Universidad Nacional de San Martín - Amale Artetxe Chair: Peio Aguirre

On November 4, 5 and 6, the Amale Artetxe Chair in Basque Studies (Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Unsam) will host a seminar led by Peio Aguirre titled ‘Modernidades singulares y vanguardias vernáculas; Nestor Basterretxea y al arte vasco internacional del siglo XX y XXI’ (´Singular modernities and vernacular avant-gardes; Néstor Basterretxea and international Basque art in the 20th and 21st centuries´).

The seminar will focus on the debate between modernity and post-modernity, using the analysis of "Basque art" as a case study examined in its historical and contextual background.

The Basque artist Nestor Basterretxea (1924-2014), who started his artistic career in Buenos Aires in the 1940s after fleeing to exile due to the Spanish Civil War in 1936, will be a central figure in this chapter.

A contemporary of artists such as Oteiza and Chillida, his work crosses modernity and also enters post-modernity, touching on all the arts: illustration, muralism, abstraction and concrete art, public sculpture, cinema, industrial design and architecture.

The seminar will start with a specific case study and will then map the transcontinental artistic avant-gardes, which constantly shift their coordinates and frameworks. This will cover the European artistic avant-gardes, the Spanish context, the Basque avant-garde, and its connections with Latin America.

Thus, Basque art can act as a resonance chamber when analysing specific, local contexts in Argentina, Brazil, and other focal points in Central and South America.

On November 7, Aguirre and Alfonsina Lenaroz will give a talk a the Domingo Faustino Sarmiento Cultural Centre at 6:00pm titled: ‘Las raíces argentinas de un artista vasco: Nestor Basterretxea’ (´The Argentinian roots of a Basque artist: Nestor Basterretxea´).

Peio Aguirre

Peio Aguirre is an art critic, writer, independent exhibition curator and editor. He lives and works in San Sebastian, Basque Country.

He is the author of ‘La línea de producción de la crítica’ (consonni, Bilbao, 2014) and ‘Estilo. Estética, vida y consumo’ (Turner, Madrid/Mexico D.F., 2022).

He curated three exhibitions featuring Basque artist Nestor Basterretxea and is also the creator of a film essay exploring his work and life. In 2019 Aguirre curated the Spanish Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, where he presented the artists Sergio Prego and Itziar Okariz.

Since 2000 he has published in specialised magazines and national and international newspapers such as Mugalari (Gara), Cultura(s) (La Vanguardia); EXIT, A-desk; Afterall Journal; A Prior Magazine; Flash Art; El estado mental; e-flux journal; Concreta; Babelia (El País), among others.

Since 2018 he has taught at the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola film school in San Sebastian, and in 2021 began collaborating as a cross-border advisor with the ESAPB École supérieure d´art Pays Basque in Biarritz/Bayonne.