Draft:Xavier G-Solis

Xavier G-Solis (Xavier González-Solís Bou, Barcelona, 1962) is a Catalan visual artist whose work reveals a remarkable conceptual coherence around a single, potent object: «the used shoe». His multidisciplinary practice—sculptural, graphic, performative, photographic, and cinematic, frequently culminates in installations that are as poetic as they are politically charged.

Having completed a degree in Philosophy at the University of Barcelona and deeply committed to both personal and social research, G-Solís co-founded La Plana. Rural Centre for Shelter and Culture (now La Plana Foundation) in 1986, together with Ignasi Roca and Joan Carles Elvira. Located in Santa Maria d’Oló, in the Bages region, the centre was established in a semi-restored farmhouse with over 100 beds, 120 hectares of land including farmland and forest. The ESICO Foundation provided the space for the project, which, at the time, was radically pioneering in Catalonia. It was grounded in three paradigm shifts: ecologism, pacifism, and feminism, three critical frameworks that continue to underpin G-Solis’s artistic practice.

Later training in sculpture at the Escuela de Arte y Superior de Diseño in Gran Canaria led to the integration of the used shoe as a conceptual and symbolic axis in his work. For G-Solís, the shoe embodies power dynamics, how humanity exerts control over territory, and over one another. «Barefoot, we are in the world; With shoes on, we are above it», he often declares. In a 2015 interview with Laurence Pissard, he observed: «It’s assumed that the primary function of footwear is physical protection. But I believe the first human to wear shoes didn’t do so to protect their feet.»  In a subsequent interview, he added: «Shoes were not made for walking. Before the Industrial Revolution, most people went barefoot. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that shoes were differentiated between left and right. And only in the 20th century did the shoe become a globalised object». While conducting fieldwork in Chhattisgarh, India, the renowned French archaeologist Jean Clottes wrote to G-Solís, remarking how tribal guides who had led them barefoot through the jungle for hours suffered no discomfort, yet today, most people, even in these remote communities, wear shoes, despite having no need for them.

G-Solís has staged performances in emblematic locations: Las Canteras beach in Gran Canaria, Vandellós II nuclear power plant, bay of Palamós, Portlligat in Cadaqués, port of Barcelona, Plaça Catalunya, Parc de l’Escorxador in Barcelona, Aluna Art Foundation in Miami and Museumplein in Amsterdam. He is also the originator of the concept of «shoeing», ephemeral installations in performative contexts, often in collaboration with art students. More than a performance, shoeing is an act of spatial and symbolic activation. He has carried out activations of concepts derived from his practice—such as zapacoches, sabarques, saveles, ancladas, shoeballoons, shoedrawings, and shoetotems—in outdoor, socially engaged settings that are festive, participatory, and always critically charged.

His work has been exhibited in venues such as the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (2007), Centro de Grabado Contemporáneo in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (2007), Setba Zona d’Art in Barcelona (2009), Dolors Ventós Gallery in Figueres (2010), Contrast Gallery in Barcelona (2013, 2020), and Sala dels Trinitaris in Vilafranca del Penedès (2020). Internationally, he has shown at the Instituto Cervantes in Lyon (2010), Life – the Gallery in Amsterdam (2012), Aluna Art Foundation in Miami (2014), Musée des Confluences in Lyon (2016), Lichtenwalde Castle & Garden in Niederwiesa, Germany (2017), and the Edinburgh College of Art (2018). In 2015, the Musée International de la Chaussure in Romans, France, presented Why Shoes?, a wide-ranging retrospective of his work.

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