The Valladolid sculptor, Jordi Díez, presented a statue of the Balearic tennis player in Paris on May 27, in the vicinity of the place where one of the four Grand Slams on the tennis circuit is being held.
“It was very exciting. For me, one of the fundamental things to put the finishing touch on my work was to see Rafa Nadal’s reaction. He was next to him, I saw his face and I felt very rewarded because I saw that he liked him a lot. It was like perfectly closing a process in which he had invested a lot of time”, Jordi Díez confesses to us.
He is the sculptor from Valladolid who has signed the work, made of stainless steel and weighing 800 kilos, which pays homage to the 13-time Roland Garros champion, which is located in the Plaza de los Mosqueteros and which many are able to contemplate. in these first sips of the Parisian tournament.
Will it be a talisman for Nadal to get his 14th Gallic twist? “I want the monument to exert a supporting power. I think that Rafa is at the confluence between experience and strength. It is an unpredictable vital moment. It is a contribution to reinforce Nadal’s work, in which we believe and inspires us”, affirms Jordi Díez, in statements to El Español Noticias de Castilla y León.
Process
It all started after this sculptor from Valladolid read a newspaper in which the president of the French Tennis Federation, Bernard Giudicelli, showed his interest in making a monument to the Manacorí tennis player who has found so much glory, year after year, on clay. of the French tournament.
“I discussed it with my team, we thought it was a very interesting idea and five days later the president had the first sketches I made of the sculpture on the table. Bernard Giudicelli himself was convinced when he saw the proposal and it all started there”, our interviewee tells us.
On June 5, 2019, the contract is signed in Paris so that this curious image of the Balearic tennis player begins to take shape, and on the 15th of that same month, the man from Valladolid leaves for Palma de Mallorca to take action. “We carried out a photographic study and I made the void in plaster because it was very important for me to do his hands well,” adds Díez.
After this, at the beginning of September work began that lasted ten months, until June of last year, producing the transport of the bust to Paris and its subsequent storage on November 6, the installation on April 7 and the inauguration of those 800 kilos. in the form of a tribute to the Spanish tennis player on May 27.
Presentation
That May 27 is already marked on Jordi Díez’s calendar. “I love it,” said Nadal when unveiling a sculpture that will leave his deeds engraved in metal in the French capital. “There is no more special place in the world for me than Roland Garros for this sculpture. It means a lot to me, it is a great honor”, added the Spaniard just a week ago.
Everything in the presentation of the image of this one that will remain forever together with Los Mosqueteros, who marked the first steps of the tournament and that of the aviator, which gives its name to this Grand Slam, inaugurated in April.
The author of the statue tells us that “it was very exciting” for him “to put the finishing touch appreciating Rafa’s face” whom he saw that “he liked it a lot” and adding that he “felt very rewarded” because it was the perfect way to ” close a process of a lot of work”.
“What is said about Nadal is true. He is humble, a normal person. Its excellence is manifested on the court”, adds Jordi, who does not hesitate to smile when we ask him if his sculpture will be a talisman for the achievement of the 14th Roland Garros: “I want the monument to exert a power of support”, he adds.
A great professional
At 55, Jordi has 30 years as a sculptor and has worked on projects in San Francisco, Barcelona, Germany, Saudi Arabia or Abu Dhabi, among others… almost nothing.
The man from Valladolid, who currently lives in Centelles (Barcelona), assures that he passes through the city of Pisuerga a couple of times a year to visit the Museum of Polychrome Sculpture that “marked him from the beginning of his career” and that “is one of the best on the planet” as it houses “sculptures by Juan de Juni y Berruguete”.
Díez defines himself as “an eminently figurative sculptor” who “has allowed himself to be impregnated by avant-garde trends such as minimalism, deconstruction and abstraction” creating a hybrid that “happens to be his trademark”.
Author of a golden work, he is to blame for having made Rafa Nadal’s Valladolid soul shine in Parisian lands with the most important clay tournament on the planet as a backdrop.
