Anton Alvarez : Unexpected wishes

He could have been a cabinet maker, but he has become one of the most innovative creators of his generation. After studying interior architecture and furniture at Konstfack and then receiving a graduate degree from the Royal College of Art in London in 2012, Swedish-Chilean artist and designer Anton Alvarez is continuously experimenting to build his own tools and machines for achieving unexpected and unprecedented forms with clay, textiles and more. Though he is based in Stockholm, he travels around the world and has already run solo shows at Salon 94 in New York, the Xue Xue Institute in Taipei and Gallery Libby Sellers in London. Before starting an art residency in the US in November, Alvarez worked hard in his home town of Uppsala re-scaling his extruder machine to produce a public space installation that should be finished near the publication time of this magazine. Alvarez is also participating in the workshop entitled “A New Layer” in Taiwan where his selection of pieces created around the theme “how long is a piece of thread?” for the Xue Xue Institute was already exhibited and much appreciated. His recent and appropriately named Unexpected exhibition at Christian Larsen Gallery in Stockholm shows how his work requires full control, but is also based on a relatively ungovernable experimental process. As both a mental and physical statement, his “Alphabet Aerobics” sculptures demonstrate their visual strength and power while being displayed by Salon 94 at Frieze London in October.