Con esta nueva entrevista de Shirley Rebuffo nos acercamos a la obra del artista visual uruguayo radicado en Argentina Uri Negvi.
Un artículo en dos posts: el primero con texto en español, y este segundo en inglés.
With this new interview by Shirley Rebuffo we approach the work of Uruguayan visual artist based in Argentina Uri Negvi.
An article in two posts: the first one with text in Spanish, and this second in English.
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Uri Negvi
Jorge González Mega
(Montevideo, Uruguay, 1949-)
Uri Negvi trabajando / at work
En primer plano, maniquíes de una instalación en el Jardin Botanico de Bs.As. /
In the foreground, mannequins from an installation at the Botanical Garden of Buenos Aires.
Visual artist Uri Negvi was born on November 15, 1949 in Montevideo, Uruguay. For 22 years he has lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he has his studio and teaches classes.
At the age of 17 he emigrated to Israel and, once he finished his military service, he returned to Uruguay to resume his training. A multifaceted artist, he has developed in the study of various techniques: ceramics, engraving, collage, painting and sculpture. He is a sensitive artist, marked by loneliness, having traveled paths in a permanent search in which he continues. This has led him to live in various parts of the world, not only as an artist, but also from his first profession in intensive and extensive farming, in Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha of which he is a member. From those times, from his contact with the land and the arable desert, ideas sprout in a creative act of works with life and feelings, leaving glimpses of his thoughts: stories with inner life, touching on the social, sensitive to the environment, but without entering into the confusion of the political.
His artistic studies are based on the Escuela del Sur (School of the South), with the principles of Torres-García, and his teachers Guillermo Fernández and Nelson Ramos. He expresses circumstances that correspond to his experiences and objectification of ideas, having some of his works notoriously influenced by the master José Gurvich.
His works are exhibited in galleries and private collections in Israel, Canada, France and Italy, among others.
"Las celulas del hombre cosmico / The Cells of the Cosmic Man", acrílico sobre tela / acrylic on canvas, 120 x 120 cm.
"Gato verde en el jardín / Green Cat in the Garden", acrílico sobre papel / acrylic on paper, 100 x 85 cm., 2019
Interview by Shirley Rebuffo
Shirley Rebuffo: Exactly what neighborhood in Montevideo were you born in and what was your childhood like?
Uri Negvi: I was born in the neighborhood of La Unión, exactly on the streets [María Stagnero de] Munar and Joanicó, above the butcher's shop that was on that corner. As the years went by, we moved one block away, to Pernas and Joanicó and, later on, to Carlos Crocker and Joanicó, always within a radius of no more than those four or five blocks. My father had his business, an optician's store, on Avenida 8 de Octubre, next to Liceo (High School) 14. As you will see, I am from the Unión radically, a workers neighborhood in those days. We were a poor middle class family, with a rented house, many desires and few achievements.
Today I describe my childhood as a great inner life, where solitude was the refuge of a troubled home. In any case, I believe that some of these shortcomings shaped and fostered my imagination and the critical freedom I enjoy. Today, in the light of a greater reasoning, I am grateful for those winter mornings and afternoons when I would wait for the rain to come and play with a twig on the side of the curb. There I would let that twig sail over the running water. That water would turn into mighty rivers where my humble and imaginary boat would face terrible storms. When it wasn't raining, I would go to a sawmill on Joanicó Street, just around the corner from my house, and climb the tall logs, which were transformed into immense mountains or trenches of a bloody war. The clouds were also a refuge for my loneliness: in them I looked for and saw colossal shapes that made me forget everything around me. I had an older brother who was 5 years older than me. Today I regret not having spent more time with him. As you will notice, my childhood gives for many interpretations and different consequences, one of them is the artist I am today and another one is the permanent search for happiness, the right of every human being and not a gift that is granted.
"El honorable salvaje Nº2 / The Honorable Savage #2", 100 x 100 cm.
Serie Ludibrium / Ludibrium Series
Tinta y grafito a color sobre papel Canson 320 g / ink and color graphite on Canson paper 320 g, 40 x 70 cm.
SR: How did you start with art?
UN: I think there are two facts that led me to this result.
One is that across the street from my house on Carlos Crocker Street lived an older man. I was about six or seven years old. He would leave the garage doors open, and I would cross the street to watch him paint. We would spend hours without talking, him painting and me watching in amazement as, little by little, everything was transforming. I saw the colors coming together under the magic of that man who for me was a magician. One day I began to paint on the sidewalk of my house, right in front of him, to show him that I too, if I wanted to, could do the same as he did. It was then that he came out of his garage, crossed the street and gave me the palette with which he was painting.
Another reason was a Punto Publicidad (an Advertising Company) contest for kids that I won. As I mentioned, my father had an optician's shop (Óptica González-Pérez on the corner of 8 de Octubre and Propios Streets) that operated in the Agrícola Italiana building. I often went to brew mate for my father, and, taking advantage of the fact that above the optician's shop there was a neighborhood library where drawing classes were given, I would stay for those classes. I think it is very likely that my vocation was born thanks to these facts.
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"La vida no es de uno / Life Is Not Your Own", 80 x 120 cm.
"Ciudades Ocultas / Hidden Cities", 80 x 80 cm., 2015
SR: What is the story behind your name?
UN: The name I was registered with when I was born is Jorge González Mega. But life is an accumulation of stories that leads us to the construction of a unique being, affected by events. Every day it proposes new paths, which we choose to take or not, whether we are wrong or right.
I say this because I consider my generation a frontier between a world of ideals, utopian and pragmatic, and another without time to talk to oneself, without considering the exploration of the soul. My whole life is reflected in my name. In it are included the dreams and causes that led me to be a keeper of stories, conquests, achievements and failures of a world that will never again be the world it is today. My name means a lot, when I hear it, it is as if I hear the call of my soul.
I took my name in Hebrew when I immigrated to Israel in 1967. I was in a kibbutz that is part of a leftist political movement, called Ein Ashlosha in the Negev desert, in the south of Israel, bordering the Gaza strip. My name means many things, in terms of its grammatical construction, so Negev is in reference to the place where I lived in that desert. Uri is a rather popular name, which is generally taken by those who are called George and grammatically it means "the light of my desert".
Therefore, my name reflects a need to build a new life of my own, away from the loneliness that accompanied me for most of my life. With this name I formed a personality that aims to give rise to questioning, freedom of thought and the need for self-improvement.
With this name I enlisted and belonged to the 890th paratrooper corps. I was wounded, I lost friends and I just have to say that the stories are many. Sometimes they seem to last forever. That's why when people call me Jorge I find it hard to react, but for Uri.... Uri is me, I am the one who got on his tractor, and while he was plowing in the kibbutz, two explosive mines detonated and he survived. I am the one who spent 3 years in the Suez Canal. The most important thing is not the endless stories I have to tell, the most important thing is that Uri is a good person. It is so much, because I have lived. There are times when I am tired, but generally my love for life gives me the strength to conclude this great painting that is existence.
I have learned to carry the backpack of the hero I never was. I have learned that I have lived and suffered a lot, but I am happy with a great love, where I rescue all these stories and many more. Imagine, Uri was born in 1967. There were The Beatles, Mao, Vietnam, Fidel, Uganda, Nikita Khrushchev, Cassius Clay, Sputnik, Paul VI, Kennedy. Anyway, as you will see, I like my name, this name chosen by me, which is not a consequence of others, that is why I conclude with this thought: "Life, I owe you nothing. Life, we are at peace".
"De la serie Punto Final / From the Final Point Series", collage, 50 x 60 cm.
"Sin título / Untitled", 120 x 150 cm., 2013
SR: What is the story behind your name?
UN: The name I was registered with when I was born is Jorge González Mega. But life is an accumulation of stories that leads us to the construction of a unique being, affected by events. Every day it proposes new paths, which we choose to take or not, whether we are wrong or right.
I say this because I consider my generation a frontier between a world of ideals, utopian and pragmatic, and another without time to talk to oneself, without considering the exploration of the soul. My whole life is reflected in my name. In it are included the dreams and causes that led me to be a keeper of stories, conquests, achievements and failures of a world that will never again be the world it is today. My name means a lot, when I hear it, it is as if I hear the call of my soul.
I took my name in Hebrew when I immigrated to Israel in 1967. I was in a kibbutz that is part of a leftist political movement, called Ein Ashlosha in the Negev desert, in the south of Israel, bordering the Gaza strip. My name means many things, in terms of its grammatical construction, so Negev is in reference to the place where I lived in that desert. Uri is a rather popular name, which is generally taken by those who are called George and grammatically it means "the light of my desert".
Therefore, my name reflects a need to build a new life of my own, away from the loneliness that accompanied me for most of my life. With this name I formed a personality that aims to give rise to questioning, freedom of thought and the need for self-improvement.
With this new name I was part of great and important historical events. I will tell you some of them. Having just arrived in Uruguay from Israel, I went to the civil registry office to get my new name. A person who was waiting for me approached me and asked me: "Wouldn't you like to help the Jews who are being persecuted and cannot leave Russia because of their documents? I answered with a short question, "Where do I have to go?". Having accepted I gave him my Uruguayan passport with my old name. In this way, from Russia, hundreds of Jews with the name Jorge Gonzalez left. With this name I enlisted and belonged to the 890th paratrooper corps. I was wounded, I lost friends and I just have to say that the stories are many. Sometimes they seem to last forever. But my stay in Israel shaped me as a good person. That's why when people call me Jorge I find it hard to react, but for Uri.... Uri is me, I am the one who got on his tractor, and while he was plowing in the kibbutz, two explosive mines detonated and he survived. I am the one who spent 3 years in the Suez Canal. The most important thing is not the endless stories I have to tell, the most important thing is that Uri is a good person. It is so much, because I have lived. There are times when I am tired, but generally my love for life gives me the strength to conclude this great painting that is existence.
I have learned to carry the backpack of the hero I never was. I have learned that I have lived and suffered a lot, but I am happy with a great love, where I rescue all these stories and many more. Imagine, Uri was born in 1967. There were The Beatles, Mao, Vietnam, Fidel, Uganda, Nikita Khrushchev, Cassius Clay, Sputnik, Paul VI, Kennedy. Anyway, as you will see, I like my name, this name chosen by me, which is not a consequence of others, that is why I conclude with this thought: "Life, I owe you nothing. Life, we are at peace".
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"Morera / Mulberry", acrílico sobre tela / acrylic on canvas, 80 x 80 cm., 2015
In the series of trees, Uri Negvi tells of a magical, dreamlike world of deep dreams linked to nature. They are journeys through the diversity of each plant, each tree, which, within itself keeps a unique imaginary world, each with a story and a particular thread. Life takes shape in these dreamed trees.
Serie Ludibrium / Ludibrium Series
Tinta y grafito a color sobre papel Canson 320 g / ink and color graphite on Canson paper 320 g, 40 x 70 cm.
SR: Do you like to experiment and go through stages in your painting?
UN: This question comes in handy for the times we live in, not only in art but as a society as a whole.
As far as I personally am concerned, I believe, without asserting it, that I am capable of permanently going through stages. So much so that, if they don't come to me, I go looking for them. I believe that this works because nothing in art is alien to me and I am a passionate person with the happiness of having had two greats, not only as teachers, but also as friends: Guillermo Fernandez and Nelson Ramos.
As far as experimenting is concerned, it is something that every artist should do constantly. Trying, testing, with the modesty to face failure without feeling it as a defeat. Now I believe that my painting, like all the visual arts activity that I practice, requires a sacrificial training in the way of experimentation.
SR: What themes do you like the most?
UN: I am a man of ideals and a free thinker. This leads me to always be attentive to social problems and their representatives. The banal does not go with me and I never let the pride of being the creator of a work override the spectator.
According to what I have discussed with my teachers, the subject matter changes according to age, but that does not justify disorder, sloppiness and lack of tools that, as I said before, are the product of experimentation. Another of the things I look for is that the theme represents me and, at the same time, that it is a document of real facts and not interpretations that allow it to be the disguise of political carnivals. The choice of the theme leads to an understanding of the artist's objectives, as well as the possible participation of the spectator. If it happens that the spectator participates, generally all the false scaffolding that was used will collapse leaving the artist naked.
As an example in my work I will name some exhibitions.
Italy: "La follia", a loving society and a unique country that passionately lives the madness of politics. It deals with the rawness that is lived in the big cities.
In Buenos Aires: "La Lujuria de la Creación" (The Lust of Creation), the disengagement with nature.
"The cabaret of the plants", Argentina.
"Jewish Identity": Pissarro Museum, Paris.
"Ludibrium": A game with destiny Pandemic.
Serie El cabaré de las plantas / The Cabaret of Plants Series, acrílico sobre tela / acrylic on canvas, 80 x 80 cm.
Acrílico sobre tela / acrylic on canvas, 90 x 80 cm.
SR: Does social "madness" affect your work?
UN: Social madness shakes me, provokes me. It tries to absorb me and feels threatened by my free thinking. I think it has a hard time understanding why I don't take personal advantage of the incoherence with which people live.
I would not say that it affects my work, rather what it does with my work is to place it within the reason of my ideas and exposes the interests with which the factory of new artists is managed.
It is necessary to be solid to face the different "whys" that have led us to the historical situation in which we live, and that solidity is not obtained with the easy thing and even less with the allegiance of power.
We live, with the new millennium, stormy times, and I take refuge in my art to take care of more than 6000 years of culture, which cannot and should not be left out of the human essence.
SR: What colors can you say mark your work?
UN: The dilemma of color is the same dilemma of the blank canvas: both mark the dilemma of the beginning, the doubts and the fear.
The same thing happens to me, although with the years the suffering is not so great. Anyway, the earths move me and the reds overflow my passion. But there is a color that insists on complicating me and I think it makes fun of me; it is green.
According to what I have heard from my teachers and in the workshops, colors say a lot about what is to come. It's something like they foretell the future. I think that's very possible because of the sensations they produce.
"Ruido, baile y gritos / Noise, Dance and Shout", 95 x 125 cm.
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"Objetos inútiles / Useless Objects"
SR: In both objects and painting you have had a tribal influence, what can you tell us about it?
UN: It is very true, I am a product of a country and a society that has left deep traces in me. Having traveled so much and lived in different countries, Argentina is the only place where I have not felt like an emigrant. But the most important thing is to see how our culture is valued, which, although it is or was encyclopedic, gives us a positioning that in most countries is appreciated. However, I must add that in my art there is, and I pretend that there always is, even if it is in small details, our Uruguayan Torresgarcian school.
Now, in the objects, something very personal happens with regard to the materials. They are objects that have in themselves the past history that provokes memory or love. For example, there is a series of carpenter's brushes all in excellent condition that many times I have been told: "my grandfather worked with one just like this one". There were those who continued to tell me about their grandfather while their eyes filled with tears.
Another series is with antique and intervened razors. And the most unusual thing is that the works that are made with some old, dirty, discarded brushes also have a lot to tell. To show that art is to humans what infinity is to the cosmos: an existential doubt that never ceases to question us.
These objects are intervened with high transparency papers, the ones I collect around the world in my travels. They are very delicate and play with light. They are as delicate as the sensations I awaken.
"Tilo / Lime", acrílico / acrylic, 80 x 80 cm., 2015
"El honorable salvaje Nº3 / The Honorable Savage #3", 100 x 100 cm.
SR: Sometimes you see in certain works something "biological", something that creates itself. How does that also relate to the spiritual?
UN: I work to develop a spiritual character in my pieces. I'm glad you noticed that it is self-feeding. My work is about inviting us on a journey into the deepest part of our being and, if possible, getting to know our own soul. Those cells that you appreciated are spinning, wandering in the tranquility of the space. If the viewer could enter that space, he would see the immensity in which we find ourselves and how insignificant we are. But that journey does not end there: when we reach that state, everything has just begun.
This journey to the deepest, not only will take us, but we will be accompanied by the different contents carried by the cells. It is a unique experience to be able to enter the immensity of the universe. Being in this state of mental rest we will understand how relative is the time we run with every day. We will see the slavery of a consumer society and the anthropophagy in which we have formed our ambition.
My work pursues an achievement: authenticity, besides making us understand that we do not deserve to be slaves of immediacy.
SR: Could you tell us about your ceramics? How did this art emerge in you?
UN: My ceramic works arise because, as I mentioned, nothing about art is foreign to me. I am not a ceramist, I am simply a self-taught person who bought a ceramic kiln and started to play. Later, seeing the results, I incorporated some ceramics in my collages.
As a passionate lover of aesthetics and everything that goes back to our origins, the statuettes I make give me protection, they play with the elves that live with me.
I don't have much more to add about ceramics.
Serie La Lujuria de la creación / The Lust of Creation Series, acrílico / acrylic
SR: What do you think of the current art market?
UN: Nice question for the historical moment humanity is living. I take my time not to answer with vulgarities or ready-made and politically correct phrases.
The art market is one more item in the culture of a country and what is expected of it. Without going into those who traffic in dreams and are part of the formation of opinion and image. And to sum up, today's societies suffer from many things, among them that everything must be fast, the achievements with the least possible effort and getting the greatest benefit, that the result appears to be a success, even if it is momentary, etc., losing even the personality. I do not leave out those who, accompanying these pseudo artists, become art dealers, who are part of the destruction of 7000 years of culture. Now, this leads me to try to understand so much mediocrity and nothing better than to do it under the form of what today is called "hampart", a word that comes from the conjunction of Hampa (a group of people to commit a crime) and Art. Here you can appreciate both creativity and stupidity. You can see money laundering as the marvelous synthesis of a blank sheet of paper or a blank canvas hung in white. But also in studying this problem, I came across the redefinition of art, how the desire for evolution presents us with the temptation to join the mass of stupidity.
What do I mean by the redefinition of art and stupidity? Example: with the technical and scientific advances we can say that Kandinsky was not the father of abstraction, but we also see that the different "cool" groups, those eternally young and those superficial older ones, present under the nickname of artist a ball of rolled up paper in the middle of an empty room, or a glass of water half full, or a pyramid of toilet paper, and thousands of vulgar transgressions, which are not such. As there is a market for everything, there is also a market for stupidity. In short: I am not the one to prevent anything, but what was achieved with these demonstrations is the emergence of the Minor Art pigeonhole.
"Pero con flores vuelvo / But With Flowers I Return"
Serie Ludibrium / Ludibrium Series
Tinta y grafito a color sobre papel Canson 320 g / ink and color graphite on Canson paper 320 g, 40 x 70 cm.
SR: Being a teacher implies more than just transmitting content, there is also an exchange of ideas with a demand for rigor and valuation of knowledge. What do you seek to transmit to your students?
UN: In my modest knowledge and opinion, visual arts workshops have ceased to be the place where both professional and intellectual growth were sought. In the world the word "disciple" has disappeared and is the victim of a change of life that is not in accordance with what feelings are. Today we look for the best result with the minimum of effort, everything is fast and success is the immediate search that leaves no room for maturity.
And what to say about those who see the workshop as a place of entertainment for their free time. I belong to a time when the rigor of effort was always necessary and the search for excellence was in every job. Today we have in many cases workshops or universities that propose to be factories of artists, something like 2 + 2 comes out 4 and this equation in art does not work like that. Feelings, values and constancy make the necessary sensitivity grow for the achievement of a good work. Sensitivity is an indispensable element, difficult to build and very easy to lose, even more so when you think you have found a formula for realization. The workshop is the place where you not only learn to build a work, it is the place where life shows the inner light that we carry inside and that requires sacrifice and perseverance. This, and much more, is what I seek to transmit.
SR: What are you working on now?
UN: Today I am working on a series called Ludibrium.
Ludibrium is a game of zones where you go forward and backward with your own destiny. Each one sees reflected many times the paths chosen in the journey of his or her life. At other times, destiny is mocked, as you can resort to correcting the past.
They are sheets of paper of important size: 40 x 70 and 100 x 70, worked with ink and color graph. This year, 2022, there will be an exhibition in Buenos Aires.
Acrílico sobre tela / acrylic on canvas, 90 x 80 cm.
About mentioned artists:
Guillermo Fernández: Wikipedia
Nelson Ramos: [Parques de esculturas (II)], [Recolección (LXXII)]
Joaquín Torres-García:
¡Muchas gracias por la entrevista, Uri!
Thanks a lot for this interview, Uri!
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Shirley Rebuffo has a Degree in Library Science and a Degree in Archivology by the Universitary School of Library and Related Sciences (Montevideo, Uruguay), Technician in Museology by the Faculty of Humanities and Sciences (Anthropology option), Object, Symbol and Spance in Curatorship Applied Museology and Social Museology - Concepts, Technics and Practice (Campo Grande, Brazil), Coaching (Campo Grande, Brazil), Strategic Planning (Campo Grande, Brazil), and Art and Painting student under Master Eduardo Espino.
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