“Right here, solely the wind is in a rush” is written on wood indicators alongside the sandy streets of José Ignacio, a peaceable and unique village on Uruguay’s coast. Some evaluate this quaint resort city, situated close to Punta del Este, to a South American Saint-Tropez. It’s tiny and identified for its seashores and dramatic sunsets over the Atlantic. José Ignacio has solely about 300 everlasting residents, however each summer time it turns into a magnet for travellers from everywhere in the world, attracted by the protection, exclusivity and luxurious of this former fishing village.
Right here, amongst dunes, lagoons, sand and sea, stands the Fundación Cervieri Monsuárez (FCM), a contemporary-art area designed by the late Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly shortly earlier than he died in 2023. (Viñoly is understood for designing the Tokyo Worldwide Discussion board and New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Heart, amongst different buildings worldwide.) FCM hopes to rework the world into a brand new hub for Latin American artwork by remaining open yr spherical—uncommon in a area that primarily comes alive in January, when the nice and cozy solar shines for 14 hours a day.
On the finish of June—the center of winter there—FCM opened the exhibition Latente (till 7 September), a reinstallation of the Uruguay Pavilion from the 2024 Venice Biennale. Within the work, the artist Eduardo Cardozo imagines a poetic and materials dialogue with the Venetian painter Tintoretto. Not like different nationwide pavilions in Venice that selected to focus on specific messages about migration, gender or Indigenous folks, Uruguay opted for a sort of eloquent silence—evoking not displacement, however fairly connection and friendship. The undertaking, which was initially curated by Elisa Valerio, helps form the cultural lifetime of this seaside city exterior the confines of its busy vacationer season.
Eduardo Cardozo’s Latente (2024) at Fundación Cervieri Monsuárez Courtesy Fundación Cervieri Monsuárez
FCM has 900 sq. m of area distributed over three flooring, with 7m-high ceilings and panoramic views of the ocean. Its structure is built-in into the panorama with an exterior design that recollects pre-Hispanic varieties. On one in all its sides, an enormous curved granite wall was sculpted utilizing historic Inca strategies by 20 grasp stonemasons from Peru, the place they work on restoring archaeological websites in Machu Picchu. At FCM’s entrance, a monumental 60-sq.-m iron door merges with the character round it. The constructing’s façade combines glass and wooden, resulting in a double-height primary corridor lit by a skylight. There’s additionally a gallery within the basement, a rooftop terrace and a store promoting textiles, books and different objects.
With the purpose of supporting the visible arts in Uruguay—which is usually overshadowed by its bigger neighbours Brazil and Argentina—FCM presents three exhibitions per yr, giving carte blanche to high Latin American curators to develop distinctive tasks. The area had its grand opening in January 2024 with a three-month exhibition by the Swiss Argentine painter Vivian Suter, curated by Emiliano Valdés of Museo de Arte Moderno in Medellín, Colombia. There was an extended break earlier than the subsequent exhibition launched in October, of the Paraguayan artist Claudia Casarino and organised by the unbiased curator Martín Craciun. In January 2025, a present opened by the Argentine artist Gabriel Chaile, curated by Pablo León de la Barra of New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. With the present Cardozo exhibition, FCM is making its transfer to year-round programming, looking for to energise the native artwork scene past the summer time months.
After Cardozo’s present, the programme will proceed on 27 September with an exhibition by the Indigenous artist Chonon Bensho, targeted on the cosmovision of the Shipibo-Konibo folks of the Peruvian Amazon. In January 2026, an exhibition with the Mexican artist Ana Segovia will probably be curated by Magalí Arriola from Mexico Metropolis’s Museo Tamayo. In 2027, the cycle will probably be accomplished with an open name for artists and an exhibition curated by Aimé Iglesias Lukin, director of the Americas Society in New York.
Behind this formidable artwork basis are the facility couple Virginia Cervieri and Pablo Monsuárez, legal professionals who work in mental property and have world purchasers together with Lacoste, Adidas and Bellini Cipriani. Based mostly in Montevideo, Cervieri and Monsuárez have a ardour for artwork that has led them to discovered and finance this undertaking in parallel to their very own non-public assortment of works by quite a few Uruguayan artists.
Set up view of Gabriel Chaile’s exhibition on the Fundación Cervieri Monsuárez Courtesy the Fundación Cervieri Monsuárez
FCM joins a rising cultural ecosystem in José Ignacio that features Skyspace Ta Khut, a 7m-high marble dome by the artist James Turrell; Casa Neptuna, an artist residency in a vibrant geometric constructing run by the Argentine artist Edgardo Giménez; the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Atchugarry in close by Manantiales; and the Focus José Ignacio Worldwide Images Competition, amongst others tasks.
The proliferation of arts organisations selling Latin American artists and curators bodes nicely for a extra strong artwork scene on the continent. The well-known Nineteen Thirties drawing America invertida by the Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García—one of the influential Latin American artists of the twentieth century—reveals a map of the continent the other way up to say an identification of its personal with out all the time trying north. In a means, new cultural tasks in José Ignacio hold that concept within the air.
