It’s been said of him that he straddles magical figuration and surrealism, and I’m not sure whether that description applies to his work or to him as a person. The painter Íñigo Navarro (Madrid, 1977) has just opened his first major exhibition in Spain, with a fascinating title that sounds as if Hunter S. Thompson came up with it after popping the wrong pill: “Yesterday a tiger trod on your shadow.”
You may remember him because I was lucky enough to have Navarro illustrate my columns in The American Spectator for a couple of years, or perhaps you’ve seen some of his work in exhibitions in Washington in recent years. Navarro has found more success in Germany, the United States, and even China than in his own country — a great credit to him, but a sad indictment of Spain’s art establishment.
Navarro is a curious mix of classicism and sharp humor — sometimes leading to irony, sometimes to surrealism, and sometimes to places no one can quite identify. But wherever it leads, the result is always inspiring and rewarding for the viewer. He has turned his work into a banner of freedom, because to admire the classics is not just to imitate them, but to create something new they themselves might be proud of.
Just yesterday I spoke with him about the exhibition, which runs through October and November in Madrid, just a few steps from the U.S. Embassy, in the Pardo Bazán room of the Lázaro Galdiano Museum. He told me that in addition to the paintings, the show includes a central sculpture in polychrome wood and bronze, created in collaboration with Spanish fashion designer Marcos Luengo, who was responsible for dressing it. The sculpture depicts a young woman about to levitate, and I can’t shake the feeling that it might be autobiographical.
The worst thing about nihilism isn’t that it’s wrong; the worst thing is that it’s boring.
To better grasp the creative world of “Yesterday a tiger trod on your shadow,” one must look to Goya’s etching Mode of Flying, which serves as the thread uniting all the works on display. Somehow they always seem to float in a strange creative magma — sometimes literally. Navarro sees this as an allusion to transcendence, which also makes for a refreshing tribute in an era when so many artists insist on the ephemeral, the material, and tedious homages to nihilism. The worst thing about nihilism isn’t that it’s wrong; the worst thing is that it’s boring.
And forgive me, art critics — many of you far wiser and more erudite than I — but Navarro is an entertaining painter. In fact, he’s a funny painter. I can spend ten minutes gazing at one of his canvases, and the smile simply won’t leave my face. If you’re fortunate enough to know the artist personally, it’s even more fun, because in his case, it’s impossible to separate the work from the man, just as has been true of every genius in the history of painting.
“A Chalet in El Viso with the Smell of Tobacco,” by Iñigo Navarro (Courtesy of Museo Lázaro Galdiano)
Yesterday I asked him whether he feared that AI might put painters like him out of business. Laughing, he told me no — that if anything, AI should be afraid of artists like him. With that kind of attitude, it’s only fitting that this exhibition should mark the beginning of something bigger, the moment when Navarro finally receives the recognition he deserves. Not for his sake alone, but because his art brings joy to those who see it — and there are plenty of good people who deserve that joy.
Once again, Navarro surprised me with a detail from his new exhibition. He wanted to give the show a deeper atmosphere, and finally came up with something brilliant: commissioning an exclusive fragrance from perfume designer Valérie Aucouturier to scent the gallery. The perfume evokes a dark cypress forest, with incense, sandalwood, and a touch of rose — the latter a nod to the scent traditionally said to emanate from the bodies of saints. It’s a beautiful and strange idea, like everything Navarro does.
The painter Iñigo Navarro in his studio (Courtesy of Museo Lázaro Galdiano)
The problem, of course, is that the gallery isn’t very large. Navarro installed three or four scent machines, each blasting out a puff of fragrance every few minutes. Soon enough, he got an emergency call from one of the museum guards on duty in the room: “Either turn down the air freshener a bit, or I’m going to die.” Any other artist might have dug in his heels, insisting that the intensity was essential to the work — that the fragrance was part of it. Not Navarro. He burst out laughing, apologized politely, and promptly tossed out a couple of the machines.
As the classic meme goes: tell me you’re a genius without telling me you’re a genius.
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