Chus Burés: "There are people who prefer to carry a check with them instead of a jewel"

If geniuses are misunderstood, Chus Burés (Barcelona, ​​1964) meets the requirement, since he made his first jewelery with recycled materials at the very end of the seventies, when Barcelona was already at the forefront while Madrid was still waiting for La Movida arrived until today, which recovers the initial spirit of its creations with a

exhibition (which will be at the Alcobendas Art Center until September 11).

This jewelry designer, who lived the moment of his greatest popularity when Almodóvar commissioned the iconic hairpin from the movie

, continues to work for select minorities.

Their clients buy their jewels in the same circuits and with the same premises as the great collectors.

Perhaps that is why his house in the heart of the Salamanca district, where she has lived for 30 years and where he receives us, looks like an art gallery.

Why did you leave the Barcelona avant-garde to which you belonged to come to Madrid?

At the time of Felipe González, one of his concerns was the reconversion of the industry.

The socialists thought that one way to promote textiles was from the base, from creativity.

If the designers sold, the factories ran meters.

In this context, I met Manuel Piña in Ibiza, who invited me to make him jewels for a fashion show in what used to be the contemporary art museum, now the Costume Museum.

I made a collection for her with paper and various recycling materials that were nonsense... The other designers wore pearls and I went with that madness.

Later, at the cocktail party, I will never forget it, there were people smoking next to the

, the

, I was hallucinating.

I found that Madrid was an authentic, wild, unpretentious city that was everything and nothing.

Also if you came from Barcelona you have a lot of work done.

The Catalans are highly respected and Jordi Pujol had just arrived in Catalonia and he landed like a gray beret.

The avant-garde scene in which I moved had disappeared.

Did they call you to complain?

No, when I returned to Barcelona they told me: "How can you live in Madrid, when the streets are made of dirt and people throw the heads of the prawns and the shells of the mussels on the floor of the bars?"

I even suggested to an architect friend why we didn't make a rug out of prawn heads and mussels.

I was fascinated by Madrid.

Is Madrid still this exciting?

Well, it's because then we still didn't have a past and we still didn't know how that madness of going in and out worked.

Night was mixed with day, with creativity, with everything.

I was a great host, this house was the venue for parties, one day we did everything with orange light bulbs, another with green handkerchiefs... We didn't have a reference or anyone to tell us: "Be careful not to go out with that person a lot, to spend a lot money, with drugs, which are going to take their toll”.

When did you realize that?

Maybe in the nineties.

That scared me a little because I saw that it was a whirlpool that if I let myself be dragged…

Didn't he get dragged?

I would tell you no, not at all.

Thanks to my Catalan culture, I was one of those who worked the next day.

That's why my rivals still criticize me.

One of the most impressive pieces in the exhibition is a necklace that covers the body on which a phrase by Pasolini can be read: “

Because being young has to do with the desire to always surprise you, to meet new people, to trust.

The interest and curiosity for everything is not learned neither in the best families nor in the best universities.

For example, I get asked a lot why Spanish women don't wear my designs.

And why don't the Spanish wear their designs?

Because many are not curious at all.

There is no culture of body adornment.

Many people prefer to carry something that is like a check to a valuable jewel for their creativity.

My clients in Paris always tell me: we seek originality above all.

They don't care if it's gold, platinum or plastic.

Not here.

Here you make a plastic thing and they throw it in your face.

Class is one thing and absurd ostentation is another.

Now in Madrid there are many new Latin American investors, do they represent a new business opportunity for you?

I already had the Latinas who visit me in Madrid in New York, but yes, I notice a lot of effervescence.

It is the interest of the president of the Community, she wants to turn Madrid into a city that brings together Latin

.

What is the collaboration that allowed you to make a greater qualitative leap in your career?

Maybe the one I did with Louise Bourgeois.

Working with such important artists has given me access to circles of collectors who, regardless of the metal or material you work with, want exclusive pieces.

They don't want to meet someone wearing the same necklace, like the Queen did the other day.

And your worst received collection?

Well, a Catalan industrialist commissioned me for a collection that I created with precious metals, very fine bones with cabochons in the femurs.

He kicked me out of his office and then I decided to produce it through my own studio and I'm still selling it today.

Since 1987.

What Spanish can you imagine with her jewels?

To Tita Thyssen, at a given moment, although I am more of a woman than an architect.

Lady Foster is very fond of me, she has several of my pieces, she admires my designs a lot.

The other day, at a private event at the Venice Biennale, she spoke wonders about me to everyone, which I thank her very much.

What is the strangest assignment you have received?

Many years ago, a great Spanish art collector commissioned me to do a

for his girlfriend's private parts.

I made him a padlock in white gold.

When I brought her the order I also gave her a key and told her that she had left another seven in cities all over Europe.

It was hilarious.

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