PUNTA DEL ESTE.- Xippas Punta del Este is presenting Notes to the Ear, the first solo exhibition of Sebastián Gordín in Uruguay.

The artist presents a small anthology of works created between 2023 and 2025, consisting of three sculptures and a series of flat marquetry pieces that subtly evoke vinyl record covers.

Emerging in the Argentine art scene in the late 1980s, Gordín is one of the most prominent artists of the so-called “generation of the 1990s” and one of the most notable figures in the contemporary regional art scene.

Although his early works were developed in the language of painting, the artist is best known for his original approach within the undefined space of contemporary sculpture. While many authors have shown interest in exploring the wide range of cultural elements Gordín uses as resources for his works—from the traditions of literary and cinematic science fiction to illustrated books or Argentine soccer culture—few have focused on unraveling the narratives his works suggest or set in motion.

In this sense, Gordín’s artistic project, marked by extreme originality, is defined by works of great formal complexity that project a narrative intention, even if these fictions are often enigmatic.

His work over the past decade unfolds across two interrelated media. On the one hand, sculptures that occupy space as hybrid objects, evoking the tradition of dioramas and the plasticity of theatrical models and cabinets of curiosities. On the other, flat works that represent book or magazine covers, in which the artist employs a complex marquetry technique. This technique produces a distinctive aesthetic, defined by a range of colors and textures associated with the world of wood, which in turn, through its warmth, projects an imprecise sense of time.

In this regard, that temporal ambiguity seems to permeate or traverse all of Gordín’s work with a gentle nostalgia—one that, rather than expressing the persistent melancholy typical of Río de la Plata culture, relates instead to the universe of childhood, acting as a vital energy present in our lives and one the artist seeks to preserve.

In the sculptures featured in this exhibition, we can observe elements that convey the sensation of a past event, as in Mi eco, mi sombra y yo (My Echo, My Shadow and I), where small drawings evoke summer vacations. Or, alternatively, an action frozen in time, as in a kind of three-dimensional photograph, in El porfolio (The Portfolio). Both sculptures are connected through the staging of the act of drawing, a fundamental practice in Gordín’s work.

Finally, the exhibition concludes with a series of two-dimensional works that present images arising from poetic evocations of musical themes. The square format, approximately 30 centimeters per side—very similar to that of vinyl records—suggests the idea of LP (long play) covers.

Although this series is somewhat cryptic on a narrative level, the play of textures and colors generates a warm and pleasant sensation, awakening within us the gentle nostalgia of what never happened.

Manuel Neves