José Gamarra is the most discreet painter in Paris. His last solo exhibition in France took place in 2008, in Arcueil (Val-de-Marne). He exhibits more frequently in Uruguay, his native country, and in Latin America. Why are we so surprised that it took twenty-two years for a Parisian gallery to present a group of his paintings, old and new, again? Because he spent most of his life in the Parisian suburbs and because he invented and renewed a very singular political painting.
He was born in Tacuarembó (Uruguay) in 1934. From 1950 to 1956 he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Montevideo. Since 1959 he taught in Sao Paulo, Brazil. His paintings stand out, abstract pictograms organized in a more or less strict geometry. In 1963 he was invited to the 3rdmy Biennial of young artists in Paris, where he won the painting prize. And there, although he does not speak French, he decides to stay.
That was sixty-one years ago and it is still there, in his workshop in Arcueil. When asked why he had chosen this option, he first replied that he felt ” Alright ” In France, he was invited to participate in the Venice Biennale the following year, in 1964, and it was easier and quicker for him to be in France. “It was a chain of events, it happened by itself. The French State had bought my paintings, so my resources were assured. I was invited to the Salon de la Jeune Peinture and other places. In 1965, the Mathias Fels gallery [à Paris] He invited me to participate in the exhibition “La Fête à la Mona Lisa”, which was sponsored by Duchamp. »
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Among the artists he met at that time, he mentions two figures of narrative figuration, Hervé Télémaque (1937-2022) and Bernard Rancillac (1931-2021). Paris is, above all, the meeting point for South American novelists, poets and artists. “We met at the Dragon Gallery. [dans le 6e arrondissement]. » It was there that José Gamarra met the poet Edouard Glissant (1928-2011), who became one of his closest friends and wrote the preface to his catalogues for Albert Loeb’s gallery (who defended it until its closure in 2015). “There were also the kineticists, Soto and the others. We did not agree artistically, but we agreed on politics.”
Politics: a central issue since the late 1960s. In 1973, coups brought generals to power in Uruguay and Chile. This had already been the case in Brazil since 1964. It would be the case in Argentina in 1976. “From 1973 onwards I was unable to return to Uruguay. The embassy had confiscated my passport. I only travelled thanks to a safe-conduct pass issued by France.” These events accelerate the metamorphosis of his painting: it becomes figurative, narrative and allegorical.
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