THE PRIMITIVES’ PATH. JUÁREZ AND TABORDA LOOK AT THE PAST TO BUILD THE ART OF THE FUTURE

Abstract

This paper proposes an approach to the artistic and aesthetic interests of Saúl Taborda and Horacio Juárez focusing on the reading of the correspondence that both maintain in the early years of the 30s. However, although the letters will be the privileged documents of this research, they are analysed and interpreted in relation to other sources: articles and essays published by Taborda, letters to other friends sent by Juárez and the works that the sculptor performs during his scholarship in Europe. The beginning of this epistolary exchange takes place in 1930 when Juárez travel to France and ends at 1932, a few months before his return to the city. The analysis of the correspondence that they maintain tries to understand the construction of the “new sculpture” made by the sculptor and some elements of the original aesthetic proposal elaborated by Taborda. The missives between Unquillo and Paris allow us to observe the elective affinities between the two without, however, identifying certain divergences in each other’s statements. Thus the agreements and discussions that they maintain are the starting point to reflect on something that initially seems paradoxical: its returns to primitives as a privileged resource to build the art of the future.