimate objects, suspended on canvases, where organic forms emerge, inflated and distorted as if brought to life by the air itself. Though more restrained in scale than his monumental past works, the series still carries his signature conceptual weight.
This is his first exhibition in an art gallery —Taranmana Art Gallery in Andorra—and also marks his debut in oilstick on canvas, with human figures placed at the foot of the installations offering a grounded perspective on these surreal volumes.
The twisted, exploded armchair from 2017 serves as a visual and conceptual launchpad for Solo aire which inspires the series, and that the artist would like to see materialized in large dimensions, becomes a metaphor for implosion and transformation.
The show culminates with Virtus Unita Fortior, a boldly satirical take on the Andorran coat of arms, where the cows of Bearn—once symbols of strength—now recline in indulgent stupor, hinting at a broader critique of political and cultural stagnation.
Lastly, La pira del arte hoy stands as a call for artistic renewal—a metaphorical pyre inviting reflection, regeneration, and the fiery rebirth of meaning within the art world.
