Xippas gallery is pleased to present Yo visité Ganímedes, a solo exhibition by Ricardo Lanzarini in Montevideo. For this occasion, Ricardo Lanzarini exhibits an array of different works in both exhibition spaces at the Montevideo gallery, thus recreating a wide universe of images, stories, and tales that the artist has managed to compose thanks to his versatility and exceptional drawing techniques.

As described by the artist himself, the title of the exhibition, «I visited Ganymede», comes from the name of the 1972 science fiction story by the Peruvian writer Yosi Ibrahim, in which Ibrahim narrates the encounter a man has with an extraterrestrial civilization that inhabits the satellite Ganymede of the planet Jupiter. The protagonist shares his encounter with the utopian society of peace and harmony.  The fantasy of the story’s narrative and its utopian content sits in contrast with the actual reality of the Latin American context at the time of writing. The exhibition’s first person title allows for all those who pronounce it to become a protagonist in the story’s narrative.

I make art within a process of practice and thought that is constantly coming and going. There are works such as «The JOB Collection» that always accompany me because I have discovered and developed a special creative intimacy with them, but I am always going through the different processes that have emerged in my work at different times. The present ignites the memory of previous works, emotion and enthusiasm produce new ideas and all that energetic confusion is aligned in the here and now. This is how the series of drawings that I am presenting «Ecstasy» came about.

My experience with oil pastels started 30 years ago, when I did the «Popes» series on the paper of Portland cement bags. At that time, the characters represented «superheroes», enlightened popes, saviors who would lead us to the truth. Nowadays we discover another nature in the character, an ironic and disbelieving look where the mediatization of the image has taken over the discourse, living in a fantasy of colour and exposure. In the process of realization, the pencil drawing is always prior to the colouring of the context, which will be conditioned by the interpretation of the psychology of the depicted character. From the drawing I build the context of colour and finally both grow to realize the work fully. «Together but not mixed up», defines the practice used to create this series. The work is the presentation of these two realities: that of drawing and that of colour in the tension that arises from their coexistence in the space of 42 x 30 cm.

Although all my work is thought of as a dialogue between the self, the experience with the work and the impossibility of ideal thought, what continues to interest me is to be able to express in it the trace of this struggle of interests and emotional splitting, so that the perfect impossibility of the finger and the stroke as faithful and silent executors can be seen.

In this series of drawings there is an encounter with the construction of a context of colour that manifests itself as the rhythmic and psychological tension of the character’s frenetic dance. In my work the characters of priests, military men, politicians, are presented in absurd activities, immersed in their own contemporary delirium. I have a lot of fun watching them dancing, in the attire of the solemn character that corresponds to them (distant, serious, controlling, political), dancing ballet or wearing garments with absurd positions such as the little hen, dancing Kazachok, etc.

(Ricardo Lanzarini – June, 2021)

Ricardo Lanzarini was born in Montevideo in 1963.

Education: Bachelor of Fine Arts, Instituto “Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes”, Universidad de la República, Uruguay.

Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, Latin America and Caribbean (2001); Paul Cezanne Prize (1998); Pollock- Krasner Foundation Grant (2004); 1st Prize in Bienal Internacional de Estandartes de Tijuana (2004); 2nd Prize in Bienal Internacional de Arte de Santa Cruz (2010); Grant of Justino Zavala Muniz del Ministerio de Educación y Cultura de Uruguay (2014).

Exhibitions (selection): VI and VII Biennials of La Habana; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes (1997); Frac des Pays de la Loire (1997); Políticas de las diferencias. Arte Iberoamericano de fin de siglo (2001); Comer o no Comer (Salamanca, 2002); III Biennial Internacional de Estandartes (Tijuana); The Drawing Center of New York (2004); 29th. Biennial of Pontevedra; Primer Encuentro entre dos mares: Bienal de San Pablo- Valencia; Encuentro Regional de Arte- ERA07 (Montevideo); DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Garden (2008); Syracuse University (2009); IV and VII Biennials of Mercosur; XVII Biennial of Art, Santa Cruz de la Sierra- Bolivia (2010); 6th Biennial Ventosul- Curitiba; 18th Sidney Biennale; I and II Biennials of Montevideo; 18th International Exhibition of Drawing, Museum Rijeka; 1st Biennial of Art, Panamá; 5th Contemporary Art Biennial of Moscú; MSK- Museum Voor Schone Kunsten (Gent, 2014); 4th. Trienal Poli/ Gráfica, San Juan, América Latina y El Caribe; 21 Bienal de Arte Paiz, Guatemala.