Search This Blog

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A Second look at CasaPueblo.

 This post started out as a mere addendum to our CasaPueblo visit. A friend of ours in Atlántida (Syd) , asked if we had seen the short film the museum shows upstairs about the artist Carlos Páez Vilaró. Yes, we did and we were quite impressed getting to learn more about this Uruguayan Artist, previously unknown to us when we lived in the States. Syd also asked us, if we had been wise enough to have saved our entrance tickets? Yes, to that question too. We are glad to now know that having paid for an entry ticket we can use that ticket for the entire season. Paying once per season not only is a great deal but means we can now freely (forgive the pun) accompany any other visitors wanting to see this wondrous residence, on a pensioners budget, this is important stuff to know.

So back to this addendum matter, what should have been a simple note to make sure you, #1 Keep your ticket, for the season and #2 See the presentation movie, (located up the stairs), has now, well, turned into a separate blog entry, another opportunity to see more of this amazing museum/villa.

Most of you may not realize it but Wally prefers to experience "the moment" sans/sin ( meaning; without, depending on whether you speak French or Spanish) picture taking. My constant mission on our trips is, to take and include as many pictures as possible to use on our blog because I'm a visual person. So here are a few more photos for you who cannot rush, right down here to see this place in person.

The artist Señor Vilaró"s favorite activity is mural painting. In the short film, he mentioned (English subtitles) that when he visited the Great Wall of China all he could think about, was how much he really wanted to paint it with murals (muros).




We saw from our visit that he also enjoys sculpturing a variety of alien looking pieces and pottery.  He works in wood, metal and plaster and with the help of friends, fishermen and his own hands built this place over a decade.

We decided against buying anything at the time but were duly inspired enough to plan a small wall design at our house in the future. I think this blue crab over our parrilla would go nicely.

The movie named many famous people he was able to get to know and work with. For you old timers,  the French actress, model and animal rights activist, Bridget Bardot's (pronounced Bardoe) name was shown, Also the noted 1952 Nobel prize winner, Albert Schweitzer. (1875-1965).  If you've recently read or seen "The Motorcycle Diaries" then Che Guevara is fresh in your minds and as shown in the title picture the famous artist Picasso were some of his friends.

A most surprising revelation  mentioned in the movie presentation was that one of his sons, Carlos Páez Rodriquez, was one of 16 survivors (out of 45) from the Uruguay Rugby team members aboard the plane that crashed (October 13th, 1972) over the Chilean Andes. Carlos (Jr.) survived for 3 months at an altitude of 11,800 ft in harsh conditions until rescued along with the other few, (December 22/23) in 1972. We recently saw the movie about that called "Alive: The story of the Andes Survivors". Carlos, the artist, always believed that his son was still alive.

So now, maybe you too are surprised about how interesting a world this artist moved in.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alive! is a fantastic movie. The book by Piers Paul Read is also wonderful, and goes into detail about the artist's efforts to find his son after the official search was called off.

Denise said...

Thank you for mentioning the book and it's author. The short presentation film at Casapueblo alluded to the artist search for his son but didn't give much detail.