Description

Throughout his career, internationally acclaimed Uruguayan artist Pablo Atchugarry (b. 1954) has successfully translated the artistic language of European Old Masters sculpture into his own idiom, inflected with post-constructivist elements from his native South America and spiritual sensibilities derived from the ancient civilizations of America. “Untitled” is characteristic of Atchugarry’s hallmark approach to Carrara marble, which evokes a dynamic rhythm of folding and creasing that is both elegant and imposing. The pleated volumes demonstrate the artist’s mastery of the medium and lend the sculptures a sense of lightness that belies their actual massive weights.
Influenced by the work of sculptors Constantin Brancusi and Henry Moore, Atchugarry is known for his devotion to working with his own hands, in contrast to the workshop practices taken up by some of his contemporaries. Early on in his career, Atchugarry experimented with a variety of materials including cement, iron, and wood. In 1979, a visit to the famous marble quarries of the
Tuscan town of Carrara, Italy proved transformative as soon after, he moved to Italy and abandoned painting almost entirely to devote himself to sculpture. For several decades, he has been using marble almost exclusively, specifically white marble from the quarries of Carrara. Marble from Carrara is an exceptionally numinous medium, with strong art historical resonances. It was the preferred material used by the most eminent sculptors from antiquity to modern times, including Verocchio, Donatello, Michelangelo, Bernini, and Canova. As working with marble demands arduous physical labor, Atchugarry’s sculptures, including “Untitled,” testify to his craftsmanship and impeccable technical execution. “When you’re working directly with stone, especially marble, it’s very dramatic, because there’s no way back,” he once explained about the medium. “Every part that is taken out of the block will never be part of it again.”
Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Pablo Atchugarry had his first exhibition at age eighteen at the Civic Room in Montevideo. Since 1989, Atchugarry has frequently been commissioned for monumental works in public spaces across Europe and Latin America. The Pablo Atchugarry Museum was inaugurated in Lecco in 1999, and in 2003, Atchugarry represented Uruguay in the 50th Venice Biennale with an installation of eight sculptures in Carrara marble and Grey Bardiglio marble. In 2021, he established Uruguay’s first global contemporary art museum, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Atchugarry (MACA). His works are included in numerous private and public collections and he has had more than one hundred solo and collective exhibitions worldwide.