Temporary sculpture: a work by Pablo Atchugarry will be in the Independencia square.
The work Homenaje a la flor del ceibo (Homage to the ceibo flower), which he made in Italy, will be installed for ten days.
Packed, between pallets and in a horizontal position, the piece, weighing one ton, which until recently received visitors at the Atchugarry Foundation in Manantiales (Maldonado), will travel in a truck with a built-in crane to Montevideo's Ciudad Vieja (Old City). The sinuous scarlet figure was made in bronze in Italy in 2018 and measures 315 by 120 by 50 cm. Tomorrow afternoon artist Pablo Atchugarry will supervise its temporary installation in one of the tiled quadrants in front of the Executive Tower and an official ceremony is scheduled at 18.00 in Plaza Independencia.
This display will take place within the framework of the 15th anniversary of the Ibero-American Cultural Charter organized by the Organization of Ibero-American States. "It will be an exhibition for a short time, one week, ten days at the most. The work is presented and at the same time it is an opportunity to show the Montevideo public part of the collection, and to talk a little about what will be the next opening of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Atchugarry (MACA). It is a dialogue with an important place for all of us. Not all the public has the opportunity to come to Manantiales," said Atchugarry.
The sculpture was made in Verona using the lost wax casting technique. "It is an ancient casting procedure. First you make a model in marble, as in this case, then a tracing and then fill it with wax, which in turn is coated with refractory materials and put in a furnace. Getting a three-meter oven is not easy," illustrates the sculptor with a dramatic pause, before continuing the explanation. "The wax dissolves and leaves the void, which is going to be filled with bronze melted at 1,000 degrees. It is a procedure used since Phidias, in the 5th century B.C., in Greece, which was later used in the Renaissance by Donatello and other authors up to the present day".
It is a completely red work: "I use a lot of primary colors and it is a bit of a tribute to the ceibo flower," said its author. "For some years I have been using the same color used to paint cars: a protective background is applied to it, and to cover the pores of the material, and then it is blowtorched and baked in the oven. It is very similar to the red of the Ferrari, but not exactly; and the colors of the flowers, like the ceibo, are always difficult to achieve, it is close".
In the sculpture, motif and artist coincide, as the movement of the petals is characteristic of Atchugarry's work. "Somehow it represents my work: sinuous forms and a more curvilinear volume. It's quite organic," she sums up about this piece that has already packed its bags several times. "It was in an exhibition with about 40 works, in the city of Pietrasanta, because I was invited by the commune; it was also in a neuralgic point, in a street, as part of an international fair in Singapore. Then he traveled to my workshop in Lecco, and from there he came here a year ago".
It has a solid base, in stainless steel, and is therefore very stable, he said. "You have to give the opportunity for the public to approach and integrate with the works. I believe that public sculpture has an educational function, to connect with those who suddenly don't go to a museum or an art gallery. It is the one who passes by quietly, passing through a public place".
The Ibero-American Cultural Charter was drafted and signed by the XVI Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government in 2006 in Montevideo and reaffirmed ten years later. The event to be held on November 4 and 5 is jointly promoted by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Organization of Ibero-American States, and will offer cultural activities, meetings of national and international authorities from the cultural sector, shows and spaces for reflection.
Materials and samples
Atchugarry announced the opening of the MACA for January 8. In the meantime, he lives the discounts in the property of his foundation. "It has been enlarged, now there are 40 hectares, precisely to give more breathing space, both to the existing works in the sculpture park and to the new building, that is, the MACA, a project by Carlos Ott", he does not forget to mention. The eucalyptus used as construction material comes from the north of the country, as he explained: "One of the innovative and symbolic parts of the project is to use national wood, that is, eucalyptus red grandis_, which grows in Rivera. They are bought in boards, treated in Uruguay and then traveled to France to be agglomerated, glued and cut, transformed into large beams and pillars. In other words, this wood made a trip, was perfected and returned to its place of origin, metaphorically like so many Uruguayans who go abroad and come back to the country with a training".
It gives the impression that it will be one of those museums that are visited out of curiosity to get to know the building. But the agenda will also start with the Christo and Jeanne-Claude retrospective in Uruguay, and apart from the permanent collection, which contains more than 500 works by Latin American and European artists, among them Julio Le Parc, Carlos Cruz Diez, Joaquin Torres Garcia, Ernesto Neto and Carmelo Arden Quin, an exhibition by Leon Ferrari will be inaugurated in the annex. "We have to think that the museum will serve as a showcase for national art. Over the years I have been building up a national and international collection and not only that collection will be available to the museum's collection, but there will also be loans of works from institutions and private individuals from all over the world. Then, it will be the occasion to see international exhibitions, such as this one of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who have just had this posthumous exhibition, the packaging of the Arc de Triomphe in September in Paris. We plan to hold two major exhibitions during the year, an international one, so that the national public and foreigners visiting us do not have to go to the Pompidou Center or elsewhere, and at the same time, an exhibition of national and regional artists so that the international public can get to know them in greater depth".
Atchugarry is currently preparing two works that will participate in the international Art Basel fair in Miami. He has just arrived from Italy, where the exhibition Vita della materia gathers 44 of his pieces at the Palazzo Reale in Milan. "It's in the Sala delle Caryatides, where Picasso, in 1953, exhibited the famous Guernica. It lasts until January 30 and at the same time, in the room next door, there is an exhibition of Claude Monet. So for me it is an honor to be in such a prestigious place with so much history".
