Garbade lived in Spain from 1983 to 2011, then taking residence in his hometown Zürich, to exhibit at the Peyer Fine Art Gallery in Zürich. In 2016 he returned to Spain, living in Mascaraque, Castilla–La Mancha[1] and gained the Spanish Citizenship in 2023.
Work
Garbade is one of Spanish expressionists, who turned to Pop art during the Movida madrileña. His stroke is personal and minimalistic. Writer Alvaro Pombo described Garbade's work by coining the term "garbatear".[2] Garbade's portraits are melancholy yet humorous and aim to show mankind at its core. Nobel Prize winner José Saramago once said, "Garbade shows us humanity where it unfolds"[3] His most well-known portraits include those of Nancy Cunard,[4]King Juan Carlos I, Rodriguez Zapatero, Kofi Annan and Pedro Almodovar. His image of the naked Pope Benedict XVI attracted attention in 2006 and was removed from his exhibition at the request of the Swiss government.[5]
Poetry
In 1987, he took part in the publication of poems as co-founder of the Signos Magazine.
Garbade has close ties to South America and Cuba through his family: Garbade's grandmother, Aída, was from Matanzas. Mexico showed his works at the National Museum of Tequila in Jarisco (2021), at the Museum of the Agave Landscape and Mining (2022) and at the Galerie Kin (1993) in Mexico City. In 2021, Garbade showed his works in the exhibition dedicated to the Bicentennial of the Independence of Peru at the Casa Museo Mario Vargas Llosa in Arequipa (2021). In May 2022, The Ludwig Foundation of Cuba invited the artist to present his works about his origins in Cuba in its Gallery in Havana and in the Visual Arts Center of Matanzas, the Pedro Esquerré Gallery, in two parallel exhibitions.[7][8]
An avid fighter for the rights of homosexuals, he worked for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmfAR) and the Fundación Triángulo [es] in Madrid, where he illustrated texts in various writings such as Orientaciones.[10] In the book Cosas de casados, which was later turned into an exhibition, he published his drawings on the subject of homosexuality in Art together with David Hockney and Tom of Finland.[11] In 2022, Garbade was invited by the Embassy of Switzerland in India to give a lecture on The Queer in Art and Real Life with Curator Dr.Alka Pande, Saurabh Kirpal, Advocate and LGBTQ+ activist and Vivek Raj Anand, CEO of Humsafar Trust.[12]
His wedding (2006) was the first same-sex marriage in Mascaraque, Castilla–La Mancha, Spain
Garbade has been a source of inspiration for intercultural cooperation between Switzerland and Spain since 1983. He brought the first Swiss gallery to the ARCO Art fair in 1985, exhibiting artists like Pablo Runyan or Jorge Arxe. He co-operated with Werner Bischof and John Armleder at the Museo Reina Sofia, Circulo de Bellas Artes and other galleries in the Swiss weeks of Madrid in 1988. In 2012 he was invited to the exhibitions Hispano-Suizo[14] in Zürich, and in 2014 to Hispano -Suizo Madrid. As curator, he conducted the exhibition Desayuno para Inmigrantes on the immigration of Swiss artists in Spain. In 1989, he helped François Lachenal for the exhibition du Greco a Goya, a homage to the works of art from the Museo del Prado saved during the Spanish Civil War in Geneva. His grandfather Paul Lachenal was involved in the safeguard of the paintings as delegate of the International Committee.[15]
Nuria Delgado: Descends au Sud: Al-Andalus, ICAM Geneva 2020,
References
^Cadarso, Maria Victoria (2003). Historia del arte en Castilla-La Mancha en el siglo XX. Toledo: Junta de Comunidades Castilla La Mancha. p. 788. ISBN8477882568 – via uclm.es.
^Pombo, Alvaro (1988). Los dibujos y oleos de Garbade. Worldcat: Nicolas. p. 7.
^Saramago, Jose (1996). Coctel. Biblioteca nacional Spain: El Wisli. p. 11. ISBN978-84-615-3679-5 – via worldcat.