Head 1935

Julio Gonzalez made this ‘Head’ from iron, and it’s like he’s drawing in space. The metalwork is all about process, bending and welding and building this thing up bit by bit. Look at the surface - it's rough, textured, you can almost feel the heat and force of the making. The oval shape, full of holes and gaps, is like a face, but also like a memory, fragmented and incomplete. And those bits sticking out, are they hair, antennae, thoughts flying off in all directions? Gonzalez worked with Picasso, and you can see some of that cubist spirit here, taking things apart and putting them back together in a new way. It’s not about perfection, it’s about the messy, beautiful struggle to make something new. Art doesn’t need to be neat or tidy, it can be an open question, an invitation to look and think and feel.