ARTISTS Mariko
La Dance
The sculptural works by Mariko that evoke a figure resembling a minotaur actually stem from a more complex and layered reflection. Rather than referencing the mythological Minotaur, these forms emerge from a symbolic fusion of two central figures in Spanish tradition: the bull and the matador.
The origin of this vision can be traced back to an experience the artist had in Spain, while attending a bullfight with a friend. On that occasion, the ritual structure of the corrida was explained to her, particularly its final moment. Mariko was deeply struck by the choreographic dimension of this conclusion: on one side, the matador, performing a kind of dance before delivering the final blow; on the other, the bull, whose charge can also be interpreted as a primal, instinctive dance.
From this tension arises her hybrid figure. These sculptures condense both the bull and the matador into a single body, merging victim and executioner, strength and control, instinct and technique. It is not merely a depiction of conflict, but rather of an inevitable, almost ritual intertwining.
These “minotaurs” a term used only in an evocative sense thus become the symbol of a macabre dance, the final act of the corrida, where the two protagonists merge into a single gesture. More than a mythological reference, this is a tribute to the corrida itself: not as spectacle, but as ritual, as a tragic choreography in which life and death converge.
01 MARIKO
THE SAMURAI
Mariko interview
ARION
Mariko artworks.
LA DANCE
Mariko artworks.