Entrevista completa de Dawnell Smith del Anchorage Daily News a nuestro colega Enrique Badaró Nadal. Imperdible la intro..."Enrique Badaro Nadal lives in a city known for architecture, sunshine and gorgeous beaches." Guau!
Uruguayan artist muses on his winter in Alaska as Fulbright scholar
By DAWNELL SMITH
Anchorage Daily News
Published: June 4, 2006
Last Modified: June 4, 2006 at 04:20 AM
Enrique Badaro Nadal lives in a city known for architecture, sunshine and gorgeous beaches. When at home in Montevideo, Uruguay, he runs the Subte Museum and directs visual art programs for the city. He also paints, draws, builds stages, makes prints and fashions installation art that incorporates text with imagery loaded with cultural motifs and wry sensuality.
Badaro Nadal has studied in Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Cuba and France. But as a Fulbright scholar, he found himself immersed in a stark and barren winter in the Mat-Su this January, teaching art at the Matanuska-Susitna campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage and embracing darkness, whiteness, nothingness and brightness.
Gracious in demeanor and eager to absorb the environment, Badaro Nadal has spent the last five months teaching classes, creating art, building sets for high school theater productions and staying involved in the Mat-Su community.
Last month, he juried a show for the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, where he showed some of his own Alaska-made work, and this month his installation piece, "Blood," appears at the UAA Student Union Gallery in a group show called "Seeing Red," an exhibit by Mat-Su college faculty.
Badaro Nadal will turn 50 in August, his last month in Alaska, but will stay busy to the end, even when his wife and daughter visit next month after six months apart. His 18-year-old son has kept him company since February, and the Internet has allowed him to make daily contact with friends and family all over the world.
In these last few months of his stay, Badaro Nadal will teach summer classes in collage, contemporary painting and other topics, and maybe travel around a bit more. UAA gave him the use of a car along with a teaching salary, and the Fulbright program supported his trip through grant money and air tickets.
Badaro Nadal spoke enthusiastically about his time in Alaska during an interview last week. The following excerpts have been edited for length and clarity.
Q. You arrived in the thick of January and have yet to feel the full brunt of summer, but what are your impressions of Alaska so far?
A. From the first moment here it was very exciting because of the nature of winter and now summer. Just being here for the coming of the sun after having been here in the winter is exciting, just seeing this big bag of nature appear in one week. It's all green and full now.
Our seasons in Uruguay are slower in changing. Here it is very sudden.
Q. As a Fulbright scholar, did you get to choose where you wanted to go?
A. The Fulbright office offered the possibility of applying to Alaska. It was not easy for Mat-Su to find someone to come up here. It took two years. They were looking in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, and later they opened it up to Uruguay.
In my case, it's a senior program. I came as an artist for teaching experience. My grant was for teaching at Mat-Su College, and that's where I have spent all the winter and spring. I taught four courses in color design, stagecraft, contemporary painting and perspective.
I worked very well with the students and faculty members, the coordinator of the department. They all helped me all the time, so I felt at ease from the beginning.
Q. Were there challenges adjusting to the expectations of your job or the environment?
A. When I arrived, there were just three hours of twilight. It was dark, but when the sun was out you saw all the white landscape. I was impressed by nature, the sky, the snow, the ravens, the mountains.
I had a nice house in the Valley and I felt comfortable at work. The people at Mat-Su helped me feel comfortable. When you are so far away from home, you have to have what you need to feel comfortable and be able to work.
Q. How has being here influenced your art?
A. You know, the landscape is so important. One concept I included from Alaska is emptiness. Here the sky is changing. You see the white plains in the winter. You see nothing.
This doesn't mean I make a description of this in my art. It's more of the concept of big space, nature and not being afraid of emptiness that comes through. It's a very Eastern concept.
Yes, if you come to Alaska and you work in a sensitive field like the arts, it's impossible to not be influenced by the environment, the Native art, the cultures, everything that passes through here. Like the ravens you see all the time ... you learn how important Raven is to Native culture. You begin to see links in what you see in the land and what happened in the past.
Everything is connected. The presence of animals -- the moose, the eagles, the bears -- makes you feel very close, very connected to nature.
Q. Explain how these concepts showed up in your recent show at the International.
A. I made those pieces in Alaska. I had an idea before I came up here that Alaska is a bridge between Eastern places and America. Alaska is the bridge of our cultures. Many, many cultures came over this bridge between the Asia continent and the American continent.
In my show here, I used a lot of elements from Eastern culture like Japan and a lot of elements from American pre-Hispanic cultures.
In the big canvas I had two big figures, one right side up and the other upside down, to represent those people who came from the north to the south; and then me, who came from the south to the north. It's kind of a cycle, a movement that never stops.
That is another idea that has shown up: there are no borders; we are moving all the time; we are interconnected. Nobody can stop that. It's natural. It's part of being human.
Q. Tell me about your hometown.
A. Montevideo is a beautiful city with one and a half million people. It has beautiful architecture with many French elements. It has lots of French influences. It lies on the coast, which means we have beautiful beaches. We grow up going to the beach and walking along the coast.
It's a very green city with lots of parks and squares.
Q. It sounds quite different from Alaska in terms of architecture and city planning then.
A. Architecture in Uruguay is a very important field. In the last 20 years, we have started to have a conscience about keeping the architecture and not tearing it down, about taking care of it.
We have a huge period of art deco architecture with stained glass and facades.
Q. Do you think that this is something missing in Alaska, that there is a lack of appreciation and admiration for architecture?
A. That's a hard question. Everything looks so new, so recent here. The concept of wood is big and there are not so many high buildings. At the same time, it's interesting how fast Alaska grows and builds and makes new neighborhoods. It's fascinating the speed which you have for growth. It's impressive.
You know, I have lived in Paris for some years. When you live there, you're impressed with the churches, the palaces, the museums, the towers. When you come to Alaska it's the opposite. You fall in love with the beauty of nature and the people here. You don't care as much for the buildings. Architecture here is seen only as useful.
And you need to grow up (as a state); Alaska is a growing-up state.
Q. You're still working on your piece for the upcoming show, "Seeing Red," which goes up tomorrow, and you had really fresh work at last month's International exhibit too. Do you find it nerve-wracking to exhibit work that is so new?
A. I always show really new work and I always work toward shows. It comes out so fresh you have to blow on it. Sometimes I will show something old for a group show or something, but mostly I only do new work.
When you are over 40 years old, you cannot be afraid or nervous. You have to do things. In this case, I am here for only so long. This is it. When they offer an opportunity to exhibit my work, it's wonderful and I do it.
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Daily News arts reporter Dawnell Smith can be reached at 257-4587 or dsmith@adn.com.
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ENRIQUE BADARO NADAL will present a lecture, "Earth Art: Pre-European and Contemporary Arts in Alaska and Latin America," at 2 p.m. June 25 at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. The presentation will makes connections between contemporary artists like Andy Goldsworthy and the pre-Columbian period. His work is featured in "Seeing Red," a show by Mat-Su College faculty, at UAA's Student Union Gallery until June 14. See the review below.
