Major public exhibition of Uruguayan artist Pablo Atchugarry arrives in Lucca

From June 4 to September 4, 2022 Lucca will host the major public exhibition of Pablo Atchugarry (Montevideo, 1954), among the most important exponents of international contemporary art. The Awakening of Nature, this is the title of the exhibition, will be staged in a path that will wind within the 16th-century city walls, in the streets of the center, on the parvises of the city’s most important churches and in two indoor exhibition venues.

Curated by Gianguido Grassi with the support of Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca, Fondazione Lucca Sviluppo and Associazione Start - Open your eyes and with the contribution of the City of Lucca, the exhibition presents forty-five large-scale sculptures. Marbles that seem to hover toward the sky, bronzes and wooden works dialogue with the cultural, historical and artistic tradition of the city of pre-Roman origins.

Ten wooden works will be housed in the Chiesa dei Servi, while works in white Carrara marble, black marble from Belgium and pink marble from Portugal will be placed in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, along with some bronzes.

Five works will find space outdoors, in the main places of interest in the historic center: piazza San Martino, the Agora, piazza San Michele (the ancient forum), Porta San Pietro, on the walls at the bulwark of San Frediano. The outdoor display will continue until September 30, 2022.

“With this exhibition,” said Andrea Palestini, president of the Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca, “the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Lucca returns to host a name of international prominence and an event of great emotional impact that, inside as well as outside the palace, will dialogue with our city, its inhabitants and the many visitors who have returned to animate it.”

“At this moment in history we need to rediscover values and hope, and beauty seems to offer humanity a lifeline: the artist with his creativity is close to the primordial principle from which the universe springs; the sculptor frees matter to make a new work: hence the title of the exhibition precisely, The Awakening of Nature. In front of Pablo’s sculptures, be they olive tree roots, Carrara statuary marble, bronze castings, we feel a special emotion, we sense a mystery, a kind of prayer,” explained curator GianGuido Grassi.

“I love Italy,” said artist Pablo Atchugarry, “where I arrived as a young man when I left my homeland, Uruguay, to come to Europe and tap into the sources of culture. It was the journey; the first city was Rome, in 1977, then Paris, Copenhagen. In those days to avoid paying for a hotel I traveled by train at night. The 2015 exhibition in Rome was the realization of a dream; my sculptures were dialoguing with over two thousand years of history. In Italy, in Lecco before that branch of Lake Como, I have stayed all my life, my children grew up here. Today I can say that Italy is our country where I live and of which I am a citizen.”

“I am connected to Tuscany,” Atchugarry added. “I first went to the Apuan Alps in 1979. It was a decisive moment in my career; I learned about the origin and beauty of marble, which has become the privileged subject of my work. Marbles are the children of the mountain and belong to the world; so are my sculptures that have legs and, like a father, I see them leave and acquire a life of their own. Sometimes I think that all these vertical works of mine, these points, are nothing but invocations, a questioning, a going to see the stars: to perceive the energy of the Universe, to find the primordial elements to make the journey between matter and light. Lucca is an international city on a human scale,” he continued. "Because of the historical significance I would like to give to this exhibition for the first time in my life, I thought of presenting a selection of only wooden sculptures, a Garden of Olives, a symbol of Resurrection, sculptures sprung from roots of centuries-old trees that were not supposed to die. We all need roots, they take nourishment from the earth, they are what allow us to ascend to the sky. Like the plants in the Amazon, I try to raise my sculptures toward the light: freeing themselves from the weight of matter and the fatal downward pull of life, they turn their gaze toward the sky, opening the way to freedom and hope. I think this is the mission of art and beauty or, at least, the one I try to fulfill daily with the effort of my work as a sculptor."

The two exhibition venues, Palazzo delle Esposizioni and Chiesa dei Servi, will be open for free admission every day from 4 to 8 p.m., except Mondays.

Image: Pablo Atchugarry, La danza de la vida (2019; olive wood, 231 x 229 x 219 cm)

Major public exhibition of Uruguayan artist Pablo Atchugarry arrives in Lucca

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