ENRIC MIRALLES A IZQUIERDA Y DERECHA (también sin gafas)

This book is both an unconventional monograph of Miralles, one of the most respected and difficult to classify contemporary architects, and an artistic work in its own right.
David Bestué explores what “spending time” amongst the works of Enric Miralles means. Passing through them and living in them, Bestué coaxes unlikely meanings and emotions from them, capturing them in a series of photographs that illustrates a living architecture, removed from the preciosity to which architecture can often fall prey. The combination of essay, diary, notes and cultural references conjures a text reminiscent of a letter to a friend, or a travelogue of the type that so fascinated Miralles and marked the structure of his PhD thesis: Elements seen from left to right (without glasses). Bestué tries to unravel the great architect’s creative process, to understand how his ideas were formed and refined and how his work can survive and thrive in a seemingly unsympathetic world.

David Bestué (Barcelona, 1980) is one of the most acclaimed artists of his generation. Through the use of different media, his work focuses on the seemingly nondescript details of everyday life, fashioning a discourse that reveals the tensions between the real and the ideal; the universal and the personal. Steeped in a playful irony, Bestué has developed a conceptual work that questions and seduces both emotionally and intellectually, thanks to its masterful narration, compelling rhythm and unique combination of highest and lowest cultural references.
His works have been exhibited in the 53rd Biennale di Venezia; MNCARS, Madrid; Arkitekturmuseet, Stockholm; MACBA, Barcelona; Ersta Konsthall, Stockholm; Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg; and galleries and fairs in Paris, Berlin, London, New York, Lima, Mexico, and Shanghai, among many others.

“Artist David Bestué puts forward a new way to look at architecture.”
Andrea Valdés. Culturas
“This book is as generous as it is unconventional. Bestué watching Miralles calls to mind Chekhov, as, like him, instead of capturing the outstanding moments of life, he prefers to capture the moment where life struggles without heroism to achieve normality.”
Andrea Valdés. Culturas
“This book is not the usual architectural magazine fare of brand new buildings, immaculate and proud. It’s as if from someone who checks the buildings years later, without warning, and finds them in pajamas, wounded by time and disaffection, but still willing to yield up their secrets. […] Bestué lives the works, listens to them and understands: his photos and notes, restrained and intentional, are eloquent.”
Llàtzer Moix, La Vanguardia
“This book is an artefact. It has mechanisms, springs and gears that change our vision not only on of Enric Miralles’ work, but of contemporary architecture in general.”
Oscar Guayabero
“In the eyes of an artist who comes from the world of sculpture, Miralles’ architecture becomes poetry, music and literature.”
Vanesa Graell, El Mundo.