The Uruguayan artist Ulises Beisso

Ulises Beisso, the Uruguayan artist who died in 1996 and is attracting the world's attention almost 30 years later.

In August, he will become the first contemporary Uruguayan artist to have a retrospective exhibition at Malba. However, the art of Ulises Beisso was almost a secret until a few years ago.

Ulises Beisso, the Uruguayan artist who died in 1996 and is attracting the world's attention almost 30 years later.

In August, he will become the first contemporary Uruguayan artist to have a retrospective exhibition at Malba. However, the art of Ulises Beisso was almost a secret until a few years ago.

The Uruguayan artist Ulises Beisso.

There was an artist, a work, a story there, behind Ulises Beisso, the visual artist who passed away in 1996, who, slowly but surely, has become one of the most prominent names in national art. He will be, for example, the first contemporary Uruguayan to have a retrospective at the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires (Malba), an important recognition.

The exhibition will be titled My Private World and is Beisso's first institutional exhibition outside of Uruguay. It reveals—along with the growing interest from collectors, say interested sources—a recovery of that work, accompanied by a growing international appreciation.

“The importance of his legacy today lies in his having considered, in terms of identity, dissidence and diversity in the cultural context of the River Plate region of the 1980s and early 1990s,” says the curator of My Private World, Martín Craciún.

The grandson of the founder of the weekly Marcha—Carlos Quijano, one of the cultural figures of his time—Beisso was a psychologist, graphic designer, and illustrator. He left behind some 300 works and a single solo exhibition at the Montevideo City Hall months before his untimely death in 1996, following a devastating battle with pancreatic cancer.
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