WORD FOUNTAIN  © 2005

Word Fountain, 2005
Stainless steel and water
450 x 350x 180 cm.
IVAM, Valencia

The word “water”, with its many meanings, is implicitly linked to the term source. A fountain without its most essential component, that liquid matter known as H2O, is meaningless. The city of Valencia was the starting point for the proposal. The interesting morphology of the province, through a process of formal schematization, has given rise to the external form of the fountain receptacle. Another catalytic element has been formed by the rivers that cross the province, which have created a series of horizontal platforms on which the water slides, slowly propelled by jets that mimic the sheet metal that houses them. The river translates into an interstice that is generated between platform and platform and is never occupied by the water, which, due to the effect of gravity, falls to the bottom of the receptacle fountain. The different rivers and tributaries generate eight levels of different heights. At the lowest level of the outer perimeter are two structures that serve as seats. Their shape corresponds to the outline of the port of the city of Valencia, an emblematic element associated with water. The external silhouette of the fountain is reinforced by vertical planes, as if it were originally a walled city, concealing and revealing what is going on behind it. On two of these vertical planes, the highest ones, at eye level, the plate is perforated with the words: Water (from the Latin aqua).

The aim was to rescue the etymological value of this precious liquid matter, without which life would not exist. As if it were an enormous book, its irregular leaves spread around the perimeter of the fountain's silhouette, taking different shapes, to contain eight different definitions of the word "water".

CREDITS ::

Conceptualisation: Esther Pizarro
Production: Esther Pizarro and José Luis Ponce Foundry.
Location: IVAM. Valencian Institute of Modern Art
Collection: Astroc Foundation

Temporary intervention

EXHIBITED IN ::

IVAM. Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno. “Fuentes: Miquel Navarro, Juan Asensio, Gerardo Rueda, José Manuel Ballester, Esther Pizarro, Mar Solis”. Comisarios: Consuelo Ciscar y Rafael Sierra. Valencia. 20/09/2005 al 04/12/2005.

ASSOCIATED CATALOGUE ::

AAVV (2005),  Catálogo exposición: Fuentes. Textos: Consuelo Ciscar, Rafael Sierra, Miquel Navarro, Juan Asensio, Gerardo Rueda, José Manuel Ballester, Esther Pizarro, Mar Solis. Edita: IVAM. Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno. Extensión: 184 páginas. Idioma: inglés-español. Patrocina: Fundación Astroc y Bancaja. ISBN: 84-482-4213-0, DL: V-4818-2005