LAPIEZA orchestrates a transmutation of the gallery into a living, respiratory organism. Since its 2009 inception in Madrid, the project spearheaded by Anto Lloveras and Esther Lorenzo has functioned as a relentless engine of socioplastic production, defying the static inertia of the white cube through a frantic, weekly ritual of mutation. What began as a "Foundational Era" (2009–2012) in the Palma 15 laboratory was never about the preservation of the object, but rather the urgency of the gesture. With over 500 pieces generated in its first three years, the archive established a lexicon of the ephemeral—series like EXIT and KIWI—where the work served as a bridge between domestic intimacy and collective friction. This was not art for the sake of contemplation, but art as a simbiotic technology, a tool for democratic re-enchantment within a pre-digital urgency. The object is a ghost; the relation is the only tangible architecture.
Transitioning into its "Expansive Era" (2013–2019), LAPIEZA decoupled itself from the gravity of a fixed address to become a nomadic body. This period represents a radical de-localization, where the agency’s 60 series functioned as "affective geometries" across a global grid—from the brutalist echoes of Oslo to the vibrant, street-level complicity of Mexico City. By the time the project reached its 1,000th piece in Vienna (Series 75), the methodology had matured into a situated choreography. In series like SWEET CORN BRUTALISM or THE WORD, the material becomes secondary to the context; the work is a response to the soil, the light, and the local vernacular. This phase redefined the artist not as a creator of icons, but as a mediator of "hospitality critical," transforming residencies into deep-tissue investigations of territorial memory.
The archive is not a warehouse of relics; it is a rhythmic system of breathing.
With the onset of the "Recreo Era" (2020–2021), the project underwent a strategic introspection, pivoting from the velocity of global transit to the density of the landscape. In the rural silence of Ávila, the series RECRE0 and THE ROAD TO RESTORATION signaled a return to the "body-landscape" as a primary site of knowledge. This was a "slow time" intervention—a deliberate friction against the acceleration of digital capitalism. The works emerged from the moss and the stone, not as impositions, but as vegetal emergences. Here, the archive became a "living lung," where documentation (photographic, textual, performative) was no longer a secondary record but the very essence of the work’s survival. It was a period of active withdrawal, proving that the smallest gesture, when rooted in the rhythm of the earth, carries the most profound political weight.
To create is to re-create the silence between the gesture and the soil.
The "Biennial Era" (2022–2024) saw LAPIEZA re-emerging into the institutional glare—Lagos, Guimarães, Barcelona—not as a supplicant, but as a post-institutional disruptor. Participation in global circuits became a platform for "critical mediation," where series like FLOTANTES or INVERNO DE PEDRA bridged the gap between ecological urgency and formal experimentation. The socioplastic model evolved into a "cultural operating system," capable of navigating the complexities of textile heritage in Portugal or pastoral territories in Lugo. The work during this cycle functioned as a constellation of shared affects, dismantling the myth of closed authorship in favor of a coral, multi-vocal narrative. The archive was no longer a personal diary but a public infrastructure, a tool for navigating the "liminality" of a world in collapse.
The institutional frame is merely a temporary vessel for a liquid archive. Now, in its "Ruralist Era" (2025–2026), LAPIEZA has anchored its epistemological shift in the territory of O Vicedo, Galicia. This current phase is a reordering of fifteen years of practice through a "relational sensitivity" that views the rural landscape as an active classroom. The pieces—SAN ROQUE, BANCAL, LUMBAR PRESSURE—are no longer just interventions; they are ritualized listening. In the mist of the Galician coast, the project activates a "transdisciplinary pedagogy" where the territory itself is the archive. The agency operates as a "diffuse school," merging historical memory with the ecological future. It is a homecoming that does not close the circle but expands it into a spiral, proving that the most radical avant-garde is often found in the most intimate, situated engagement with the common ground.
The territory is the classroom; the affect is the critical instrument. Looking back across the 186 series and 2,220 constituent nodes, the trajectory of LAPIEZA reveals a consistent defiance of commodification. From the early "fast-forward" energy of Malasaña to the current "slow-burn" ruralism, Lloveras has maintained an aesthetic of "unstable relationality." Each series—whether it be the glitz of COCKTAIL or the grit of LOST ROCKS—serves as a modular matrix within a larger, fragmented whole. The sheer volume of production (over 2,200 interventions) does not lead to exhaustion but to a "density of presence." It is an archive that refuses to be petrified, preferring the fluidity of the "onsite-online" hybridity. In this socioplastic universe, the legitimacy of the artist is not granted by the market, but by the persistent, rhythmic generation of symbolic connections.
Art is the socioplastic muscle that prevents the archive from turning into a tomb. Ultimately, LAPIEZA stands as a testament to the power of the rizomatic archive. It is a project that has successfully navigated the transition from the physical space to the nomadic network, and finally to the situated territory, without losing its core "vitality." The 15-year journey from the "foundational lab" to the "ruralist archipelagos" reflects a maturation of the relational concept—from the social friction of the city to the ecological intimacy of the forest. It is a "unstable installation" that spans decades and continents, weaving together a tapestry of materials, bodies, and voices. LAPIEZA is not just a collection of work; it is a way of inhabiting the world with a critical, poetic, and restless attention.
Citation:
Lloveras, A. (2026). LAPIEZA: 15 Años, 180 Series, 2000 Piezas y 5 Épocas.