Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle Biography
- Born: 1961, Madrid, Spain
- Place of residence: Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Education: Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Bachelor of Arts from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts
- Collections/notable accolades: Collections/notable accolades: Recipient of USA Fellow Award, MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Major exhibitions at The Art Institute of Chicago; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Guggenheim Museum, New York and Bilbao, Spain; Museum for Contemporary Art, San Diego; SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico; Ernst Schering Foundation, Berlin; The Power Plant Contemporary, Toronto; KW Institute for Contemporary Art – Kunst-Werke, Berlin; Musée D’Art Contemporain de Montréal; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; Documenta XII, Kassel, Germany; Krefelder Kunstmuseen, Krefeld, Germany; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The 9th International Exhibition of Architecture, La Biennale di Venezia; Barcelona Pavilion, Mies van der Rohe Foundation, Barcelona; and MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Schindler House, Los Angeles; Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid, Spain
- Manglano-Ovalle’s website
Prototype for Stellar Interloper (Silver Surfer)
Carbon fiber and aluminum alloy-foil
By Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle
Location: Levels 2 and 3, ZACH
About this Piece
The evolution of this compelling form began with a simple, yet elegant, parabola referencing both compression and flow. The parabolic profile of a theoretical bow wave is made three-dimensional, replicating itself three times, and undergoing a twisted rotation on its vertical axis to create a complex double torus, mirrored vertically to suggest an infinite flow from top to bottom and bottom to top.
This artwork can be said to be a meditation on the fluid dynamics of liquids and gas, or revolving topology of surfaces, or vortex mechanics, or the forces of comprehension and tension, and it certainly calls to mind aeronautical design, and yet it is not confined to any single area of study.
“Wonderment is the key to apprehending the work upon entering the atrium. It must leverage contemplation and attention, and acknowledge scrutiny and thought as the basis for an inquiring public.”— Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle
Meditation on Fluid Dynamics
The sculpture was fabricated using the latest technology for prototyping aviation and aeronautical designs. It began with CNC carving of 20-foot molds. These molds correspond to the inner and outer geometries of the six symmetrical components that make up the 40-foot form. Vacuums were used to create carbon fiber surfaces from the corresponding molds. These extremely thin carbon fiber forms are strengthened with a series of internal structural ribs, similar to an aeronautical fuselage. The ends of these fuselage components are fitted with machined aluminum bulkheads designed to mate with their corresponding parts.
Before the sculpture was assembled, the carbon fiber surface was tiled with six-inch square aluminum alloy foil. The result: a flowing and overlapping square grid that wraps the entirety of the sculpture and was polished to a highly reflective silver surface, hence Silver Surfer.
This work combines the artist’s previous work using hypersonic fluid-dynamics with the physics of large-scale bow shock events that occur around celestial bodies.
“There is certain beauty in any elegant equation, but art should not be an illustration of formulas or phenomena for the sake of visualization. Instead, this sculpture is meant to speak to various areas of inquiry and research, and leave its interpretation open to the eye and the mind.”— Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle