His ability to dissociate objects from his use and see them as they are in shape, color, size and texture represents a great advantage for Federico Uribe, who thanks to this finds aesthetic value in waste. As he explores the materials, the artist also delves into their symbolic weight. This is how his work, over the years, has acquired a character as singular as it is conscious.
Uribe maintains that art is, among other things, an expression of reality. Given this statement, it is inevitable to know the artist’s perspective regarding humanity in times of covid-19. His answer is direct: “For a moment I thought that this situation would make us better people, but it did not. During the confinement, there was a tremendous vindication of nature: the animals advanced towards the cities, but there are those who came out to kill them. The complexity of human coexistence was also once again in evidence ”.
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In artistic terms, Uribe’s thought around the subject is manifested in his growing interest in using crutches, outdated surgical instruments and X-rays to build dimensional sculptures and pictures. “My intention is to create beauty with these instruments related to the disease as an echo of the life that is trying to reconstruct,” he says after sharing the details of the landscape he made with bone x-rays, which is projected through a box of light.
Tribute to life
Uribe grew up on a farm surrounded by trees that allowed him to establish a definitive connection with nature. Many of his works, he warns, do not represent a reflection on conservation: “It is a tribute to something that I love and that I feel is my own.”
Before starting the interview, I virtually toured the largest exhibition ever made of Uribe’s work, with an exhibition area of 5,400 square meters, equivalent to little more than the space occupied by the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá. The project, which included an auction, It emerged as a collaboration with Maluma with the initial purpose of raising resources for the Amigos del Mar Foundation, the Cartagena Botanical Garden and the rehabilitation of Providencia, an island in the Colombian Caribbean that was impacted by Hurricane Lota.
Uribe’s work is fully identified with these causes when referring to the inclination that humans have for our own extinction and that of our planet. “Everything that intoxicates is a constant in our lives. We throw away tons of plastics every day and many of them pollute the seas ”. This reflection is explained in detail through the reef that he presented at the Venice Biennale in 2019 and that was one of the outstanding pieces of the monumental exhibition that he mounted in Miami.
“Digital tools give you an idea of the dimension of the installation, but they can still provide a wrong view of the works. Because we must understand that the plastic must be admired with all the senses “, emphasizes Uribe. However, he recognizes that digital has been a useful means to bring his work closer to more people in the context of social distancing.
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Unlimited
The exhibition presents pieces that Uribe began to build 20 years ago and that they had not been exposed before. In this sense, the artist does not hesitate to say that it is he who sets his own challenges and that he does not make a work because he has the opportunity to show it, but because he enjoys the creative process.
“I am amused by my own ideas, my creativity, and I invest all the money I earn in building my dreams, no matter how much it costs. I don’t need to have an invitation, or excuses, or anything ”, emphasizes the Pereiran artist from his workshop in Miami as he assembles a bear with an open mouth, and from which a toucan comes out. The work is called “My inner voice.”
Uribe creates objects that come from ideas and consolidates ideas that come from objects. “So of course, if I work with bullets I am reflecting on violence. I always set myself the goal of remaking life with material metaphors or making poetry with the proper object of destruction ”.
Because if he has understood something, he affirms, it is that he cannot evade the experiences he had in Colombia during his childhood and part of his youth, as well as in his pilgrimage through different cities of the world, including his stay in Mexican territory, where he lived for eight years.
“I am amused by my own ideas, my creativity, and I invest all the money I earn in building my dreams, no matter how much it costs.”
Federico uribe.
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In that walk he observed barbarism, but he also learned a lot. “In Mexico I grew more than in any other country as an artist.” Today. Uribe’s needs are focused on finding other ways to continue exploring his own possibility of reflection from a very personal level and to positively influence the field of the arts in Colombia.
“I want Colombians to identify with my proposal and thus strengthen our national identity. I know it is romantic on my part to think that I have the courage to create national identity, but that is my intention. Deep down, I only want to do things of the best quality, having an ethical and sincere thought with my own life, with my own country ”, concludes aloud the protagonist of a unique creative universe.
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