These particular doors to the Prado are not the ones that provide regular access to themuseum; rather, they are ceremonial in nature. One only enters them on special occasions,despite the fact that they are opened every day. This aspect, I thought, made the doors anautonomous feature and meant that I could treat them conceptually as a public sculpture.
They constitute a transition point between two worlds, the city and the temple oft heimaginary. I drew inspiration from the nearby botanicalgarden when making the bas-relief,an apparently impenetrable and infinite bas-relief that appears to repeat natural shapes butis, in fact, pure fiction. From a distance, it may look like an abstract composition, but seenup close, the detail opens up paths into other perceptual dimensions. It is a threshold that,when crossed or inhabited, awakens the senses.
I created a sequence of movements with the six door panels. Two are fixed and attached to the façade, and the other four, the main doors and the threshold doors, move six times a day. At ten in the morning, they open and take up a particular position, forming different spaces on either side of each of the moving elements. Visitors can enter and inhabit the spaces created. Every two hours, until the museum closes, the door panels adopt a different position until the sequence of opening and closing is complete.
I thought about the lenght of time the average person spends in the museum and then timed the movements of the doors accordingly, so that, when the visitor left the building, the doors would be in a different position. I thought, too, about those people who might happen to be passing by and who would pause to watch the doors‘ next formation. This choreographedsequence of time bestows rhythm and pace on the life oft he city.
