Javier Viver: What is proper to the Church is to transform and renew culture
EL DEBATE - María Serrano - Photographs and video: Jorge Ruiz - Madrid 11/07/2023
We moved to the studio of sculptor and image maker Javier Viver, one of the most renowned contemporary artists of sacred art.
Art offers you to see what is behind, what is invisible, all the mysteries of the human being", this is how the sculptor and image-maker Javier Viver (Madrid, 1971) understands art, who considers that "from the beginning" art has appeared "closely linked to religion.
It is Tuesday morning, we arrive at Javier Viver's workshop. As we walk through the door, there is a calm atmosphere. Some young people share work space with him, one of the artists retouches one of the figures of the Mother of Hope. In the courtyard, another boy prepares a mold that will shape another future figure. Meanwhile, three other people organize other projects such as El Observatorio de lo Invisible, the summer school promoted by the Madrid artist.
We met Javier Viver in the courtyard, working with agility on the final details of a sculpture of the baby Jesus, which is taking its first steps and will be one of the pieces of a future Sagrada Familia.
We talked with him about sacred art and how art, as a concept, has always been closely linked to religion. "Very ideological tendencies arise, which try to secularize art and turn it into something very close to reality. And art always has that capacity to distance itself from reality and allow contemplation from the outside," criticizes the artist.
Javier Viver affirms that, as a response to all this, a widespread movement has arisen, especially among young people, of "valuing the Mystery of the less obvious things".
Culture and Church
Viver's great project, what drives his work, is to renew sacred art. " The Church is in crisis because it has a kind of complex in the face of modernity and is incapable of generating something new," analyzes one who lacks fears or complexes when it comes to facing his creative endeavors.
"The Church has always been not only adapting to the culture, but transforming the culture and renewing it, and it has an extraordinary power to do that". For this reason, among other things, Javier Viver acts as a link, a meeting point and networking between people from different disciplines: "The Holy Spirit is generating movements among very normal people, and at this time initiatives have to arise from the laity".
