ART-PREVIEW:Pablo Atchugarry-Lien Entre Deux Mondes
Best known for his marble works which resemble the monoliths of early civilizations, he approaches sculpture as an extension of the materials he employs. For each sculpture, Atchugarry personally selects an appropriate block and is actively involved in carving it. He works with white Carrara from Tuscany, gray stone from Bardiglio, black from Belgium, and pink from Portugal.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Xippas Gallery Archive
Pablo Atchugarry in his solo exhibition “Lien entre deux mondes” shows a set of previously unseen sculptures, specially created for the occasion. Pablo Atchugarry was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, on 23/8/1954. His father Pedro, an art lover, perceived Pablo’s skills and interest and stimulated him to take up art from childhood. In his early days he expressed himself through painting, and gradually discovered other materials, such as cement, iron and wood. At the end of the 70s, after staging several exhibitions in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Porto Alegre and Brasilia, he made several trips to study in Spain, France and Italy, where he organised his first personal exhibition in 1978 in the city of Lecco (Lake Como). His paintings were subsequently exhibited in several cities, such as Milan, Copenhagen, Paris, Coira, Bergamo and Stockholm. In 1979, after experimenting with different mediums, he discovered marble as an extraordinary and fascinating material, and created his first sculpture called “La Lumière”, in Carrara. In 1982, Atchugarry continued to work in marble in Carrara and decided to settle in Lecco, Italy, as a result of his sculpture “La Pieta” executed in a block of 12 tonnes in Carrara statue marble, which he finished in 1983. In 1987 he held his first individual sculpture exhibition in the Bramantino Crypt in Milan, which was presented by Raffaele de Grada. By 1989, he also made monumental pieces that are now part of private and public collections in America and Europe. In 1996 he executed the sculpture “Semilla de la esperanza” for the park of the Libertad Building, the seat of the Government of Uruguay. In 1999, the Pablo Atchugarry Museum was founded in Lecco, exhibiting work spanning his entire career and housing all of the artist’s bibliographic documentation and archives. In 2001, the Province of Milan organised a retrospective exhibition of his work “Las infinitas evoluciones del mármol” in the Isimbardi Palace in Milan. That same year, he sculpted the monument titled the “Obelisco del tercer milenio”, a 6-metre high sculpture in Carrara marble for the Italian city of Manzano (Udine), and he was commissioned to make the monument “Civilización y cultura del trabajo de Lecco”, a 6-metre high sculpture in Carrara marble that weighs in at thirty tonnes. In 2002, in Carrara, he was honoured with the “Michelangelo” award in recognition of his career as an artist, and he continued to work on different pieces, including the “Ideales” sculpture, which stands on Princess Grace Avenue in Monaco, created for the 50th anniversary of the coronation of Prince Rainier of Monte Carlo. In 2003 he participated in the 50th Venice Biennial with the work “Soñando la paz”, a sculptural work consisting of eight pieces, five of them in Carrara statue marble and three in bardiglio marble from Garfagnana. That same year he sculpted the “Ascención” work for the Franc Daurel Foundation of Barcelona. In 2004 he made the “Energía Vital” sculpture in Rosa Portugal marble for the Davidoff Cancer Hospital of the Belinson Centre in Petak Tikva, Israel. In 2005, the National Museum of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires organised an exhibition of his work. In June 2006, the Groningen Museum and Concert Hall of Bruges, Belgium, arranged a major retrospective. Between 2007 and 2008, a retrospective and travelling exhibition of his work was organised in Brazil. In 2008, the National Museum of Visual Arts of Montevideo organised an exhibition of his body of work over the last 15 years. In 2009 he made the sculpture “Luz y Energía de Punta del Este” a 5-metre-high piece in Carrara statue marble for the city of Punta del Este. Between 2009 and 2011 he developed the Pablo Atchugarry Foundation in Manantiales, creating an international sculpture park and new exhibition and didactic spaces for the dissemination and teaching of art, which is visited by thousands of students every year. In 2011, the Groningen Bruges Museum purchased the 3-metre-high work executed in the course of 1999 in Carrara statue marble. At the end of 2013 Electa Mondadori finished editing the General Catalogue of sculpture, including all of Atchugarry’s artistic processes from 1971 and 2013.
Info: Xippas Gallery, Rue des Sablons 6, Geneva, Duration: 31/10-19/12/2020, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-13:00 & 14:00-18:30, Sat 12:00-17:00, www.xippas.com
