About the artist:

Nicolás García Uriburu was born in Buenos Aires in 1937. He is an architect, a visual artist and a pioneer in land-art. His work has been exhibited at major museums and galleries around the world. His work has been recognized with many prizes. In 1968, he received the Gran Premio de Pintura Nacional in Argentina, and his international prizes include Prix Lefranc (Paris, 1968), First Prize at the Tokyo Biennial (Tokyo, 1975), and the Fondo Nacional de las Artes’ Premio a la Trayectoria (Buenos Aires, 2000), which recognizes lifetime achievement. Since his Coloration of the Gran Canal of Venice during the 1968 Venice Biennial, his large scale interventions in nature have attempted to raise consciousness about pollution in rivers and seas. His somewhat political art (Unión de Latinoamérica por los ríos {Latin America Union for Rivers}, No a las fronteras políticas {No to Political Borders}) and others effect a criticism of the antagonism between nature and civilization, and between man and civilization. In addition to his work as an artist, Uriburu has worked on social problems. His defense of the environment has included multiple tree plantings, both in Argentina and in Europe. He is a founding member of Grupo Bosque with whom he participated in reforestation campaigns in Maldonado, Uruguay. In Buenos Aires, he is the president of a foundation that bears his name dedicated to the study of the art of the first American peoples. He is the lifetime curator of the museum in Maldonado, Uruguay that houses the Colección de Pintura y Escultura Nacional which he donated to the Uruguayan state. That museum also bears his name. According to Schopenhauer, any man who conceives an idea and wants to communicate it has the right to turn to art. Uriburu uses this right fully and the consciousness-raising ideas in his paintings, inventions in nature and sociological actions reflect us as a society; they warn us, call on us to become aware of our environment and lead us on a certain path. Nicolás García Uriburu’s ideas are in nature itself; they are geared to the common man and the attempt to transform him.