Exhibitions
From Montevideo to MALBA: the posthumous journey of Ulises Beisso
My Private World by Ulises Beisso will fill level 1 of the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (MALBA) from August 22 to November 10. Ulises Beisso (Montevideo, 1958–1996) was a singular figure within the Uruguayan art scene of the late 20th century. A psychologist by training and a restless creator by vocation, he developed a career that combined illustration, graphic design, and an extremely diverse visual production. His work ranged from painting and sculpture to assemblages and functional objects charged with symbolism, reflecting a sharp eye for reality and a unique visual language, capable of uniting formal experimentation with a profound aesthetic sensibility.
Uruguayan artist Beisso makes history by becoming the first contemporary artist from his country to receive a retrospective at the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (MALBA). Until now, the institution had reserved this exhibition format for established figures in the history of Uruguayan art, such as Pedro Figari and Rafael Barradas, whose works are part of the regional canon. With this exhibition, MALBA not only pays tribute to Beisso's career but also opens a new chapter in its programming, incorporating the vision and language of an artist who engages with current issues and expands the boundaries of the pictorial and conceptual tradition of the Río de la Plata region.
In the brief but intense span of his career, Beisso produced more than three hundred works that, through figuration, sought to subvert the established order. His legacy takes on particular relevance today: he was one of the first to challenge, through art, the notions of identity, dissent, and diversity in the cultural context of the Río de la Plata during the 1980s and early 1990s, a period marked by profound political and social transformations.
Ulises Beisso. Juggling during angelic chase (1996).
The retrospective "My Private World" explores two key moments in Beisso's career, revealing the breadth and complexity of his creative universe. On the one hand, it presents his fantastical worlds, dubbed by the artist himself as Dorian Rituals, where sexuality and imagery converge with references to classical mythology, displayed in vibrant figuration, charged with color and expressiveness. On the other, the exhibition addresses the series "Images of What's (Hidden)," conceived in the final stage of his life, when his work reached an aesthetic maturity permeated by a dark intensity. In these pieces, the frontal critique of a society that marginalized him for his homosexuality is intertwined with the experience of his illness, giving rise to a visual corpus of enormous symbolic force, as challenging as it is deeply inspiring.
The title of the exhibition, curated by Martín Craciun, was taken from a notebook containing sketches of works and notes that Beisso left behind as part of his artistic legacy. The title also alludes to Gus Van Sant's film My Own Private Idaho (1991), a significant queer cultural reference for the artist. The tour will transport the viewer into a dialogue with works such as Dorian Rituals and Images of What's Hidden (in Me), a more intimate and somber series marked by reflections on homosexual identity and social critique, creating the Montevideo artist with a more sober palette.
