The Law of the Funnel

Uruguay is represented at the 57th International Art Exhibition by one single artist: Mario Sagradini (b. 1946, Uruguay), whose work, since 1990, has meant a rare and significant contribution to contemporary art. During a long stay in Italy (1978-1985) he worked as engraver of his own etchings, together with those of other Italian artists. On his return to his country of birth he became an attractive referent for generations of younger artists for cultivating what is to date a singular manner of understanding and practicing art: wandering through the worlds of words and things, and rescuing daily life experiences, objects and narratives. Often, when working with the ethnographic find, he also works, with interest, with fragments of the Uruguayan history. So that, through the practices of art, the artist historian and the artist anthropologist reappear alternately (or simultaneously). The work shown in this Biennale consists in a cattle forcing pen shape called “funnel”. This sort of device has been used in Uruguay since the XIXth century. In this case the artist has used a barely legible old photo for the reconstruction. The title La ley del embudo (The Law of the Funnel) used to name the installation, is a popular term alluding to the inequality in the legal system (the broad part for a few, the narrow for the many) that corresponds with the artifact’s jail shape, with two entry and exit shutes crowned by guillotine-like portals. The whole object suggests a mysterious ritual or sacrificial function. Part of a history encompassing more than a hundred years of rural labor in the Río de la Plata is synthetized in this political machine destined to select and decide the final fate of bodies –and may be read as a metaphor of power and the animality of the human condition. - Gabriel Peluffo Linari Mario Sagradini (Uruguay, 1946) began his studies of art at the Mutual de Estudiantes y Egresados de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires (Institute of Students and Graduates of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and continued studying at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (National School of Fine Arts) of Montevideo, city in which he also studied architecture at the University. He co-founded the Gamma 70 Producer Centre in Montevideo (1969). He studied and worked as engraver in Italy, having attended Studio Camnitzer-Porter (Lucca) and Swietlan Kraczyna (Florence). In his own studio in Florence (1978-1985) he made prints of metal engraving for various artists (Marino Marini, etc.). He was a teacher at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes in Montevideo, at the Club de Grabado (Engraving Club) of the same city, the Foto Club Uruguayo (Uruguayan Photo Club), the Museo Agustín Araújo (Agustín Araújo Museum) in the city of Treinta y Tres (Uruguay), the San José City Museum ((Uruguay), Studio Camnitzer (Lucca, Italy) and at his own studio in Florence (Italy). In 1995 he received the Rockefeller Foundation-University of Texas Fellowship in Austin and in 1999 the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for Artists. Between 1996 and 1999 he was Director of the Department of Plastic Arts of the National Board of Culture (Ministry of Education and Culture, Uruguay). He was awarded the First Prize at the National Salon and Municipal Hall of Uruguay, being part of a team integrated by Architects Marta Kohen, Ruben Otero, Ing. Agr. Rafael Dodera, Pablo Frontini and Diego López de Haro. Together with Architects Martha Kohen and Ruben Otero, he was awarded the First Prize and construction of the Memorial of the Missing in Montevideo, and received several awards at the American Architecture Biennials (Quito, Ecuador, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Miami, USA) In 2001 he lived in Villa Serbelloni (Rockefeller Foundation, Lago di Como, Italy) to carry out an art project. In 2006 he was awarded the Figari Prize for his artistic career, granted by the Central Bank of Uruguay. Between 2009 and 2010 he was Director of the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales (National Museum of Visual Arts) (Montevideo). He was curator of several exhibitions since 1993, he was a member of the jury in various art competitions, gave lectures and conferences on his specialty in Uruguay and abroad, participated in International Engraving Biennials (Bradford, England, Cali, Colombia, San Juan, Puerto Rico , Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, Katowice and Krakow, Poland, Fredrikstad, Norway) and Art Biennials (Havana, Cuba, Mercosur, Brazil, Pontevedra, Spain, Argentina, Cuenca, Ecuador, Bienal del Sur, Panama). Between 1981 and 2016 he presented more than twenty individual exhibitions.

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