Carlos Ortúzar

CARLOS ORTÚZAR WORTHINGTON (Chile, 1935).
Untitled.
Gilded bronze, copy 95/100.
Signed and justified.
Wooden stand.
Measurements: 13 x 11 x 4 cm (figure) + 6 x 6 cm (base).

Carlos Ortúzar entered the School of Fine Arts of the University of Chile in 1956, where he had Gustavo Carrasco, Marta Colvin and Gregorio de la Fuente as teachers. In 1964 he won the Fullbright Scholarship to study at the Pratt Institute and The New School of Social Research in New York, where he spent nearly three years. Later, in 1970, he obtained an "invitation" scholarship and returned to the United States for a few months to the Center for Advanced Visual Study M.I.T. in Boston, where he experienced a greater approximation to science, cybernetics and physics, knowledge that he would later apply to his artistic production. As part of his academic and administrative work, in 1962 he assumed the position of Secretary of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of Chile in Santiago, under the direction of Nemesio Antúnez. In 1966 he joined the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Chile as a teacher, where he taught the courses Technology of Materials and Plastic Composition: Art, Form and Color, until 1973. After the coup d'état in Chile, Carlos Ortúzar went into self-imposed exile in Barcelona, where he learned of his exoneration as a professor at the University of Chile. In the latter city he worked as a professor of Volume at the Centro Universitario de Diseño y Arte de Barcelona EINA. He returned to Chile in 1979 until his death in 1985 and worked as a professor at the School of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Chile and other private universities such as the Central University of Santiago. At the beginning of his artistic career, his work was linked to a language closer to matter painting, that is, closer to Informalism, with works that had as main topics the landscape, local myths, pre-Columbian and archeology. Later, he began to experiment with new technologies and industrial materials such as polymers and metal. He also incorporated light and movement into his works, which led him to be recognized as a kinetic artist in the creation of two-dimensional pieces and sculptures. He experimented with moving pieces activated by environmental changes, or directly driven by motors. One of his most emblematic sculptures is the Monument to General Schneider (1971), in which two elevated steel prisms with a triangular base are placed on a circular base, this work is located on Kennedy Avenue with Américo Vespucio in the city of Santiago. In addition, the artist took his sculptural work of volumes and geometric prisms, characteristic of the second stage of his work, to the flat space of the painting, generating abstract compositions with pyroxylin lacquered metal pieces and meticulously adjusted. In this same line of work, Ortúzar also worked as a designer of objects, jewelry and lamps. In 1968 he created the Integrated Design Workshop for Architecture (also called DI), and invited Eduardo Martínez Bonati and Iván Vial to participate in it, later joined by Angélica Quintana as a member. The objective of this workshop was to privilege collective work over individual creation and to introduce a social conception of art, so that it would be available to everyone in the public space and integrated with architecture. Proof of this is the mural painted on the Santa Lucía underpass (1970) in Santiago, Chile. Awards, distinctions and competitions: 1985 Art Critics Circle Award, Santiago, Chile. 1982 Grand Prize, Salón Sur de Pintura y Grabado del Diario El Sur de Concepción, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile. 1980 First Prize for Painting, Sixth National Securities Placement Contest, National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago, Chile. 1980 First Prize, Concurso Murales Hospital del Trabajador, Concepción, Chile. 1979 First Prize, Terracotta Plastic Arts Contest, Boulevard Drugstore, Santiago, Chile. 1972 Winner (co-author), Competition to Build the Mural of the Antofagasta Airport, Airports Directorate of the General Directorate of Public Works, Antofagasta, Chile. 1970 First Prize, National Sculpture Contest, Cerrillos Park, Santiago, Chile. 1970 Scholarship Invitation to work on conceptual elements at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies M.I.T., Boston, USA.