Berrocal is Dead

Essay about a sculptor whose work I collect.

Miguel Ortiz Berrocal is dead. Born in Málaga, Spain on September 28 1933, Berrocal died of prostate cancer on May 31 2006 in Antequera, a small town in the Andalucia region of Southern Spain. For much of his creative life, Berrocal lived with his second wife, Princess Cristina, granddaughter of the last King of Portugal, in their palatial Villa in Negrar on the outskirts of Verona. Combining mathematics, architecture and sculpture in his art, Berrocal joins the ranks of Picasso and Dali, from whom he sought inspiration, as one of the great artistic sons of Spain. Immodesty aside, Berrocal will forever be remembered for his attempt to democratize (interpreted by some of his contemporaries as “turning commercial”) sculpture through his concept of “multiples”.
I remember it clearly. It was 1978 and I was in my second year of medical school. I was leafing through the January issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN when I came upon one of my favorite sections, Martin Gardner’s Mathematical Games. Gardner had written his piece on a little known Spanish sculptor who was gaining some renown for his puzzle sculptures. The photo on the first page of the article was of Berrocal’s Goliath, an 80-piece work of genius. I read the whole thing and lingered on the 4 or 5 other sculptures pictured. That’s when I decided that some day I would own a Berrocal sculpture. And for the time being, that was it. I certainly couldn’t afford one as a medical student and in any case, I wouldn’t even have known where to start looking for his works (Remember, this was pre-Internet.). So, I think I just stored Mr. Berrocal in a little space in my head and went on with life.
Twenty-two years later, in 2000, I stumbled upon a second article about Berrocal. By this time, my financial situation was much improved and we had the Internet. The challenge was on! The very first thing I did was to call my brother Andy whom I knew had a friend who owned a complete collection of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. In no time at all, I had in my hands the article that had marked me so very much. I then began scouring the net for anything I could find on the man. I quickly located several sources for his work. The most interesting, however, was a retired New York dentist, Dr. Robert Weinstein (name altered) who was selling his entire collection of modern art. In the mid-seventies, he had purchased a lot of nearly one hundred works from Dr Robert Atkins (of The Atkins Diet fame) including 2 sculptures by Berrocal: Torero (1972) and Romeo e Giulietta (1966). The good dentist, it seems, was not aware of the current market value of these sculptures as his asking price for them was, to say the least, on the low side. He admitted to me that because he had acquired them as part of the Atkins lot (which included a number of Warhols and Lichtensteins), he was not sure exactly what he had paid for them. So I pounced! Philippe was 12 and I’m sure he still remembers accompanying an excited daddy to the freight terminal at Dorval (now Pierre Elliott Trudeau) Airport to take possession of a very heavy crate. The thrill…like being reunited with a woman you’re in love with after 22 years of separation!

My acquisition of the two works however, only served to whet my appetite. That same year, I placed successful bids on two other Berrocals in an online Sotheby’s auction. As luck would have it, the auction for these pieces was scheduled to close right smack in the middle of a black-tie wine tasting dinner I was attending. To make matters worse, the host had only dial-up Internet service so that it would take an eternity to register my bids. Well sauced as I was, another aggressive online buyer was giving me stiff competition and this required that I excuse myself from the table at least five times, a discourtesy for which my wife has still not forgiven me. But all’s well that ends well and that evening I became the happy owner of Mini David and Portrait de Michele.

Berrocal puzzle sculptures usually come with a handsome book about the piece complete with drawings of each individual element by the artist and detailed instructions about disassembling and reassembling the sculpture. The good dentist had, however, misplaced the books that came with Torero and Romeo e Giulietta; he speculated they had departed with his ex-wife. Furthermore, the sculptures had not been disassembled in a very long time and brass polish had served to fuse the individual elements together. Torero in particular resisted all of our (my engineer brothers gave me a hand) initial efforts at disassembly. We first had to discover the “secret” opening sequence of moves, all of which are interdependent, i.e. element n + 1 cannot be removed until element n is removed; other elements require one or more other pieces to be slightly adjusted before they can be removed. Romeo e Giulietta yielded its solution with less resistance. The Sotheby’s pieces came with books (although I did not use them for initial disassembly).

All these sculptures are solid when assembled i.e. there are no empty spaces within the sculptures. Romeo e Giulietta (12x21x9cm) is composed of 16 elements (see left) and weighs 9.7 kg. Torero (28.5x22x20 cm) has 18 elements and weights in at a massive 13.2 kg. Mini David (14x5.5x3.7 cm) is composed of 23 elements and Portrait de Michele (10.3x7.1x5.3 cm) 18 elements. These sculptures are not only beautiful visually but also stimulating intellectually. Assembled, Berrocal’s works combine both the tradition of Classicism and the audacity of Modernism. Most of his sculptures possess elements of humor, soupçons of sexuality and the occasional surprise. For example, at one stage of disassembly of Romeo e Giulietta, one must interrupt the lovers in flagrant delis and remove Romeo’s member from within Giulietta in order to progress further. In Mini David, one of the elements is a wearable gold ring made up of David’s genitals and a sapphire. Disassembled, the individual elements yield a tactile pleasure that only serves to amplify the visual and cognitive indulgence.

Alas, Berrocal is no more. I suspect, however, that I have not quite finished my relationship with this man. Someday, I may once again yield to the temptation and experience the joy of holding yet another Berrocal sculpture.

Joseph Froncioni

Comments

[Christopher]

Dear Joseph, I totally agree. There is no doubt Berrocal was an outstanding artist a genius I would say.
These beautiful and intricate sculptures were created nearly forty years ago and therefore makes them even more amazing. After reading your story, which mirrored my own, as I too waited 16 year before I was able to acquire the sculpture Goliath an 80 interlocking elements resulting in a masterpiece.
I was fortunate and bought mine online through an English art gallery, which if I remember correctly was called Art45.com
So if anyone out their wants to buy one, try contacting them.