In art and in the process of creating contemporary sculpture, celebration plays an extremely important role. For many, celebrating means getting drunk, smoking, having a lot of money, and so on, buying something. For most people, it is something physical.

For the artist dedicated to working on a contemporary sculpture, celebrating is being able to find or give meaning to a dream, an emotion, a feeling, the artistic aesthetic contribution of an artist to the world, the ability to express, capture, feel, and enjoy how an idea flows through your senses, how you can capture it through your hands and emotion…

That’s where the celebration begins, not when you finish a bronze sculpture. Sometimes, it’s a spark, it’s an image that appears in front of you. The art of contemporary sculpture looks at forms, it doesn’t matter if it’s a cloud or a piece of clay, if it’s a material or something existing, the idea can come in a movie, while talking to someone, looking at photos, or in a dream. That’s where the celebration begins, because that gives you tremendous satisfaction.

For the artist, celebration is lived in different ways.

For an artist, celebration is not something that happens the moment a work is finished, but from the idea, from the first thought of how to make a structure, how to make the clay, how to give finish and textures to the contemporary sculpture. When you manage to make a contemporary sculpture do that, you are at an advanced level where you can understand yourself with your works.

And it is very satisfying also when you can present them and see people’s reaction when they look at them. But that is part of a game in which the ego can intervene: “admire me because I am good,” that’s where the confusion comes in. The creator of contemporary sculpture cannot lose touch. You must remember your gift, the gift of revealing that form to the gaze. Your legacy.

We remember that pieces of art in antiquity did not come signed. Signing is very recent in contemporary sculpture. Nowadays, for an artist to celebrate is interesting but he must not lose touch and must be able to control success. He must know that whether his bronze sculptures stay in his rooms or are in the Louvre, he must feel the same celebration.

That the celebration of making something possible is what counts. The game of life for the artist is sometimes complex because he has to deal with mixed emotions, the game of life is sometimes very cruel to the sculptor. He must recognize between the mundane and the material.

Celebration is beautiful, it has its moment and its reason, sometimes you can celebrate for nothing. You can caress a skin and you are celebrating in your mind. You can caress a flower, shaping it in a contemporary sculpture, or watching a sunset, celebration is always present.

The artist celebrates in different ways, he likes friends, bohemianism, music, appreciates the fine arts, or knows himself differently. All artists of contemporary sculpture must celebrate the fact that they can beautify the world and that they have a commitment.

If you don’t contribute, don’t destroy either.

The game of life is interesting and the contemporary sculpture artist must know how to move like a fish, many things that are part of art but not necessarily of celebration must slip away from him. There are stories of artists who do not know how to balance, one must learn to manage the ego and say “yes, it can be done or no, it cannot.” For me, in particular, celebration is something that can exist and I can tell you that celebration is one of the most beautiful things that exist.

I want to present to you some of the contemporary sculptures that I have made and that try to offer an idea of how I celebrate life.

 

TORTUYO

Tortuyo is the symbiosis between an animal and a human being, an animal like a turtle and the human that could be you or me. A symbiosis between a long-lived turtle and a human being. Everyone wants to live a long time, but to achieve it you must walk steadily and constantly. More than taking fast, effective steps. This sculpture is the symbiosis of a turtle as a being that walks to where it wants to go, and thus we can be you or me, hence its name: Tortuyo.

 

UNO

UNO belongs to the mystical series of my sculptures and has great meaning for me since what I represent in these contemporary pieces is a search, a path, and an essence of the human being which in this case is represented in the union of a man and a snail. Like a hermit crab. First is the snail. There its meaning begins. It has a beginning at the tip like every beginning of life, and then the spiral of grooves and peaks begins.

The grooves and peaks tell us that’s how life is. Each groove is a challenge or a disappointment, and each peak is a success and at the same time a problem. The duality is this spiral, each spiral is a year, each spiral is a moment and something that marks you, that spiral grows as you advance in life, the grooves are deep or longer but they become more beautiful. The peaks become large, beautiful, at the same time beautiful and firm, solid.

I wanted to show the human being living in a snail, like a hermit, and like hermits we occupy a piece of life. Sometimes we want to go out and see what’s outside, the representation of this human being, one, the one himself that we are. The word one refers to me, to you, to oneself.

All that I want to give with this contemporary sculpture.

My name is German Arzate, and I am a Mexican sculptor who has explored the theme of duality in different works that express different ideas depending on the viewer’s perspective. I was born in Mexico City on April 18, 1967, being the eldest of a family of 4 children.

When I was young, the only way to have access to art was through my mother, who has always been a lover of Mexican sculpture and fine arts. She would always say, “we have to go to the museum,” “we have to see this work, listen to this music.” My mother was my only approach. I liked books, but there weren’t many art books, there was no internet or television, so art in my early years was scarce or nonexistent, much less was it possible to study to be part of the list of Mexican sculptors.

The only sculptures and works of art were in encyclopedias where I began to admire the great masters of art that inspired me. I was a fan of Salvador Dalí’s work, I wondered how it was possible to do different things, and for many years he was my artistic hero until I met Remedios Varo.

My father could draw well but in a very primitive and self-taught way, he painted landscapes and somehow another family member had talents, but no one had tried sculpture before.

I had to understand that being a Mexican sculptor was a gift that had been given to me. Always, since I was a child, I was drawn to the sculpting process.

If I was given a school assignment, I not only made little animals but all kinds of shapes, it was through play that I learned to be a sculptor. At the supermarket, I didn’t ask for candy, I asked for modeling clay to seal pipes and make shapes and models. I remember that my first pieces as a Mexican sculptor made by me, I made them between the ages of 7 and 9. I adapted everything I found as a tool: a popsicle stick, a screw, and even in some sculptures, I used human hair that I asked for from my aunts, my sister, or my mother.

This innocent way of being allowed me a lot of freedom. Art classes or sculpture academies were not in fashion. I started sculpting and seeing what kind of knives I could use to make things. Everything was taken by me from the kitchen or when I went to the hardware store or saw sharp knives it was interesting for me to find things that could serve me, no family member helped me, so I could see the way to sculpt and shape things on my own. I never had the culture of going to school or taking art courses, I just found ways and means to do things.

One of my first carvings is in wood, and I expressed a feeling of adolescence, which was loneliness, I drew a woman with crossed arms, looking down, I always admired the human figure, I did a carving and another one in wood a little more advanced where I was playing with the wood’s form and made the shapes as aesthetic as possible, when I received comments, it was interesting for a work of an adolescent who instead of watching TV was carving wood or while watching a movie I kept carving and making a mess all the time.

I was starting to feel like a true Mexican sculptor.

I have said that I am a Mexican sculptor of duality. Duality has always been and has never ceased to be present, I have seen it in the form of a cloud, I have seen it in plants; in trees, I have found faces, in the sky many things, figures, shapes, spots on a wall that for me are faces or pieces. At first, I thought it was something strange, that there was something different about me, a way of seeing that I didn’t understand. Later on, I began to enjoy it, and now I laugh at how I can see some pieces and from another side, a different figure with its own meaning, I wanted my work to be poetic, exquisite to the eye, for the form.

That’s what I like, and duality has always caught my attention; everything is dual in this life, and our mission is to find symbiosis between one side and the other. Being the oldest in my family, I had to work and study medicine to subsist. My family was fine for a while, and then we lost everything thanks to stupid devaluations and political maneuvers. We have suffered government attacks on the economy and then due to an accident of my father, I had to move forward with my profession.

For many years I could never set up a sculptor’s studio, now I have just started working with foundries, and the process is constantly being carried out, the assembly is already in shape, and I can develop many pieces, modeling, shapes, waxing, carvings for originals, or assembly. This is what is always done continuously, and unfortunately, not all Mexican sculptors have that possibility, so I am very grateful for God’s blessings.

The world is cruel to the artist and a little more so as a Mexican sculptor. It is too overwhelming. Nowadays, if you want to get ahead, you are not competing against your neighborhood or the block, you are now competing against artists from around the world. Now you can lose awards against a Russian artist just for being Russian, but also a Mexican can also triumph in Japan.

You must be aware if you want to live from art, it may be that you love doing it, but it is important to ask the new Mexican sculptor: Are you sure? Are you willing to go through frustrations, hunger, or shortcomings? The artist cannot lack a business vision either; you must have a vision because art is a business, it is not just a manifestation.

You have to be methodical, follow protocols, and follow standards, be methodical about what you do, money is important, calculate your financial balance. The Mexican sculptor should not be at odds with money; art is not just expression, it is also administration. It is not easy to be a Mexican sculptor while developing in a professional world. It is a demanding world, consumerism is impressive. You have to be very clear if your goal is art, you have to follow a dream, it is a romance, between you and art, a swing of giving and withholding.

You must find an art that also helps you live, depending on whether you like your work or not. I like surgery, and I make sculptures in the mouths of human beings, in their teeth and their smile, that has allowed me to be successful and with that, I nourish art. I want to show as a legacy everything that I am passionate about, and it is that personal legacy that I am in love with.

I am a proud Mexican sculptor representing Mexico. This country is immensely rich in culture, and many of the Mesoamerican motifs are present in my work.

I am a passionate Mexican sculptor about life, about love, about everything around me. I am always looking for the best, I am an eternal seeker of gadgets, a seeker of situations, a seeker of pastimes that always bring me good, reading, sports, and everything technological, I love it. Everything outside in nature is always part of me, any situation or feeling catches my attention.

This is German Arzate, Mexican sculptor, and proud to be one.