Art Trip - Vik Retreats

We are delighted to invite you to experience our unparalleled collection of
contemporary Uruguayan art at Estancia Vik Jose Ignacio and Playa Vik Jose Ignacio.
The retreats are a labor of love and we hope you will enjoy them as much as we do.
Our inspiration was the country of Uruguay, it’s culture and people.
In February 2013, guests will engage with local artists who created the art at Estancia
Vik and Playa Vik through workshops, guided visits to local galleries, museums, ateliers
and much more.
Experience this private, once in a lifetime opportunity to delve into the art and culture
of Uruguay at Estancia Vik and Playa Vik.
DAY 1 Arrival. Introduction. The Uruguayan Estancia (Ranch).
Guests will arrive at the exclusive Estancia Vik where their hosts Kike Badaro and Alejandro Turell will receive them for lunch
at a traditional barbeque (Asado). Following the asado, Estancia Vik’s architect, Marcelo Daglio will delve into the origins
and designs of traditional Uruguayan Estancias.
Estancia Vik Tour with Marcelo Daglio. Marcelo Daglio, together with Alejandro Turell and Kike Badaro will lead a tour
throughout the impressive property utilizing their knowledge and expertise to educate guests.
Introduction to the Art at Estancia Vik. Kike Badaro, art curator and one of the artists whose remarkable work is featured at
Estancia Vik, will then speak to guests about his journey with art and his relationship with colors landscapes and horizons
and how this influenced his work at Estancia Vik.
DAY 2 Works of art and the artists of Estancia Vik and Playa Vik.
Guests will experience both properties for lunch and dinner, and will be joined by artists who created the masterpieces that
define Estancia Vik and Playa Vik. The artists will engage with guests to explain their creative and material processes.
Following each meal, the artists will personally tour guests through the various suites for an up close view of the art.
Tango at Sunset Cocktail. Guests will visit Playa Vik at sunset (described as ‘the best on the planet’) for Tango, cocktails and
a special artist visit. The history of the Tango will be explained and participants will enjoy Tango lessons courtesy of
professional dancers at Playa Vik’s Sculpture. Artist Pablo Casacuberta will be present to explore the magnificent
surrounding art with our guests.
Day 3 Sculpture Day
Local sculptors, Ricardo Pascale and Alejandro Turell will engage the guests in the art of creating masterpieces out of stones:
“Geodas and Amatistas.”
Atchugarry Sculpture Museum. Following their sculpture introduction, guests will enjoy a Uruguayan lunch with the artists
followed by a guided tour of Pablo Atchugarry’s monumental Sculpture Park. Guests will then enjoy a free afternoon to
explore the charming village of Faro Jose Ignacio, visit shops in nearby La Barra or Punta del Este and visit the atelier of
Carlos Paez Vilaro. From there tea and sunset will be enjoyed at Casa Pueblo, the house of Vilaro, now a citadel-sculpture
that includes a museum, an art gallery and the Hotel Casapueblo.
DAY 4 Horseback Riding
Guests will begin their day by participating in the preparation of the horses with the expert gauchos on staff at Estancia Vik
and experience the wonder of riding through the vast landscape surrounding the property.
El Asado (Barbeque). Back from the day’s adventures guests will dive into the Uruguayan culinary culture of the Asado and
learn the difference between a typical Uruguayan Asado versus those of other Latin American countries.
DAY 5 Natural Walk at Estancia Vik
Walking through Estancia Vik with Alejandro Turell. Alejandro Turell, one of the renowned Estancia Vik artists and
naturalist, will lead an excursion through the ecological footpaths of Estancia Vik. Guests will engage with the wonders of
Uruguayan wildlife through bird watching and tracking indigenous animals.
Visit to Jose Trujillo atelier and have empanadas with the artist.
DAY 6 Visit to museums, art galleries and Ateliers in Montevideo.
WORKSHOPS
Daily Workshops will include painting, engraving, drawing and sculpture with different artists
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Kike Badaro at Estancia Vik “Sounds of Nature Workshop.” The day starts with a slide presentation about classic,
contemporary, and pre-Columbian art. We will then transition to a Hands-on Workshop listening to music based on the
sounds of the planet. Once inspired, we will do some yoga breathing and everyone will chose one technique to begin
their work: paint, draw, pastels, clay, and others. We will finish our workshop with a nice meditation.
Alejandro Turell workshop on Open Fields “Nomadic Art and Nature”. This workshop will approach the different
symbols and materials that humans developed throughout their existence. We will also study the different habitants
(humans and animals) that lived in this area for millennia. This may involve a particular media or technique but can
also just be assisting beginners with tips or encouragement to experiment. His broad knowledge of Uruguayan and
Latin American art allows for many possibilities. Some examples have included working with clay and then burning the
pieces in the ground at night with a large fire or spending the day outside in nature doing watercolors.
Carlos Musso at Estancia Vik Chapel. Guests will be able to work with the artist on the frescos of the Chapel walls at
Estancia Vik.
Painting with Jose Trujillo in his Atelier. This evening will be spent working on portraits and the basics of human
figure drawing. Afterwards, enjoy homemade "empanadas y vino.”
The Gathering. All of the artists who participated during the week will assist in a workshop that will be designed and
determined by the interests of the group. This morning gathering affords a perfect opportunity to spend more one on
one time with the artists with the overall theme determined by the group.
JOSÉ TRUJILLO
Main Art Work at Estancia Vik: Trujillo Suite and Gym + Spa
Bodies: chords and silences
Oil on canvas
Oil on wall
Jose Trujillo is a painter of sensuality of interiors. His suite explodes with the pleasure of contemplating bodies in dialogue; manwoman/woman-man, primarily sensual nudes, of tangible flesh, of silky skin, exuberant hair, feet, hands, breasts, arms… Trujillo builds a
poetry of corporality. Oil painting becomes flesh, flesh becomes painting.
These bodies surround us, invite us –from their erotic silence- to freewheel towards a limitless space, providing the oneiric, a dreamlike
quality. These naked bodies are the history of art, never obscene, always pictorial; at times becoming architectural. They are constructed
by a rigorous hand and eye that is apparent in the composition and the expression. They reach, in their interaction, a peak in the history of
art: nudity in ancient times, nudity in classicism, nudity in modern times. Occasionally, the vibration is such that we can almost feel that
they are not just bodies posing for the artist but bodies that are dancing, bodies of quiet lovers or sun worshippers, live bodies that
generate a unique, rhythmic choreography, with melodious and inaudible echoes to be perceived by the sensitive observer.
The canvas walls of the room imitate a painter’s atelier. It is an iconic space filled with wisdom and experience. Perhaps one of the most
important works of art history, “The Painter’s Studio”, by Courbet with the naked woman at its centre, is an inevitable reference. The
painter’s studio is the space where everything is possible, where the uncreated vibrates, where the shapeless beats, where ideas lightly
touch and produced the whisper of silk, where silences are outbursts of opera or “breakfast on the grass” melodies.
Trujillo is a refined painter of urban spaces and landscapes, a painter of the human figure. He brings us to this world, where an essential
part of his story will be shared forever with the traveler who is eager to be accepted at the artist’s atelier, by his models, by the beauty and
the taste of bodies beating and shaking, static and in silence… He allows us to share with him this space for poetry, for passion, for the
contemplation of the other and of ourselves.
PABLO ATCHUGARRY
Living Room
Main Art Work at Estancia Vik: South
Light Sculpture in Carrera Statuary
White
Marble Sculpture, Front Door
Front Door at Playa Vik: The Gate to
Paradise Sculpture in Bronze
Stone is the material often associated with the beginning of human civilization.
The first two great prehistoric periods include it in their names: Palaeolithic,
“ancient stone age” and Neolithic, “new stone age”. These ages represent a
transition from the engraved stone (the iconic texture of the Palaeolithic) to the
polished stone (the iconic texture of the Neolithic). Both characterizations help us
get closer to the work of this magnificent sculptor, Pablo Atchugarry. Atchugarry
penetrates the depths of civilization using the first material humans found imbuing
these stones with thoughts of life, nutrition, economy, religion, and art. He deals
with volume and space.
The clefts, the perforations on marble are the zones where space flows, time
flows... the winds of history travel freely, going through and caressing these
surfaces which, at times, are close to the skin, the silk, the smoothness of river
water, the plumage of the heron. The impossible light stone fantasy of the
sculptures materializes in the hands of our artist.
An important piece of white marble was chosen for Estancia Vik and the resulting
sculpture was placed precisely at the center of the architecture, the place where
the geographical energies of the North-South and the East-West axes intersect. It
is at this point where the palette of colors becomes the sole color: white, the
colour of excellence, purity, light, perfection, the beginning, the cloud. At Playa Vik
Atchugarry, inspired by Ghiberti’s famous Gates of Paradise at the Baptistery in
Florence, created a modern day version in bronze. Using similar forms as seen in
his marble sculptures Atchugarry has created a masterpiece of contemporary
sculpture.
ALEJANDRO TURELL
Main art work at Estancia Vik: Turell Suite
Oil on Canvas.
Metal Assemblage.
Ibirapitá Wood Sculpture, West Patio
Ever present in Alejandro Turell’s works are the environmental
elements, their ecological identity, and the animals that are
depicted with scientific dedication in his paintings and prints. His
work reminds us of the art of the 18th and 19th centuries when
artists used their art to explain the surrounding world. Turell
changes the way we look at our own environment, helping us on
our every day journey of discovery. We become priviledged
observers of his fearless and curious view of nature’s wonders.
Alejandro Turell leads us to go deeper in our search for knowledge
and connects us with geniuses such as linee, Darwin, Humboldt,
mixing art and science in an exquisite way. Turell complements his
magnificne tartistic proposition with three incredible rustic books;
“Naturalism” “Florae Iconography” and “Sightings” a unique
collection of Uruguay’s wild nature.
PABLO CASACUBERTA
Main Work at Playa Vik
Exodus, the Living Room of Casa Raices
Pablo Casacuberta, born in 1969, Montevideo, Uruguay, is a filmmaker, writer, and visual artist with a Masters in Arts in Experimental Media, UK. His
visual work has been exhibited in New York, Venice, Barcelona and Montevideo. Casacuberta started his career as a graphic designer, publishing
illustration posters and book covers, and moved rapidly towards design for television, where his visual style received recognition and awards. He has
received a Clio and was nominated for a Latin Grammy in the Best Video category. He was also a finalist for the international Sundance NHK prize. In
1998 he directed an experimental feature film, “Another George”, shot in the UK in collaboration with the Japanese Director Yukihiko Goto. The film
was later selected as part of “Britspotting”, a festival in Berlin that showcases the best Bristish Independent films from emerging directors. In October
2001, Boards Magazine selected him as one of the most 10 promising new directors for advertising in the world. He has worked for MTV, Citibank,
Nike, Volkswagen, Suzuki, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Cadbury and Sky. His audiovisual work has been broadcasted in more than twenty countries. In 2006,
he directed second unit scenes for “Children of Men”, a feature film directed by Alfonso Cuaron. In 2010 he worked as a second unit director for the
celebrated Nike “Write History” spot, which was directed by Alejandro Gonazalez Inarritu. Later that year he directed a global campaign for MTVHD, a
new MTV channel in High Definition, and also a global campaign for the MTV Europe Music Awards. In 2010 he also directed a Coca Cola campaign for
the Chinese market.
In 1990 he published his first fiction book, “Ahora le toca al elefante” (Now it’s the elephant’s turn), which was followed by “La parte de abajo de las
cosas” (The underside of things) in 1992, “Esta maquina roja” (The red machine) in 1995, “El mar” (The sea) in 2000, “Una linca mas o menos recta” (A
more or less straight line) in 2001, and “Aqui y ahora” (Here and now) in 2002. He received the Uruguay National Literature Prize in 1996. in 2007 he
was selected by the Hay Festival as one of the 39 most promising Latin American writers under forty. His books have now been published in Uruguay,
Mexico and Colombia. In March 2010 he published a new novel, “Escipion” (Scipio) in Madrid.
MARCELO LEGRAND
Main Art Work at Estancia Vik: Barbecue
Polymeric paintings on metal, paintbrush and roller
Legrand Suite: The Backing of Dreams
Collage on paper treated with paints and tints, and inclusion of wood in stone.
Marcelo Legrand displays strength, passion, compulsion, urban aesthetics, and wild
animal ferocity with the stain, the abstraction, the vague geometry, and the unusual
energy of his work. Elements borrowed from the COBRA group and aspects of
expressionism create an almost respectful reverence for religious intentions in his
abstraction of the world.
At Estancia Vik and throughout Uruguay, the barbecue is a space of strength, of
nutritional pleasure. It’s the place of the first meetings around the fire where a group of
human beings roast the original meat then nourish themselves around tables of irregular
indigenous wood.
In the Estancia’s Barbeque, this tradition is contrasted and complimented by Legrand’s
geometrical and metallic structure. The structure of his art eliminates shape. The frame
of the Barbeque is corrugated metal sheeting, which joins above with the metal roofing
of the estancia tying the space that covers and protects all the architecture with the
space that feeds and nourishes its inhabitants.
To decorate the walls, Legrand chose wild colours. He begins intuitively with the stain,
the surly brush stroke, violent at times. Gradually, slowly, in a subtle and smooth way,
through careful thought, these colors interact and form a structure. From this mythical
genesis, out of chaos, an organized abstract composition with clear centers of interest
materializes, never obfuscating the presence of metal.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, is decided at random, so much so that strength and power
end up complementing each other with subtle beauty, just as a vigorous choir whose
powerful and chromatic voices in unison provoke an intense emotional situation.
Taking a diagonal approach to the suite, translucent art paper is the majestic vertical
background of the bed. Near the center of the room, in the air, a luminous artefact of
deconstructive architecture hangs. A powerful front view of the stove, implacably
sculptural, in stone and wood, puts the finishing touch to this first diagonal of the suite.
These elements interact, with refined subtlety. Thus the observer gets into a white weft
on the natural sheer quality of the paper; or the other one, where black behaves as a
complementary proposal.