URIBURU: His legacy lives on.

NICOLÁS GARCÍA URIBURU

His legacy lives on

Nicolás García Uriburu

Coloration du Gran Canale, Venice. 1968

Photograph 70 x 102 cm.

© Fundación Nicolás García Uriburu

García Uriburu’s inaugural intervention—dying the waters of Venice green half a century ago, during (and behind) the Biennial—meant a turning point in the histo-ry of contemporary art. Not only in its ability to reflect on the ongoing ecological catastrophe, but also in the role and ways in which art shapes the world. By offering other ways of visualizing our actions, not individually but as a species, and by doing so with an impressive performance, so far unimaginable, on unprecedented support, the Argentinian artist achieved an unparalleled impact that forever changed the perception of the link between art and landscape. The sacred character that nature fulfilled in traditional societies as a source of life and foundation of the human order was swept away by modernity, which thought of this link in the form of the appropriation and use of its materials as a mere industrial input. For their part, the arts conceived of nature as one of the favorite sources of beauty, a sublime model of divine work, no less alien to human action. That is, also as an input. Before her, there was only room for mimesis. Nature was pure exteriority, the permanent, the wild, which ultimately does not change. But that romantic dream was refuted by the future of the world. The industrial and post-industrial scene invited García Uriburu to urgently raise his alarm, to direct a call that made the situation of catastrophe visible and accepted without major hesitation by societies, which looked the other way.

NICOLÁS GARCÍA URIBURU

Nicolás García Uriburu

Coloration du Gran Canale, Venice. 1968

© Fundación Nicolás García Uriburu

NICOLÁS GARCÍA URIBURU

Nicolás García Uriburu Photos taken by Blanca Isabel de Toledo (Uriburu’s wife) during the Venice Coloration, 1968

© Fundación Nicolás García Uriburu.

NICOLÁS GARCÍA URIBURU

Nicolás García Uriburu, Venice Coloration, 1968 © Fundación Nicolás García Uriburu

NICOLÁS GARCÍA URIBURU

Nicolás García Uriburu Domus, Venezia,1968

Estate Nicolás García Uriburu

NICOLÁS GARCÍA URIBURU

Nicolás García Uriburu

La Biennale de Venise en Proie a la Contestation, Le Figaro, 1968. Estate Nicolás García Uriburu

Nicolás García Uriburu

Cio che resta della Biennale si inagura oggi a Venezia, 1968. Estate Nicolás García Uriburu

When García Uriburu’s intervention took place, in the shocking year of 1968, no one, or very few, noticed the possible effects of these transformations. The voices that warned about the dangers of that vision that considered nature a never-ending source of resources, and not a living organism, were not heard. That optimistic perception prevented us from seeing the irreparability of many of our actions. Environmentalism was a minor aspect within the political-cultural alternatives of the French May generation, which emphasized social protest, sexual freedom, aesthetic rupture, and anti-authoritarian revolt, although with streaks that led to a reunion with natural life, in search of a restorative utopia, behind the backs of capitalism. In the art system, land art proposed to intervene in the natural space as a way of challenging both the museum and art gallery institutions as well as the support of artistic production, with approaches that sought to minimize the hand of man or make his interaction with matter given by nature an axis of nuclear questions of the work.

Nicolás García Uriburu

International proyect for green water coloration, 1970. Venice, Paris, New York and Buenos Aires.

García Uriburu’s performance, where the stars were the waters of Venice themselves, transformed nature into the agent of the work, into its author. The waters dyed in fluorescent green—an index of pollution, but also of the lost nature to be restored—showed themselves in an act, the only one known to the waters, which is flowing. Thus, the action of man, stopping its course to give it a specific use—channel it, bottle it, use it as a means of transport, market it—was exposed in what it has as a naturalized event.

Nicolás García Uriburu Original bottle from Venice Coloration, “Coloration Uriburu” 1968. Bottle 33 x 9 cm.

NICOLÁS GARCÍA URIBURU

Nicolás García Uriburu

(i) Blanca, Nicolas and Iris Clert at Venice, 1968

(ii) Clean air for ever, Venice 1968.

Estate Nicolás García Uriburu

Venetians woke up on Sunday morning to an unusual sight, as a patch of water in the city’s central waterway appeared to have turned fluorescent green.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/28/europe/venice-grand-canal-gr een-water-intl/ index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/28/venice-police-investigatesource-bright-green-liquid-grand-canal

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/venice-grand-canal-italy-mysteriously-green/

https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2023/05/29/autoridades-venecia-investigan-mancha-verde-fluorescente-canal-trax/

https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-65742818

https://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20230528/9001045/agua-gran-canal-venecia-tine-misterioso-verde-fluorescente.html

https://www.pagina12.com.ar/553686-se-develo-el-misteriodel-color-de-la-aguas-del-gran-canal-d

PRESS RELEASE

BBC NEWS

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65738872

CNN

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/28/europe/venice-grand-canal-gr een-water-intl/index.htm

THE GUARDIAN

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/28/venice-police-investigate-source-bright-green-liquid-grand-canal

CBS NEWS

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/venice-grand-canal-italy-mysteriously-green

URGENTE 24

https://urgente24.com/mundo/italia-misterio-venecia-tenida-verd e-un-argentino-detras-n555641

BBC ESPAÑOL

https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-65742818

elDIARIOAR

https://www.eldiarioar.com/mundo/the-guardian/gran-canal-venecia-tino-verde-fluorescente-misterio-parece-resuelto_1_10252564.html

INFOBAE

https://www.infobae.com/america/mundo/2023/05/28/el-agua-del-gran-canal-de-venecia-aparecio-tenida-de-un-misterioso-verde-fluorescente/

CNN ESPAÑOL

https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2023/05/29/autoridades-venecia-inves tigan-mancha-verde-fluorescente-canal-trax/

EL DEBATE

https://www.eldebate.com/cultura/20230528/que-tenido-verde-fosforescente-aguas-gran-canal-venecia_117700.html

EL MUNDO

https://www.elmundo.es/internacional/2023/05/28/6473801fe4d4d8d4718b4584.html

LA RAZON

https://www.larazon.es/internacional/canales-venecia-amanecen-tenidos-verde_2023052864739a1f3d2300000136d4dd.html

LA VANGUARDIA

https://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20230529/9001176/agua-gran-canal-venecia-tine-misterioso-verde-fluorescente.html

CLARIN

https://www.clarin.com/mundo/misterioso-liquido-verde-fosforescente-aparecio-gran-canal-venecia_0_uOGTBsFpfR.html