Wifredo Diaz Valdez
dal 25/8/2011 al 5/11/2011
Segnalato da
25/8/2011
Wifredo Diaz Valdez
Migros Museum, Zurich
The exhibition Construir Desconstruyendo offers a glimpse at the fascinating work of rediscovered Uruguayan artist Wifredo Diaz Valdez (born 1932), who creates unusual wooden sculptures out of imaginatively deconstructed everyday objects. Artists's constructs artworks by disassembling furniture, tools, and all sorts of everyday utensils to be found in rural Uruguay, and doing so with the greatest artisanal precision and love of detail.
Wifredo Díaz Valdéz constructs artworks by disassembling furniture, tools, and all sorts of
everyday utensils to be found in rural Uruguay, and doing so with the greatest artisanal precision
and love of detail. But this well-planned dismantling is not about destruction, but rather the
creation of something entirely new. The artist begins by analyzing the object he has selected
according to its organic quality, considers the conditions of its wooden structure, the texture of its
surface, among other things, before moving on to thinking about possible new volumes as they
emerge, and the ultimate artistic potential of the piece. Then he proceeds to his “carpenter” work.
The result in each case is what seems like the original object, unchanged, but which can, with the
addition of wooden plugs and hinges, be successively opened or unfolded in a playfully elegant
fashion.
Metamorphosis of everyday objects
A banal and artless former lampstand, for example, becomes a fancifully appointed rocket. In Díaz
Valdéz’ hands, vessels for mate tea, the local beverage, are transformed into bizarre abstract
sculptures. The memory of the original function of these objects literally vanishes in space. A
completely dismantled old wagon wheel or a deconstructed, unfolded chair takes on symbolic
meaning.
In his work, Wifredo Díaz Valdéz reverses the cycle of growth and decay, as well as the course of
time as such. Out of nature, what once was organically grown wood, emerges a cultural object of
use, which is then transformed into a work of art, and is thus torn both from its organic cycle and
from its physical decay (as a no longer usable relic of civilization).
About the artist
With Wifredo Díaz Valdéz Daros Latinamerica Collection presents an artist of whom the
international art world has in a sense lost track. Born in 1932 on the periphery of Uruguay and
raised in a time and place in which art was not on the agenda, as a young man Wifredo Díaz
Valdéz trained to be a carpenter – a profession to which he has remained true throughout his
entire life. Discovered by critics, he made it onto the Uruguayan art scene in the 1960s and had his
South American breakthrough later when he was invited to participate in the São Paulo Biennial in
1985. And yet there was never much of a hubbub about Wifredo Díaz Valdéz, who does not make
a fuss about himself and continues to lead an unspectacular Uruguayan everyday life in
Montevideo to this day.
For further information please contact:
Daros Latinamerica AG Limmatstrasse 275 8005 Zürich www.daros-latinamerica.net
Image: Rueda [Wheel], 1988. Wood (lapacho) and iron. Closed: 93 x 93 x 28 cm. Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zürich
Press contact:
Miriam Mahler T +41 44 2256565 press@daros-latinamerica.net
Press Conference: 26.08.2011 at 11.30 am
Opening: Friday, August 26, 2011, 6 pm
Migros Museum
Albisriederstrasse 199A CH-8047 Zürich
Opening hours
Tue, Wed, Fri 12 – 6 pm
Thu 12 – 8 pm
Sat, Sun 11 am – 5 pm
Admission
Adults: SFR 8
Reduced: SFR 4
Free entry for children and students under 16.
Thursday 5 - 8 pm free admission.