ATCHUGARRY ART CENTER, MIAMI (USA) by Quadrifolium Group

ATCHUGARRY ART CENTER | MIAMI, USA December 3rd, 2018

Camino a Izcua 1543 2 Garzón | Uruguay 5520 NE 4th Avenue Miami | USA info@pieroatchugarry.com www.pieroatchugarry.com

ATCHUGARRY ART CENTER Miami | USA - December 3rd, 2018 First print run of 1000 catalogues September 2019, Italy Edition: 2019 - Quadrifolium Group Srl, Lecco (Italy) Graphic design: Alessio Gilardi

Ruta 104, Km. 4.5 Maldonado | Uruguay 5520 NE 4th Avenue Miami | USA info@fundacionpabloatchugarry.org www.fundacionpabloatchugarry.org

Print: G&G Srl, Padova (Italy) Cover: Atchugarry Art Center, Miami (USA) - Photo Credits: Leonardo Finotti Photo Credits: Leonardo Finotti, (pages 2-3, 6-7, 126-131), Alessio Gilardi, Daniele Cortese, Galleria Tonelli (Milan, Italy), Ignacio Muñoz

TENSION AND DYNAMISM

Domenico De Chirico

69 CONNECTIONS

Angela Faravelli

WIFREDO LAM IN CUENCA (1925-1927)

Ignacio MuÃ±oz

115 COSTIGLIOLO, THE LIFE OF THE FORMS

Enrique Aguerre

TENSION AND DYNAMISM Domenico De Chirico

The primitive character of post-minimalist artworks is evident in the use of materials, the objectivist emphasis, and the elimination of any additions that might be considered non-essential to the structure of the work itself; however, it is principally evident in a return to the core, to a disunited unity that is nonetheless full of mystery, made explicit through an extremely penetrating spatial dialectic.

TULIO PINTO, CUMPLICIDADE VETORIAIS #2

In response to Jacques Derrida’s reading of Edmund Husserl’s dialectical question, Carlo Molinar Min wrote: “Rather than being understood through its effective yet paradoxical dynamism, the reciprocal connection, the co-implication of formalism and realism is deactivated and progressively overlain by reasons for an already given opposition; that of form and matter, sense and the sensible.” What Derrida criticizes in Husserl is that his phenomenological research did not achieve the degree of primitiveness that is fundamental to the concept of a way of being and appearing; a genesis of experience understood as a dialectic of identity and alterity, of inside and outside, which is a constitutive aspect of any manifestation. This energetic dialectic and tension between the related parts of an artwork is apparent in all those on display, which through their common approach towards materials and for specific reasons relating to the identity offer the moment of primitiveness described above, all of it concentrated in their spatial genesis: a toing and froing of unity and derailment, contraction and distension, density and the acquisition of form. The dynamism activated in this way is such that it remains in the artwork from the moment of its creation to its materialization and further still. This dialectical sense in which what is opposite has never been opposed is present at every instant. The tension between the elements involved and the metaphysical movement that includes them constitute two processes that not only maintain their own internal dialectic but also activate a reciprocal dynamic communication. By so doing, something that resembles play tends to emerge from every single work, which then becomes a common game of forms that engages all the works on show.

ARCANGELO SASSOLINO, UNTITLED, 2018 Blue concrete, 81 x 63 x 15 cm

Pablo Atchugarry’s marble works recall the monoliths of early civilizations. He treats sculpture as an extension of the materials he uses. The creation of his monumental biomorphic abstractions derives from his ceaseless and constant focus on finding the form within the material itself through skill and craftsmanship. His large-scale monolithic pieces with their multiple folds that emphasize the vertical axis recall standing stones, menhirs, Cycladic votive statues and obelisks. Using simple materials produced for mass use (such as sheets of paper, aluminum, apples or even envelopes), Marco Maggi deploys a topographic map of details linked to daily life. By privileging the micro rather than the macro, he draws us closer to his meticulous objects. As we observe his Plexiglas cubes, which at first glance seem transparent, or apparently blank pages, we begin to discern the delicate interwoven drawings and the slender, almost impalpable reliefs that emerge from the flat surfaces. These precious objects reveal to us an infinite, delicate network whose meaning remains enigmatic; the drawings merge with the surrounding space to form a constellation of scattered forms. The works of Riccardo De Marchi are characterized by holes that assume a strong symbolic role of presence-absence, penetrating the material to investigate its meaning. Traces left by the artist’s actions, where each individual mark becomes a letter of a universal language or alphabet. The surfaces of his works represent a sort of blank page on which to write and penetrate the various materials he selects, such as aluminum, stainless steel, or Plexiglas, creating a new spatial universe composed of endless inquiries and dialogues.

VERÓNICA VÁZQUEZ, MOLDES, 2016 Paper, wire and iron, 155 x 125 x 20 cm

In his installations and sculptures TĂşlio Pinto explores the subtle balance between weight and matter. His artistic research begins from materials such as glass, iron and soil; then, through investigations into balance where he seems to challenge the laws of physics, he probes the subtle, unstable equilibrium of human interaction, the force and temperament that is triggered by a relationship between individuals. He attempts to establish a metaphorical dialogue between the laws that underpin the world, highlighting the subtlety and delicacy that issue from a stable equilibrium and vice versa, ensuring that his works become places of experience and reflection.

Arcangelo Sassolinoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sculptures and installations explore mechanical behavior, the materials and physical properties of force. By applying these properties to the natural world and to ways of behaving, the artist examines the friction between industrial progress and environmental concerns. Sassolinoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s works are carefully designed and studied to achieve an intense degree of physicality, in which the tension, anticipation and awareness of risk, together with a powerful aesthetic quality, play a key role in the viewerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experience.

Verónica Vázquez directs her attention to found materials, such as iron, fabric, cardboard, paper, and wire of varying thicknesses, malleable elements that she carefully and passionately interweaves, superimposes, investigates and juxtaposes in a visual dialogue, forming and reforming them into original shapes that gradually become vibrant storylines, inviting installations, and large or small theaters of intimate narration. Matter and memory; muscular gesture and poetic gracefulness; the violence of metal and the patina of time: in all her investigations the metaphorical but also “real” guiding thread that often weaves through her works is a continuous, passionate challenge to the laws of nature and art, a fight to keep alive the purity of objects, materials, and the truth of sculpture.

Artur Lescher’s artworks attest to his continual process of testing the physical qualities and objective characteristics of materials. He makes constant references to natural elements, whose perfect industrially fabricated duplication in his work reveal hidden allusions. Another key element in Lescher’s work is architecture, whether in synthesis or in context. Lescher creates in-situ installations where he appropriates the spatial situation of the exhibition space in order to transform corners, walls and doors into large-scale installations. His works emerge subtly, like poetic gestures in space, transmitting strength and instability, balance and movement, tension and silence.

RICCARDO DE MARCHI, LETTER TO JACKSON POLLOCK, 2011 Aluminum, painting and holes, 600 x 150 cm

RICCARDO DE MARCHI, OPEN TEXT, 2016 Stainless steel and holes, 280 x 50 cm each one

RICCARDO DE MARCHI, UNTITLED, 2016 Stainless steel, Plexiglass and holes, 50 x 50 x 180 cm

ARCANGELO SASSOLINO, UNTITLED, 2018 Black concrete, 159 x 149 x 26 cm

TULIO PINTO, HOLE IN THE SKY, 2018 Glass and steel, 207 x 212 x 337 cm

MARCO MAGGI, DRAWING MACHINE (4 red, 4 blue, 4 yellow), 2018 12 Soviet era colored pencils, bowstrings, hooks, 160 x 320 x 18 cm

ARTUR LESCHER, RIO LEITHE #05, 2018 Wood and felt, 250 x 173 x 15 cm

VERÓNICA VÁZQUEZ, TEXIL III, 2016 Industrial plates, 187 x 174,5 cm

PABLO ATCHUGARRY, UNTITLED, 2010 Statuary Carrara marble, 193 x 30 x 26 cm

PABLO ATCHUGARRY, UNTITLED, 2017. Ed. 8 + 1PA Bronze with automotive paint, 136 x 31 x 23 cm cm

MARCO MAGGI, SPELLING (R-O-J-O, A-M-A-R-I-L-L-O, A-Z-U-L), 2018 Cuts on archival papers in 600 35 mm slide mounts mounted on dibond, 152,5 x 101,5 cm each

CONNECTIONS Angela Faravelli

The pulsating layout of the works is reproduced in the exhibition hall, defining a series of visual and formal cross references that change the perception that the viewer has of the surrounding space. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Connectionsâ&#x20AC;?, one of the exhibitions that inaugurates the opening of the Atchugarry Art Center in Miami, aims to highlight the unexpected and subtle links between artists of different nations and generations. Starting from Lucio Fontana (born in Rosario, 1899 - died in Comabbio, 1968), that with his cuts and holes has made the space of the real world enter the artwork, the exhibition is expressed following the legacy left by the founder of the Spatialist movement; in fact, Agostino Bonalumi (born in Vimercate, 1935 - died in Desio, 2013) acts in the opposite direction and brings the surface of the canvas, through the eversion, to interact with the surrounding area delineating sinuous and harmonic trajectories. This is the underlying theme of Connections: the artist who invades and redraws the space and the perception that we have of it. So, also through the subsequent research triggered by Abstractionism, there are many artists who have directed their research towards the limits of the real and the unreal, of the perceived and imagined space, each of them according to their own sensitivity and their principles: Piero Dorazio (born in Rome, 1927 - died in Perugia, 2005) with his balanced and colorful geometric compositions has focused his painting on the research of those key PIERO DORAZIO, TAROTS, 1997 Oil on canvas, 80 x 120 cm

PABLO ATCHUGARRY, UNTITLED, 2018. Ed. 8 + 1PA Bronze with automotive paint, 63 x 14,5 x 8,5 cm

PABLO ATCHUGARRY, UNTITLED, 2018. Ed. 8 + 1PA Bronze with automotive paint, 80 x 32 x 20 cm

elements of visual perception that generate the way of seeing and understanding images; Richard Anuszkiewicz (born in Erie, 1930) examined the effects of Abstractionism related to the use of light and color on the work, reconnecting with Op Art and Kinetic Art; Dadamaino (born in Milan, 1930 - died in Milan, 2004), with his geometric-perceptive research, and Alberto Biasi (born in Padua, 1937), through the use of geometry to create optical illusions, have created spaces for interaction between the viewer and the work.

The pictorial surface is rethought as a space for artistic action; thus the obsessively repeated sign, like a mantra, by Sergio Fermariello (born in Naples, 1961) is in dialogue and analogy with the brightly coloured concentric rings thatgive shape to the “Target” of Ugo Rondinone (born in Brunnen, 1964), becoming icons of energy that propagates in space generating at the same time components of centripetal and centrifugal force. This force captures the viewer’s gaze in an endless tunnel and at the same time shows it to the outside.

TURI SIMETTI, UNTITLED, 2011 Acrylic on shaped canvas, 120 x 80 cm

Similar to the research on color but different in its result is the artistic poetry developed by Sam Francis (born in San Mateo, 1923 - died in San Mateo, 1994), which at the beginning was focused on Expressionism and then led to Action Painting; reconnecting to the path initially opened by Fontana we can then include the works of Francis in the context of the irruption of the real in the artwork. Therefore Connections is an invitation to experiment art as an active field able to stimulate the perception of those who come in connection with the mental and physical space of the exhibition, triggering impulses for interpreting reality.

AGOSTINO BONALUMI, BLU, 1983 Vinyl tempera on shaped canvas, 80 x 80 cm

LUCIO FONTANA, TEATRINO, 1968 Cut out and perforated cardboard, 70 x 70 cm. Ed. of 75, black

LUCIO FONTANA, TEATRINO, 1968 Cut out and perforated cardboard, 70 x 70 cm. Ed. of 75, white

LUCIO FONTANA, TEATRINO ROSSO, 1968 Perforated cardboard, 70 x 70 cm. Ed. of 75, red

LUCIO FONTANA, CAVALIERE, 1953 Painted ceramic, 50 x 50 x 10 cm

ALBERTO BIASI, BLU MARE, 1998 PVC on board, 115 x 70 x 5 cm

RICHARD ANUSZKIEWICZ, SOFT BLUE, 1974 Acrylic on canvas, 182 x 152 cm

DADAMAINO, INTERAZIONE CROMO-STRUTTURALE, 1970-72 Wooden blocks painted on table, 90 x 90 x 7 cm

UGO RONDINONE, EINUNDZWANZIGSTENMAIZWEITAUSENDUNDNULL, 2000 Enamel on reinforced glass, 300 x 150 x 6 cm

UGO RONDINONE, EINUNDZWANZIGSTERAUGUSTZWEILTAUSENDINDNULLINONE, 2000 Oil on canvas, Ã&#x2DC; 220 cm

WIFREDO LAM IN CUENCA (1925-1927)

Wifredo Lam is one of the relevant and sui generis figures of the 20th Century, who skillfully imbued his works with the trends of the convulsive epoch in which he lived, availing himself of them to mature and progress in his own creation. His art always pursued new interpretative possibilities, spanning the most academicist movements through to the boldest avant-gardes, and his work always blended new languages with magical and religious iconographies of Afro-Cuban provenance. This duality points to a very strong personality that enabled him to assimilate new concepts without ever reneging on his roots. In his entire body of work, his training period in Spain, and more specifically his spell in Cuenca, proved to be decisive, although it took place in a very early and, for some odd reason, unknown stage. Times were tough then for Wilfredo Lam. Cuba was far away, his scholarship never seemed to arrive, and he had to endure all kinds of hardship. This was when Fernando Rodríguez Muñoz brought him to Cuenca, in 1924, where he would remain until 1927, spending his summers in the village of Villares del Saz. He is definitely known to have painted El baile, La Fantasía Árabe and La Fantasía Oriental at the Conversa family house. These works were painted to experiment with forms, colors and compositions. And they uncover many of the traits that Lam would pursue and gradually accomplish throughout his entire body of work. First of all, his skill and mastery of drawing is evident. He is utterly conversant with the human figure, its propor-

tions and measurements. His colors are free and forceful, sparing no contrasts. In some compositions he abides by conventional parameters, as in El Baile, whilst in others he uses the human figure as a diagonal line traversing a canvas, as in Fantasía Árabe and Fantasía Oriental. These two works also yielded symbols that would go on to become indispensable parts of his plastic vocabulary. Moreover, the painstaking and elegant portrait of Doña Zoa which, in the opinion of María Luisa Borrás, is “the most handsome and significant portrait” (Wifredo Lam. Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work. Volume I. 19231960, pg. 23), is outstanding in its sobriety, of both stroke and color; in it, the artist manages to depict a certain mystery in the young woman’s visage and in the small pet she protects. Cuenca undoubtedly played a major role in the painter’s career. And the works of the Conversa Collection and that of the Muñoz family, as well as others scattered across other institutions and in private hands, are of such significance that Cuenca is utterly necessary for us to fully know his work.

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Origin: Artist, family Muñoz Conversa and Zoa Muñoz Conversa. Purchased from the heirs of my aunt Doña Zoa. Conversation between my father Don Fernando Muñoz Crespo. Particular collection. Annotations: Registered and reproduced in the reasoned catalog of Lam with the number 27.20, pages. 227 and 20. (“LAM - Catalog Raisonné of the Painted Work - Volume I - 1923-1960”). Editorial ACATOS, 1996. Bibliography and exhibitions: 1996. Lam. Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work. Volume I 1923.1960. Editorial Ácatos, 1996 (pp. 20 y 227) (B). 2016. Wifredo Lam. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (pág. 50) (B).

WIFREDO LAM, PORTRAIT (ZOA CONVERSA), 1927 Oil on Canvas, 97 x 85 cm

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Origin: Artist, family Muñoz Conversa and Zoa Muñoz Conversa. Annotations: Registered and reproduced in the reasoned catalog of Lam with the number 25.03, pages. 219. (“LAM - Catalog Raisonné of the Painted Work - Volume I - 1923-1960”). Editorial ACATOS, 1996. Bibliography and exhibitions: 1985. Wifredo Lam en Cuenca 1925-1927. Ministerio de Cultura. Casa de la Cultura. Cuenca. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha. Delegación Provincial de Cuenca (57) (B). 1992. Wifredo Lam and his contemporaries 1938-1952 (pág. 20). 1996. Lam. Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work. Volume I 1923.1960. Editorial Ácatos, 1996 (pág. 219) (B). 2016. Wifredo Lam. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (pág. 46) (B).

WIFREDO LAM, JUDÍO (INDIO CON EL BÚHO), 1925 Oil on Canvas, 113 x 91,5 cm

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Origin: Artist, family Muñoz Conversa and Zoa Muñoz Conversa. Annotations: Registered and reproduced in the reasoned catalog of Lam with the number 25.01, pages. 219 and 22. (“LAM - Catalog Raisonné of the Painted Work - Volume I - 1923-1960”). Editorial ACATOS, 1996. Bibliography and exhibitions: 1985. Wifredo Lam en Cuenca 1925-1927. Ministerio de Cultura. Casa de la Cultura. Cuenca. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha. Delegación Provincial de Cuenca (pág. 47). 1992. Wifredo Lam and his contemporaries 1938-1952. 1996. Lam. Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work. Volume I 1923.1960. Editorial Ácatos, 1996 (pp. 22 y 219) (B). 2016. Wifredo Lam. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (pág. 47) (B).

WIFREDO LAM, SOL (CHINO SENTADO CON ABANICO EN LAS MANOS), 1925 Oil on Canvas, 113 x 91,5 cm

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Origin: Artist, family Muñoz Conversa and Zoa Muñoz Conversa. Annotations: Registered and reproduced in the reasoned catalog of Lam with the number 25.07, p. 220. (“LAM - Catalog Raisonné of the Painted Work - Volume I - 1923-1960”). Editorial ACATOS, 1996. Bibliography and exhibitions: 1985. Wifredo Lam en Cuenca 1925-1927. Ministerio de Cultura. Casa de la Cultura. Cuenca. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha. Delegación Provincial de Cuenca (pág. 47). 1992. Wifredo Lam and his contemporaries 1938-1952. 1996. Lam. Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work. Volume I 1923.1960. Editorial Ácatos, 1996 (pp. 22 y 219) (B). 2016. Wifredo Lam. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (pág. 47) (B).

WIFREDO LAM, MUJERES (LAS BAILARINAS Y EL TOCADOR DE GUITARRA), 1925 Oil on Canvas, 113 x 91,5 cm

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Origin: Artist, family Muñoz Conversa. Annotations: The frame is also the work of Lam. Registered and reproduced in the reasoned catalog of Lam with the number 25.04, p. 220. (“LAM - Catalog Raisonné of the Painted Work - Volume I - 1923-1960”). Editorial ACATOS, 1996. Bibliography and exhibitions: 1985. Wifredo Lam en Cuenca 1925-1927. Ministerio de Cultura. Casa de la Cultura. Cuenca. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha. Delegación Provincial de Cuenca (pág. 51). 1992. Wifredo Lam and his contemporaries 1938-1952. 1996. Lam. Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work. Volume I 1923.1960. Editorial Ácatos, 1996 (pág. 220) (B).

WIFREDO LAM, NIÑOS CON LAS PALMAS, 1925 Oil on canvas and plaster frame made by Lam, 120 x 80 cm

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COSTIGLIOLO, THE LIFE OF THE FORMS Enrique Aguerre

The Costigliolo: la vida de las formas exhibition got under way on 3 December 2018 with the official opening of the new headquarters of the Fundación Pablo Atchugarry in the city of Miami, in the United States, thus making it the first retrospective exhibition of José Pedro Costigliolo (1902-1985) on the international scenario. In the artist’s lifetime, only two retrospective exhibitions or anthologies were held in Montevideo, the city where he was born, the first one organized by the Comisión Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1957 and the second in the Amigos del Arte Gallery in 1961. It was not until 1988, when Costigliolo had already passed away, that the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) — through its director María Luisa Torrent, always a staunch supporter and disseminator of Costigliolo’s work —, held the most comprehensive retrospective exhibition to date in the Subte Municipal Exhibition Centre, featuring more than one hundred and forty works spanning more than sixty years of plastic creation. Costigliolo: la vida de las formas will also be hosted at the Fundación Pablo Atchugarry of Maldonado in December this year and will close in June 2019, in the National Museum of Visual Arts (MNAV) in Montevideo. Most of the works by José Pedro Costigliolo that will be on show come from the Fundación Pablo Atchugarry Collection and will be complemented by the heritage of the MNAV and by private collections, thus affording, in our own country and abroad, a unique opportunity for visitors to have an in-depth look at the work of the maestro Costigliolo. It is very difficult to talk about the life and work of Costigliolo without mentioning María Freire (1917-2015), the artist’s colleague and spouse for over thirty years. They also shared a rigorous and incessant artistic activity that led each one of them to develop their own plastic language without ever being eclipsed by the other.

I had the honor of working with María Freire for almost ten years, recording exhibitions and making small video documentaries about her and Costi’s work, as she fondly called him. In 1994, we filmed a video about the life and work of José Pedro Costigliolo and penned the script together, because María alone was capable of understanding the true nature of Costi’s painting. To honor that work, and moved by the fondest memories of someone who had the patience to show me how to understand and enjoy abstract art, I would like to offer some insights in the hope that I may help to discover the exceptional artist that Costigliolo undoubtedly was. The Costigliolo: la vida de las formas exhibition brings a different selection of works to each city, taking into account the particular spatial characteristics of each one of the exhibition venues, on the one hand, and on the other, and equally important, the exhibition’s cultural context. They do share a certain chronological order that is established by the actual series that Costigliolo followed; he rarely repeated formal solutions that he already regarded as things of the past, achievements, denoting a patently modern attitude associated with the evolution of artistic activity. These series are: 1925-1927 Figurative portraits, 19291946 Graphic Arts, 1946-1950 Abstractions (purism and machinism), 1950-1953 Structures, 1953-1960 Concrete art and Geometric Abstraction, 1958-1962 Projects for stainedglass windows, 1961-1963 Forms and informalism, and finally, from 1963 to 1985, Squares, Rectangles and Triangles. Some artists have it easy, but Costigliolo had no such luck. Driven by a deep vocation for drawing and painting from a very early age, one that was not reciprocated at home, he did not take long to realize that he would have to go it alone. With a reserved nature and a difficult temperament, he began to study in 1921 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes under the professors Guillermo Laborde (1886-1940) and

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Vicente Puig (1882-1965), where he remained until 1924, when he decided to strike off on his own outside academia. By 1925, Costigliolo’s work was already unique and began to be clearly different to anything being painted and exhibited in our setting, although his proposals were not always properly understood. After his spell at the Círculo de Bellas Artes and the teachings of the maestro Laborde, Costigliolo embraced figuration, clearly leaning towards abstraction in his treatment of color and forms. This epoch yielded El finlandés [The Finn] (1925), Retrato del Dr. Cáceres [Portrait of Dr. Cáceres] (1925) and Autorretrato [Self-Portrait] (1927) — also known as Figura sentada [Seated Figure] —, which were the most important works and of the few that survived this seminal period. Costigliolo’s decision not to keep any of his work from the 1920s was prompted by a clear positioning derived from the scant acceptance of his work and frequent rejections in art galleries, awards and compositions for study scholarships. “The El finlandés portrait already denotes a leaning towards the geometrization of forms, whereas Retrato del Dr. Cáceres places greater emphasis on the green planes of the face. Figura sentada further explores the synthesis of forms to reach abstraction”, as Freire so rightly points out.1 As a result of the rebuttal of his work by those who vetoed the art of that time, compounded by no few unpleasant experiences when competing for study scholarships, the nonplussed Costigliolo, who also had a very skeptical view of the local artistic scene, gave up painting. He turned his hand to graphic arts to earn a living, and in this epoch, if the influence of Guillermo Laborde in his painting is very important, then it proved to be even more decisive in his posters, carnival floats, stage sets, advertising signs and posters and record and publication covers. Between 1929 and 1946, Costigliolo continued to experiment and delve further into geometric abstraction through commercial works of his own design, with risky proposals for the medium, and aligned with international experiences derived from the historic avant-gardes. In 1929, he won the

first prize in the poster competition of the Music Palace, thus obtaining a recognition that had hitherto eluded him. In 1940 Uruguay, the work of plastic artists was classified into watertight categories in a very conservative and biased fashion: high art (derived from Fine Arts: mainly painting and sculpture) and low art (graphic, design, decoration, etc.), hence the quality of Costigliolo’s work did not receive the recognition it deserved. It is therefore also very difficult to understand the progress — from the modern point of view — made by Costigliolo in his artistic activity, and above all in his departure from figuration towards new plastic territories within abstraction, namely purism and his machinist period, to say nothing of his decisive spell in graphic arts. In 1946, Costigliolo returned to painting with experience he had amassed over 15 years attending to commissions or design proposals for different media. His first abstractions maintained the link with certain key works from the history of art, such as The Three Graces (1947) and La Gioconda (1947), and with literary characters such as Don Quijote and Sancho Panza (1948). Influenced by the purist aesthetic, rooted in Cubism and very particularly linked to the work of Amédée Ozenfant (1886-1966) and Charles Édouard Jeanneret (1887-1965), he began to paint series of still lives that bore the simple titles of Composition, Abstraction or Untitled, devoid of any frills and focusing on a coloration that swung freely between strong colors and a very low palette. Just like his machinist stage, closer to futurism, where a Costigliolo who defied description — “felt drawn to the architecture of the machine”2, as María Freire put it —, produced his machinist compositions. Costigliolo: la vida de las formas brings to light the transition from the machinist period through to his Structures series that debuted in 1950 and followed through until 1953 with small and medium-format works. From this point onwards, Costigliolo shed all vestiges of figuration, including any kind of representational token. The artist’s structures, which simplify the machinist approaches, are not fixed but rather pursue oblique structures from their initial orthogonal structures.

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These works, constructive in nature, where plain colors are dependent on form, would lead to concretism. José Pedro Costigliolo took part in the 1st Biennial of São Pablo (1951), where he became acquainted with Concrete Art through the Swiss artist Max Bill (1908-1994), the star and award-winner of the event, who became a powerful and long-lasting influence on geometric abstract artists in our continent. The Structures talk of a Costigliolo who was consolidating his skill and who, feeling free and in full command of his tools, produced exceptional works. María Freire defines the Structures with the utmost clarity and lucidity: “These works pertain to a new form of plastic writing, incorporating elements of universal geometry. They had their own, autonomous, internal organization codes and laws, their own variants and constants. Space is always two-dimensional, both linearly, formally and chromatically; like the classic constructivists, he knows that color is not only beauty, it is also energy”.3 José Pedro Costigliolo held his first individual exhibitions in the Antú Gallery in 1949 and in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He did not do so in Montevideo until 1954, in the Salamanca Gallery, with María Freire and Antonio Llorens (1920-1995). He staged a further two collective founding exhibitions in 1952: the first one was in an academic setting, to wit the Faculty of Architecture, the commonality being that the participants were self-defined abstract artists, and Non-Figurative Art in the Asociación Cristiana de Jóvenes [YMCA], whose second edition was held in 1953. He also included the works sent to the exhibitions in Uruguay to the São Pablo Biennial (19511955). In Montevideo, he exhibited once again in the Faculty of Architecture with María Freire and participated in the 19 Artists of Today collective exhibition in the Subte Municipal Exhibition Centre, both of them in 1955. José Pedro Argul (1903-1974) recalls the exhibition in the following way: “Three years later, the important 19 Artists of today exhibition was held in the Subte Municipal Exhibition Centre, and may be regarded as a major landmark in terms of the enshrinement of Modern Art and its latest evolutions in Montevideo. The power of the emergence of the artists through a new creed was mirrored by the multitudinous

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turn-outs at the venue on Avenida 18 de Julio to take in, serenely and in rapt attention, with no trace of sarcasm or irony whatsoever, the exhibitions held there”.4 Vida de las formas (1955) also dates from that same year, originating in a proposal to illustrate the “Vida de las formas” (1934) book by the art historian and professor of the Colegio de Francia Henri Focillon (1881-1943), which ultimately did not materialize, as it was not selected. I will cite something I wrote for the Nuevas Vías de Acceso III catalogue from 2008 for the National Museum of Visual Arts (MNAV): “The dimensions of Vida de las formas are 63 cm high by 93 cm wide, and it consists of a series of 10 gouaches on similar-sized cartoon, barring the first one which, besides being the largest (almost twice the size of the other nine), bears the title of the work on a yellow strip with a proper name underneath: Henri Focillon. It is now evident that this larger gouache refers to a book cover, and the other ones to different illustrations as they are inserted into its pages”.5 I added that these black, white and yellow organic forms on different-colored backgrounds of illustrations by Costigliolo are a kind of musical translation of Focillon’s book, which has a life of its own beyond the text in question”. Although this was written 10 years ago, I believe it still remains true, as it highlights a correspondence between the artist’s geometric or concrete abstract work and musical forms. He tried out scores of variants. Vida de las formas foretells of the “variations” modality on families of forms in Costigliolo’s paintings, curved lines in this case, and subsequently on squares, rectangles and triangles. José Pedro Costigliolo entered Salons and Prizes, at which he obtained several distinctions and acknowledgments — the selfsame recognition denied to him years before and which had obliged him to give up painting—, and in 1957, at the 3rd International Biennial Salon, he obtained a prize that included a two-year study grant which he used to travel to Europe to study the stained-glass windows produced between the Middle Ages through to the Contemporary Styles of the 1950s and the 1960s.

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His spell in Europe proved to be crucial in determining the direction his art would take, and he worked intensely in Paris and Brussels; in the Belgian capital, he and María Freire prepared an exhibition at the Les Contemporains Gallery. The exhibition was assembled in the workshop of Héctor Sgarbi (1905-1982) who was living in Belgium and was in the employment of our Embassy. Costigliolo was focused on “closed structure works, a sign-form”, a term coined by María. The exhibition at the Les Contemporains Gallery opened in May 1959, when both of them exhibited about twenty works between them; the exhibition was a huge success and it was there that they met the Belgian critic Maurits Bilcke (1903-1993). Bilcke was very impressed with Costigliolo’s work, about which he wrote: “Costigliolo works on very broad planes with very limited colors, which is why they stand out better over each other. Nevertheless, certain compositions are far more complex. This generates an extremely tense rhythm, expressed by a kind of set of lines that cut into each other, and colored positive-negative planes, which in no way detract from the overall unity, stability and peace. The structure is the harmony of abstract art, of an utterly pure essence. It is organic, brimming with distinction, and breathes fresh life into the trend of abstract art which some people wrongly believed would eventually reach an impasse“.6 Back in Uruguay, Costigliolo continued with his research into stained-glass windows he had begun on his arrival in France and which he would follow through until 1962. “A magnificent opportunity to glean a better feel of the power of color in its function of luminosity, in drawing out the values of light, light as a color. Stained-glass windows to be executed in cement and glass”.7 The result of the best part of this experience was showcased in the Cartones para vitrales [Cartoons for stained-glass windows] exhibition, held at the Centro de Artes y Letras of El País in 1961. Another plastic solution vis-à-vis abstraction adopted by Costigliolo was a “sortie” into materia painting and informalism between 1961 and 1963, although he quickly

abandoned this path and reverted to geometric art to embark upon his definitive series of Squares, Rectangles and Triangles. Returning to his stay in Europe, and once his scholarship had ended in December 1959, he was given the possibility of staying in France or Belgium; Costigliolo told Maria Freire that he did not want to remain in Europe. He had visited the main museums and their entire collections, had seen the great masterpieces at first hand, had visited the different galleries that exhibited new art and had met the artists who were references for both of them, hence after two years of hard work in the Old Continent the artist decided to bring this adventure to a close. He was driven by the idea of focusing on his own work, alone, with iron discipline. There was nothing more important in the world for Costigliolo than painting. He discussed it with María Freire and they decided to return: “Back in Uruguay, he got down to work with an unstoppable drive, realizing that he possessed a new idea that he had to bring to fruition. He invented a vocabulary of his own with a visual syntax. With geometric forms — squares, rectangles and triangles —, over a period of two decades he composed an infinite variety of work on square surfaces and oblique constructive axes. The series was born of his total mastery of imagination and reflection”.8 The rectangles and squares which range from 1963 to 1969, either separately or as an ensemble, possess specific characteristics, and hundreds of these different-scale figures take up the entirety of the canvas of the sheet, in chaotic flows. They are joined by organic forms painted black which make them stand out over the background. Both the rectangles and the squares are executed in plain colors, without tonal variations: white, red, gray, blue, sky blue and yellow. They configure dense ensembles affected by forces unknown to us. Availing himself of few elements, in order to avoid being distracted from what he regarded as essential, Costigliolo chose the variations as the main modality for executing each one of his works.

He attended the 33rd Biennial of Venice in 1966 as part of the Uruguayan delegation with paintings from this period. Moreover, he received an “Acquisition” prize at the 32nd Salón Nacional de Artes Plásticas in 1968. One of the noteworthy features of his work over these years is that as we approach the year 1969, the sets of rectangles and squares include a smaller number of figures, albeit larger ones. The analogy of this type of highly personal calligraphy in Costigliolo with music was highlighted by the critic Maurits Blicke on referring to his way of painting: “They are the outcome of the artist deliberately shedding the superfluous, the stubborn determination to keep only the essential, which is the touch of the maestro. This maestro composes an entire symphony from a single note. This simple sound, repeated ad nauseam, grows into a unique song that affords the artist the possibility of innumerable variants. Squares and rectangles in multiple formats attract and repel each other. They struggle with each other, on top of each other, as if attracted to the surface of a fast-flowing river whose course they seem to dictate, ultimately conforming a constellation of tranquility“.9 As of 1970/1971, a greater number of different-sized squares and rectangles began to inhabit and share the surface of the canvas, resulting not only in a saturation of the number of figures, but also of rhythms that took the forms of columns or strips of color, oftentimes presenting a formal appearance of archipelagos or clusters. The accolades did not cease, and the artist was awarded the Gran Premio Nacional de Pintura at the 34th Salón Nacional de Artes Plásticas in 1970. At this time, Costigliolo also began to introduce the triangle, although it was not until 1971 that he began to use it more frequently, experimenting with its possible combinations. The most important departure from this series took place between 1975 and 1978: “A radical change occurred in the mid-1970s, an inversion of colors, in which black was applied to the forms and shapes and colors to the

surrounding plane”.10 This also translated into numerous variations in the figure-background ratio to leverage the full potential of geometric abstraction which by then our setting had fully embraced. With rectangles and squares, two “Acquisition” awards followed in the wake of the awards he had already merited at the 43rd and 44th Salones Nacionales, in 1979 and 1980, respectively. José Pedro Costigliolo had managed, in a masterful fashion and over a career spanning sixty years, to consolidate a unique plastic universe availing himself of minimal resources that yielded maximum results. One of his peers, José Luis Tola Invernizzi (1918-2001), referring to “the little history of art-makers”, very pertinently stated, in a letter: “(I am thinking about the inescapable stubbornness of Spósito and Costigliolo, for example). This helps to soothe the soul”.11 The artist’s oeuvre pursues a patent discipline to accomplish a style, an unquestionable certainty that acts as the truth. The genuineness of Costigliolo’s work, which shunned trends, affords it an ethos that underpins his entire career. The Costigliolo: la vida de las formas exhibition is a heartfelt testimonial that heralds just recognition for a peerless artist and his work which, with the passage of time, has transcended the barriers of a given period of time to become effectively timeless. (1) Aguerre, Enrique: José Pedro Costigliolo. Video, 24 minutes, 1994. (2) Ibid (3) Ibid (4) Argul, José Pedro: Proceso de las Artes Plásticas del Uruguay – Desde la época indígena al momento contemporáneo. Montevideo: Barreiro y Ramos, 1966 p. 183. (5) Aguerre, Enrique: La vida de las formas. Exposición Nuevas Vías de Acceso III, Montevideo: National Museum of Visual Arts, 2008. (6) Blicke, Maurits: Costigliolo, Montevideo: Ediciones Triple Cero, 1972. (7) Aguerre, Enrique: José Pedro Costigliolo. Video, 24 minutes, 1994. (8) Ibid (9) Blicke, Maurits: Costigliolo, Montevideo: Ediciones Triple Cero, 1972. (10) Aguerre, Enrique: José Pedro Costigliolo. Video, 24 minutes, 1994. (11) Domínguez, Carlos María: Tola Invernizzi – La rebelión de la ternura. Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 2018.

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ABOUT PIERO ATCHUGARRY GALLERY

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GARZร N, Uruguay Piero Atchugarry gallery presents a contemporary art program and modern art survey. The gallery opened to the public in November 2013 with a Post-War Italian art exhibition. By January 2014 the gallery moved to a large stable adapted as an exhibition space in Garzรณn. In this space the program allowed outdoor and indoor proposal exploration, through the creation of dialogue between architectural features and curatorial practices.

MIAMI, USA On December 2018, the program expanded to North America with a second location, a 9000 square feet warehouse on 5520 NE 4th Avenue in the Design District neighborhood. The participation of the gallery in what is a boiling art community that connects Europe, Latin America and both coasts of the United States represents the commitment of the program to support and present the work of local and international artists with an institutional approach.

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