Aproximación a un recorrido
Approach to a trajectory

Le dur dé­sir de du­rer.

Paul Eluard

En es­cul­tu­ra, vein­te años no son na­da,
el tiem­po pa­sa len­ta­men­te,
se ne­ce­si­ta pa­cien­cia pa­ra ver y pa­ra ha­cer.

Fran­cis­co Zú­ñi­ga

Es evidente que la fi­gu­ra humana es el eje de la dinámica de la es­cul­tu­ra de Francisco Zúñiga. Forma y re­pre­sen­ta­ción, lo que ha si­do una cons­tan­te en la his­to­ria del ar­te y se re­su­me en como re­pre­sen­tar a la fi­gu­ra hu­ma­na. En ese proceso encontró Zúñiga el sen­ti­do de su que­ha­cer.

Nuestro escultor os­ci­la en­tre ar­que­ti­po y re­tra­to con­ser­van­do a lo lar­go de su re­co­rri­do plás­ti­co esa am­bi­güe­dad co­mo mo­dus ope­ran­di. Para él toda for­ma ‘pu­ra’ se des­va­ne­ce como com­po­nen­te de la fi­gu­ra, por ello eli­gió, con pasión, mantener su mi­ra­da atenta al entorno del modo más di­rec­to, fres­co y es­pon­tá­neo po­si­ble, en lo que entendió como una ‘continuidad’.

En la obra an­te­rior a la lle­ga­da a Mé­xi­co, im­pe­raba una preo­cu­pa­ción de es­ti­lo y se­llo per­so­nal. Su mar­ca­do in­te­rés por el re­tra­to, la cuestión de la se­me­jan­za con lo re­pre­sen­ta­do, lo condujo en Mé­xi­co a una postura definida. Cuan­do se re­fie­re, por ejemplo, a las fi­gu­ras que en­cuen­tra en el Mu­seo Arqueológico de la calle de Mo­ne­da, y a la cu­rio­si­dad y el ape­ti­to que despertaron en él, las vincula de inmediato con in­di­vi­duos rea­les que podía ver en los alrededores y su modo de re­pre­sen­ta­ción es elo­cuen­te a es­e res­pec­to. En un tex­to adjunto, nos ha­bla de re­tra­tos pro­di­gio­sos que ade­más puede ver deam­bu­lar en las ca­lles ale­da­ñas al mu­seo, co­mo si los individuos con los que se cru­za en pre­sen­te, fue­ran los mis­mos de va­rios si­glos atrás.¹

Y solía decir:

“Eso no su­ce­de en Egip­to, Gre­cia, o en lo que fue el territorio persa, don­de el hom­bre con­tem­po­rá­neo no parece tener na­da que ver con aque­llos a los que la es­cul­tu­ra en­gran­de­ció en el pasado”. La gran fuer­za y ca­pa­ci­dad de re­sis­ten­cia de Mé­xi­co lo hip­no­ti­zó, por así de­cir, y jus­ti­fi­có su de­seo de ha­cer una se­rie de fi­gu­ras que re­mi­tieran a la con­ti­nui­dad que la ri­que­za del pai­sa­je hu­ma­no le ofre­cía, y man­te­ner­ vi­vo un modo de representar.

Desde su llegada a México en 1936 hasta el año 1969 – cuan­do el Mu­seo de Ar­te Mo­der­no de Mé­xi­co lo in­vi­tó a pre­sen­tar una ex­po­si­ción re­tros­pec­ti­va per­so­nal – só­lo ha­bía ex­pues­to aquí en ma­ni­fes­ta­cio­nes co­lec­ti­vas con una o dos obras ais­la­das, en su mayoría dibujos, y la obra no se había visto reunida hasta ese momento. Las pri­me­ras ex­po­si­cio­nes in­di­vi­dua­les en los Es­ta­dos Uni­dos ha­cia 1965, cu­brieron au­dien­cias locales y las obras pa­saron di­rec­ta­men­te a ma­nos de co­lec­cio­nis­tas, li­te­ral­men­te de­sa­pa­re­cieron en la in­ti­mi­dad de las co­lec­cio­nes. Como to­do hace­dor, se in­te­re­sa sobre todo en las obras que rea­li­za en pre­sen­te y las más son ges­ta­ción en su re­co­rri­do. Mu­chas que le interesaban en particular se exhibieron hasta mucho más tarde.

Nues­tro tex­to con­tie­ne, sin du­da, un eco sub­je­ti­vo que pue­de coin­ci­dir o no con otros in­te­re­sa­dos en la obra, por lo que in­ten­ta ser tan solo un re­su­men, si posible completo, en es­pe­ra de que otras in­ves­ti­ga­cio­nes y aná­li­sis com­ple­ten nues­tra ta­rea o la lle­ven a ca­bo des­de una pers­pec­ti­va más aca­dé­mi­ca y amplia.

Lo pri­me­ro que Zú­ñi­ga apren­dió fue el oficio de ta­llar la ma­de­ra y la pie­dra en el ta­ller de su pa­dre. Su ma­dre, cuya influencia fue importante, era po­co ape­ga­da a la ima­gen, por no decir abiertamente iconoclasta, y pue­de percibirse en la for­ma­ción del es­cul­tor una dicotomía ante al pro­ble­ma de la re­pre­sen­ta­ción.

Zú­ñi­ga bus­có su ca­mi­no en un tiem­po an­te­rior por­que to­do su en­tor­no re­mi­tía a la tra­di­ción, a va­lo­res he­re­da­dos. Ta­llar co­mo una fun­ción del hom­bre en el mun­do. En ese sen­ti­do la es­cul­tu­ra, ex­pre­sión di­rec­ta del hom­bre, como una ex­ten­sión cor­po­ral; otro cuer­po so­bre el que ac­túa pa­ra man­te­ner­se al día; rehacer la representación, ac­tua­li­zar­la. El fe­nó­me­no ico­no­clas­ta y la abs­trac­ción lo fas­ci­naban de tal ma­ne­ra, que re­sul­ta im­por­tan­te el pa­pel que jugaron en su intención figurativa como escultor. Se tra­ta de una ac­ti­vi­dad hu­ma­na pri­me­ra, co­mo ha­cer pan, vestimenta, poe­sía; una ta­rea de ha­cer y re­mo­de­lar la representación pa­ra que se man­ten­ga vi­va, en su en­ti­dad fí­si­ca y sim­bó­li­ca.

Entre quienes colaboraban en el taller de su padre, varias re­la­cio­nes per­so­na­les de su periodo formativo, ex­ter­nas al en­tor­no fa­mi­liar, fueron importantes. Una con el escultor y pin­tor Max Ji­mé­nez, lec­tor asi­duo de am­plia cul­tu­ra con quien Zú­ñi­ga tuvo in­ten­sos y ri­cos diá­lo­gos so­bre el ar­te y sus po­si­bi­li­da­des, una más con el escultor Juan Manuel Sánchez por el paralelo y las diferencias en el desarrollo de ambos jóvenes, y otra con el es­cul­tor Nes­tor Ze­le­dón V, con quien via­jó por la sel­va del Gua­na­cas­te en el nor­te de Cos­ta Ri­ca. Ahí des­cu­brió la im­por­tan­cia de esos ‘ex­tra­ños y ma­ra­vi­llo­sos se­res que son los ani­ma­les’, co­mo so­lía de­cir, y que sir­vie­ron de pre­tex­to a sus pri­me­ras es­cul­tu­ras cuan­do for­ma y vo­lu­men le im­pusieron su evi­den­cia. Del pri­me­ro apren­dió con­cep­tos, con el se­gun­do compitió, y con Zeledón aprendió los ga­jes del ofi­cio en la ta­lla de pie­dra. Su her­ma­na Car­men fue de­ter­mi­nan­te en su aproximación de lo femenino y de ella exis­ten más re­tra­tos en di­bu­jo y al óleo que de nadie más en ese momento.

En el taller se realizaban sobre todo obras de carácter re­li­gio­so – san­tos, vír­ge­nes, cris­tos –, y en dicho taller se mantenía una permanente tertulia ape­ga­da a la tra­di­ción re­na­cen­tis­ta, se discutían las obras que se realizaban, se recibían re­vis­tas eu­ro­peas y cubanas en las que pudo ad­mi­rar la obra de Bran­cu­si, Zad­ki­ne y Ar­chi­pen­ko, así co­mo la obra de Jo­seph Ber­nard, el maes­tro de la co­rrien­te co­no­ci­da co­mo ta­lla di­rec­ta con la que sien­te in­me­dia­ta afi­ni­dad. Tam­bién vio en esas revistas obras de los es­cul­to­res de la lla­ma­da es­cul­tu­ra mu­ni­ci­pal; mo­nu­men­tos a los hé­roes o a los muer­tos. En esa in­fi­ni­dad de op­cio­nes que co­rres­pon­den con su tiem­po, se fun­de lo es­pon­tá­neo y di­rec­to con lo con­cep­tual más prag­má­ti­co, y surgen pre­gun­tas: ¿Cuál es mi si­tio?, ¿Con qué ten­go re­la­ción?

Lo más importante es que dichas imá­ge­nes religiosas debían responder siem­pre a con­ven­cio­nes y atri­bu­tos es­tric­tos de los que el fe­li­grés re­quie­re pa­ra su iden­ti­fi­ca­ción. Un San An­to­nio o una Vir­gen de la Mer­ced re­quie­ren de atri­bu­tos pre­ci­sos, in­de­pen­dien­tes de la li­ber­tad en el es­ti­lo que se apli­que a la rea­li­za­ción de las fi­gu­ras. Ese ma­ne­jo de atri­bu­tos, con­ven­ción ex­pre­si­va, mar­có de ma­ne­ra de­fi­ni­ti­va – más que otras in­fluen­cias – el re­co­rri­do pos­te­rior de Fran­cis­co Zú­ñi­ga.

Un ejemplo es el San Juan de la Cruz (cat. # 26), una figura de pie, ri­gu­ro­sa, sim­ple en su con­tor­no, ta­llada en pie­dra pe­ro es­ti­li­za­da al pun­to que la cruz se funde en la tú­ni­ca a ma­ne­ra de re­lie­ve o pu­ro di­se­ño, inspirada en escultores modernos recién descubiertos por él. El en­car­go ha­bía si­do he­cho a Don Ma­nuel por unos re­li­gio­sos que no acep­taron la fir­ma del jo­ven es­cul­tor al que no conocían, pe­ro como Don Ma­nuel no ta­llaba la pie­dra, la escultura fue tallada por Francisco pero tiene la fir­ma de Don Ma­nuel (MMZ). Luis Fe­rre­ro Acos­ta, un importante conocedor de la escultura en Cos­ta Ri­ca, lo con­fir­mó. La mayoría de los her­ma­nos de Francisco tra­ba­jaron en el ta­ller, unos pe­gaban ho­ja de oro, otros bru­ñían o pin­taban bo­de­go­nes y flo­re­ros. Varios cua­dros de ese pe­rio­do, que se han atri­bui­do a Fran­cis­co, pueden haber sido dibujados por él, pero fueron terminados por sus hermanas (Ju­lie­ta o Mar­ga­ri­ta) y más de uno fue firmado por ellas con el nombre de Francisco, lo que se ha prestado a confusión, pero ha sido un proceder co­mún a los talleres ar­tís­ti­cos siempre.

Des­de el prin­ci­pio el di­bu­jo fue su for­ma na­tu­ral de ex­pre­sión, uti­li­zó cual­quier pre­tex­to y de ma­ne­ra ca­si com­pul­si­va, pa­ra di­bu­jar to­do aque­llo que en­con­traba fren­te a sí; la le­tri­na, el ten­de­de­ro del tras­pa­tio, la olla con los cha­yo­tes, sus her­ma­nos y hermanas sen­ta­dos, de pie o le­yen­do, un co­ne­jo o personajes his­tó­ri­cos como Juan San­ta­ma­ría (héroe nacional de Costa Rica) y Si­món Bo­lívar, así como per­so­na­jes del ci­ne mu­do. De la misma manera se inició en la escultura con pe­que­ñas fi­gu­ras en barro pintado que ven­día a los ve­ci­nos pa­ra sus nacimientos; las más tem­pra­nas es­cul­tu­ras que de él se co­no­cen (cat. # 1 – 8).

En las ter­tu­lias referidas, Max Ji­mé­nez, pin­tor y escultor, leía y refería tex­tos que no exis­tían en es­pa­ñol y de los que Zú­ñi­ga con­ser­va­ría un re­cuer­do ca­si mí­ti­co; el Rem­brandt de Georg Sim­mel, la Gra­má­ti­ca his­tó­ri­ca de las ar­tes plás­ti­cas de Alois Riegl, Abs­trac­ción y na­tu­ra­le­za de Wil­helm Wo­rrin­ger o la Es­cul­tu­ra Mo­der­na y Con­tem­po­rá­nea de Heil­me­yer. De ahí sur­gió el con­cep­to de Kunst­wo­llen de Riegl, y nos pa­re­ce importante pa­ra en­ten­der la idea, por mo­men­tos ro­mán­ti­ca, que Zú­ñi­ga tenía de su ta­rea y de su fun­ción co­mo es­cul­tor.

Pa­ra Riegl Kunst­wo­llen sig­ni­fi­ca­ría en sen­ti­do li­te­ral: el ‘im­pul­so es­té­ti­co’ de la vo­lun­tad ar­tís­ti­ca y la vi­sión del mun­do que marcan al ar­te. “Los gran­des in­ven­tos ar­tís­ti­cos, escribe Riegl, no se de­ben, por ejem­plo, a una cons­te­la­ción de cir­cuns­tan­cias en­te­ra­men­te ac­ci­den­tal o al ca­pri­cho de un ar­tis­ta”. En la pre­sen­ta­ción de una ree­di­ción más reciente del tex­to, Ot­to Pacht escribe: “Riegl con­fron­ta por ejem­plo la cues­tión de sa­ber co­mo pue­den es­ta­ble­cer­se las re­la­cio­nes en­tre el ar­tis­ta in­di­vi­dual y la es­cue­la na­cio­nal a la que per­te­ne­ce. ¿Cual es la re­la­ción en­tre las in­ten­cio­nes ar­tís­ti­cas del ar­tis­ta in­di­vi­dual y las ten­den­cias es­ti­lís­ti­cas que tras­cien­den a los in­di­vi­duos? en otras pa­la­bras, la re­la­ción en­tre la Kunst­wo­llen de Rem­brandt y la Kunst­wo­llen ho­lan­de­sa con­si­de­ra­da co­mo conjunto. La res­pues­ta de Riegl es sin equí­vo­co: “Los autores no se si­túan fue­ra de su tra­di­ción na­cio­nal; for­man par­te in­te­gran­te de ella”.²

Pa­ra Zú­ñi­ga la vi­sión, el tra­ba­jo in­di­vi­dual, in­clu­so el es­ti­lo, están ne­ce­sa­ria­men­te li­ga­dos al tra­ba­jo de otros. Pa­ra él, cual­quier ejem­plo in­di­vi­dual de es­cul­tu­ra de­be ser­vir so­la­men­te co­mo in­ter­pre­ta­ción par­cial de un te­rri­to­rio más am­plio, el de las es­ta­tuas.

La pri­me­ra ta­lla per­so­nal que rea­li­zó en Mé­xi­co se ins­cri­be en esa ló­gi­ca; el Re­tra­to de Ró­mu­lo Ros­so, es­cul­tor co­lom­bia­no con quien man­tuvo una es­tre­cha rela­ción en sus pri­me­ros años me­xi­ca­nos (cat. # 35), y esa obra nos re­mi­te, ade­más, de in­me­dia­to a la Ca­be­za de In­dio (cat. # 13). “Me im­por­ta mu­cho no te­ner un es­pí­ri­tu ce­rra­do y no creer que el mío es el úni­co ca­mi­no de la es­cul­tu­ra, si­no que lo asu­mo co­mo mi ca­mi­no”, di­jo en más de una en­tre­vis­ta. Pa­ra él, la ac­ti­vi­dad del es­cul­tor se in­te­gra a la his­to­ria. Las rup­tu­ras re­mi­ten al mo­do de apro­xi­mar, al re­co­rri­do ele­gi­do y solo de manera secundaria a la in­ven­ción. La es­cul­tu­ra co­mo re­pre­sen­ta­ción del hom­bre an­te su capacidad expresiva, sus an­gus­tias, el mie­do a la muer­te. Ha­cer la fi­gu­ra co­mo una ma­ne­ra de ha­cerse y re­ha­cerse a sí mismo y al hom­bre en general.

Cuan­do Zú­ñi­ga lle­gó a Mé­xi­co a los vein­ti­cua­tro años, tenía un ofi­cio y un con­cep­to cla­ro de lo que bus­caba. Uno de los pri­me­ros que de­tec­tó su for­ma­ción y así lo es­cri­bió, fue Ma­nuel Ro­drí­guez Lo­za­no, con quien mantuvo una amis­tad cor­dial y du­ra­de­ra, y quien ejer­ció una fuer­te in­fluen­cia en los pri­me­ros años me­xi­ca­nos, du­ran­te los cua­les Zú­ñi­ga no había abandonado por com­ple­to la pin­tu­ra. Fi­gu­ra y geo­gra­fía tie­nen un pa­pel pre­pon­de­ran­te en la pin­tu­ra de Ro­drí­guez Lo­za­no, sus mu­ros co­mo co­lum­nas am­plia­das, pre­tex­to pa­ra la ex­pre­sión del co­lor y re­mi­nis­cen­cia de lo clá­si­co; esa re­la­ción en­tre fi­gu­ra y es­pa­cio im­pac­tan a Zú­ñi­ga. Le ofre­ció los pa­rá­me­tros pa­ra el en­cuen­tro con su pro­pia geo­gra­fía, su pro­pia re­la­ción en­tre es­pa­cio y fi­gu­ra, ven­cien­do la ac­ti­tud te­me­ro­sa que le im­puso la in­men­si­dad y gran­di­lo­cuen­cia del va­lle de Mé­xi­co. En las imá­ge­nes de Ro­drí­guez Lo­za­no, los lím­pi­dos y per­fec­tos mu­ros, in­con­clu­sos, que son blo­que, pre­tex­to pa­ra la for­ma, de­li­mi­tan el es­pa­cio al con­ver­tir­lo en ex­pre­sión plás­ti­ca, lo que permitió a Zú­ñi­ga dis­tan­ciar­se de la obra re­li­gio­sa en que se ha­bía for­ma­do pero con­ser­var, de ma­ne­ra si­mi­lar a la de su nue­vo maes­tro, el gus­to por el atri­bu­to es­tric­to y ri­gu­ro­so.

Esa ten­den­cia for­mal que man­tie­ne una es­tre­cha li­ga con la tra­di­ción, lo con­ven­ció más que la ofer­ta for­mal de las van­guar­dias en boga.

En Mé­xi­co, Fran­cis­co Zú­ñi­ga en­cuen­tra una es­cue­la na­cio­nal co­mo él la en­ten­día y se in­te­gra a ella pa­ra dar li­bre cir­cu­la­ción a su ex­pre­sión pro­pia, a un ca­mi­no per­so­nal; el al­can­ce de la con­tun­den­cia for­mal y el aban­do­no de to­da fri­vo­li­dad. En el arte uno puede envolverse en lo frívolo o sustentarse en la sobriedad. A par­tir de esa elección, to­do con­cep­to de ori­gi­na­li­dad se vuel­ve tan­gen­cial, y es reem­pla­zado­ por el prin­ci­pio de con­ti­nui­dad ne­ce­sa­ria y posible. Rup­tu­ra y re­tor­no al or­den son los mo­dos zig­za­guean­tes del re­co­rri­do, nun­ca en lí­nea rec­ta ni en pro­gre­sión, si­no co­mo me­ca­nis­mos de tra­ba­jo en la me­di­da en que se sien­te in­te­gra­do a una ta­rea más am­plia que la per­so­nal. El cam­po de la es­cul­tu­ra resultó un te­rre­no más fér­til pa­ra su de­sa­rro­llo y se encontró con los re­pre­sen­tan­tes de la es­cul­tu­ra me­xi­ca­na; Ró­mu­lo Ros­so y Luis Or­tiz Mo­nas­te­rio en los pa­tios del Ran­cho del ar­tis­ta con quie­nes com­par­tió blo­ques de pie­dra y con­cep­tos so­bre el ar­te me­xi­ca­no; la colaboración cercana con Guillermo Ruíz donde se realizaban los principales monumentos oficiales y donde conoció a Juan Cruz Reyes; así como en los ta­lle­res de Ma­te­ria­les de gue­rra don­de co­no­ció a Moi­sés del Águi­la, de quien apren­dió más de un se­cre­to de la fun­di­ción a la ce­ra per­di­da y quien se­ría su fun­di­dor posteriormente. En el Mo­nu­men­to a la Re­vo­lu­ción tuvo amplia res­pon­sa­bi­li­dad per­so­nal, gra­cias al es­cul­tor Oli­ve­rio Mar­tí­nez de quien ob­tuvo, más tar­de, la cá­te­dra de La Es­me­ral­da, y se produjo su encuentro con la gran tradición de los canteros mexicanos.

La necesidad de ejercer un oficio que conoce y vivir de él, lo condujo a rea­li­zar lo que llamaba ‘obra pú­bli­ca’, en ese momento im­pen­sa­ble sin el uso de la ale­go­ría. Sin to­mar­lo a la li­ge­ra, jugó el jue­go a fon­do con­du­ciendo los primeros pasos de su re­co­rri­do y rea­li­zó obra re­tó­ri­ca den­tro de las re­glas, sin cul­pa ni sen­ti­mien­to de pér­di­da de ‘pu­re­za’, en­con­tran­do sa­tis­fac­ción en el ejer­ci­cio de un ofi­cio en el que tenía su­fi­cien­te ex­pe­rien­cia.

En los pa­tios del ta­ller que se con­ver­ti­ría en La Es­me­ral­da, la es­cue­la de pin­tu­ra y es­cul­tu­ra del Es­ta­do, tra­ba­jó con Juan Cruz con quien además deam­bu­ló por Teo­ti­hua­can, Ma­li­nal­co y Te­na­yu­ca. En ese mo­men­to era evi­den­te que to­dos los es­cul­to­res tenían que com­pe­tir para lle­var a ca­bo los pro­yec­tos pú­bli­cos, uno de los ca­mi­nos pa­ra de­sa­rro­llar­se. Más de uno rea­li­zó un pro­yec­to a la ban­de­ra, la pre­sa de Val­se­qui­llo, el re­tra­to de Do­lo­res de Río, fi­gu­ras pa­ra una fuen­te o retratos de los héroes. To­dos com­par­tieron los mis­mos mo­de­los. Ese en­cuen­tro con nue­vas ver­sio­nes, nue­vos án­gu­los, nue­vos pun­tos de vis­ta in­te­gra­dos a lo que solía llamarse una vi­sión na­cio­nal, le pa­re­ció le­gí­ti­mo, y se integró a la es­cul­tu­ra local. Con frecuencia le es­cu­cha­mos de­cir: “Una es­cul­tu­ra anó­ni­ma pe­ro con­tun­den­te, en el mu­seo ima­gi­na­rio, di­ce más y es un lo­gro más só­li­do, que un mu­seo con tu nom­bre, lle­no de bo­ce­tos, ex­pe­ri­men­tos, obras fa­lli­das o lo­gra­das, fue­ra de con­tex­to, así sean acom­pa­ña­das por una re­tó­ri­ca dis­cur­si­va muy bien ar­ti­cu­la­da”.

“En cuan­to un or­den tras­cen­den­te no vie­ne a ga­ran­ti­zar un or­den de los va­lo­res, to­da ne­ce­si­dad de­sa­pa­re­ce. Esa pla­ga ro­mán­ti­ca que es la ori­gi­na­li­dad. Ca­da tra­zo re­quie­re de al­ma, en el fon­do co­mo un ac­to amo­ro­so, una ma­ne­ra de di­ri­gir­se al ver­da­de­ro ori­gen, al crea­dor úni­co y no a la vo­lun­tad de reem­pla­zar­lo. Lo pre­me­di­ta­do. No se tra­ta pa­ra el ar­tis­ta de pro­du­cir al­go ra­di­cal­men­te ori­gi­nal, cor­ta­do de su ori­gen, si­no de vol­ver vi­si­ble una rea­li­dad iné­di­ta. La ex­pre­sión por par­te del ar­tis­ta de su re­co­no­ci­mien­to del ori­gen, gra­cias a lo que he­mos lla­ma­do la re­pre­sen­ta­ción del pa­sa­do. Con­quis­tar lo de­sar­ti­cu­la­do. Im­pro­vi­sar co­mo una ma­ne­ra de re­cor­dar lo que vie­ne de atrás y que pa­re­ce ol­vi­da­do”.³

Pa­ra Zú­ñi­ga, la es­cul­tu­ra debe buscar una per­ma­nen­cia mas allá de mo­das y pe­río­dos. La es­cul­tu­ra, de ori­gen sim­bó­li­co y anó­ni­mo, co­mo al­go más im­por­tan­te que los es­cul­to­res. No por­ ca­re­ce­r de va­ni­dad o am­bi­ción per­so­nal, desde luego, si­no por­que esos lo­gros que­da­rían atrás si el ob­je­ti­vo es más am­plio y sustenta su per­ma­nencia. “¿Quien re­cuer­da a Pe­dro de Me­na, más allá de al­gún es­pe­cia­lis­ta, quien de­sea un mu­seo de­di­ca­do a él? Sin em­bar­go, ¿quien pue­de du­dar que la in­ten­si­dad, so­li­dez y con­tun­den­cia con la que su es­cul­tu­ra se in­te­gra, de ma­ne­ra esen­cial, a la ima­gi­ne­ría del ba­rro­co es­pa­ñol?”, nos di­jo en más de una oca­sión.

Las so­lu­cio­nes téc­ni­cas son in­de­pen­dien­tes del te­ma, por eso le ob­se­sio­nó ver; ese ver al que se re­fie­re Cé­zan­ne en sus car­tas a Emi­le Ber­nard. Cuan­do des­cu­brió la obra de Wo­tru­ba, por ejem­plo, encontró al­go co­mún en la obra del es­cul­tor aus­tría­co con el ar­te pre­his­pá­ni­co, cons­cien­te o no. La fun­ción del blo­que y su am­plia ga­ma de sim­bo­lis­mo/ero­tis­mo. De ahí que Zú­ñi­ga in­ten­tara des­pe­jar dis­tan­cias, có­mo si se qui­sie­ra puen­te en­tre el símbolo y lo erótico. Abs­trac­ta o fi­gu­ra­ti­va se tra­ta an­te to­do de la es­truc­tu­ra for­mal. Si no re­mi­te al hom­bre re­mi­te a su en­tor­no, al espacio cir­cun­dan­te don­de se encuentra, y tiene que su­ge­rirlo, in­de­pen­dien­temente del mo­do de ver, de la ver­tien­te re­co­rri­da o la con­tun­den­cia al­can­za­da, como es el caso de aquellos escultores que le atrajeron siempre.

En Zú­ñi­ga, de­cía­mos, se tra­ta de re­pre­sen­ta­ción, lo que no de­be con­fun­dir­se con la rea­li­dad que de­sig­na, nada que ver con esa mitología que no deja de circular del “imitar la vida”. Su vo­lun­tad tam­po­co fue la be­lle­za per se sino la vi­ta­li­dad or­gá­ni­ca co­mo ma­nan­tial pri­me­ro, que sus­ten­ta una eventual be­lle­za. Y si be­lle­za hay, se­ría como esen­cia de lo vi­tal, más am­plia que la ca­te­go­ría es­té­ti­ca. Re­mem­bran­za del tiem­po en que el ar­te, la es­cul­tu­ra en par­ti­cu­lar, no te­nía co­mo me­ta primordial sa­tis­fa­cer el gus­to.

Elo­gio a la re­sis­ten­cia frente a la dic­ta­du­ra de la tec­no­lo­gía. ‘Lo pro­pio del hom­bre es re­sis­tir y no hay vi­da si­no al mar­gen’, es­cri­bió Bal­zac.

No tenía in­fi­ni­dad de su­je­tos, sólo dos o tres pun­tos de par­ti­da de los que dedujo al­gu­nas lí­neas te­má­ti­cas: La se­rie de fi­gu­ras trian­gu­la­res, hin­ca­das o sen­ta­das, la se­rie es­fé­ri­ca de des­nu­dos en cu­cli­llas y las mu­je­res de pie que se vuelven gru­pos e ini­cian, más tarde, cier­to des­pla­za­mien­to. Ante la sis­te­má­ti­ca y ló­gi­ca pre­gun­ta que to­dos le ha­cían: ¿Por qué mu­je­res?, to­man­do la apa­rien­cia del ob­je­to por el ob­je­to mis­mo, co­mo di­ría Ma­grit­te, en general con­ducía a Zú­ñi­ga a responder: “re­sis­ten­cia, pai­sa­je o es­pa­cio cir­cun­dan­te, son mis te­mas tan­to co­mo la figura que los sugiere o en la que está inscrita”.

Su mo­dus ope­ran­di fue ar­ti­cu­lar los atri­bu­tos de la se­me­jan­za. Un pie, una ma­no, un bra­zo que se le­van­ta pa­ra ex­pre­sar un ges­to sig­ni­fi­ca­ti­vo, el pu­dor que ex­pre­sa una ma­no que cu­bre la bo­ca. La ca­be­za que se in­cli­na pa­ra afir­mar o re­cha­zar. La re­la­ción en­tre for­ma y su­per­fi­cie es­tá so­me­ti­da a las re­glas del ges­to, a la fun­ción ac­ti­va del ser fren­te al ha­cer. El di­bu­jo, ori­gen de la es­truc­tu­ra­ción de la for­ma plástica, tam­bién pue­de man­te­ner una pre­sen­cia en la su­per­fi­cie de la fi­gu­ra sin pe­ne­trar en el vo­lu­men, co­mo acen­to; el vo­lu­men co­mo li­ge­re­za o pe­san­tez. To­do con­duce al mis­mo ob­je­ti­vo, evi­den­ciar la for­ma. Por eso las ta­llas en már­mol, por ejem­plo, no eran de pulido bri­llan­te y las pie­dras mantuvieron, cuan­do el ma­te­rial lo per­mi­tía, un po­ro ce­rra­do que en­fa­ti­za al blo­que, no al ob­je­to.

Con la Ma­ter­ni­dad (cat. #34) o la Ha­ma­ca (cat. #218), se puede ver la gran ar­mo­nía que se es­ta­ble­ce en­tre vo­lu­men y di­se­ño. En el ca­so de la Fi­gu­ra sen­ta­da (cat. # 135), varios as­pec­tos son importantes en el ma­ne­jo de la su­per­fi­cie: una tex­tu­ra pa­ra la ves­ti­men­ta, trabajada con una mar­te­lli­na, que al gol­pea­r con­tra la su­per­fi­cie de la pie­dra crea una ru­go­si­dad que de­ve­la ma­yor ri­que­za por oposición a la su­per­fi­cie pu­li­da de la piel; otro as­pec­to es la gra­cia con la que un pie se le­van­ta pa­ra des­can­sar en­ci­ma del otro, evo­can­do la gra­cia de su mo­vi­mien­to. Agrada que di­cha po­si­ción, tan sua­ve y gra­cio­sa, ha­ya si­do lle­va­da a ca­bo en pie­dra, una materia dura, in­clu­so si se tra­ta de una pie­dra cu­ya du­re­za es más apa­ren­te que real, ya que el re­cin­to (fa­mi­lia a la que per­te­ne­ce la piedra Xal­tó­can) es más bien una pie­dra sua­ve comparada con un ba­sal­to o un gra­ni­to. Sin em­bar­go, po­der evo­car ese mo­vi­mien­to, ese tem­blor de la car­ne, en el des­pla­za­mien­to de ese pie so­bre el otro, convence; y otro as­pec­to más re­mi­te a la re­trac­ción del cuer­po so­bre sí mis­mo, ex­pre­sión mor­fo­ló­gi­ca de un cuer­po más bien robusto y cor­to que re­mi­te al entorno local.

Más ade­lan­te, cuan­do se­ña­la la ‘re­gión’ en el tí­tu­lo o en los acentos gráficos de la fi­gu­ra, co­mo es el ca­so de Yu­ca­te­cas, Ya­lal­te­cas o Cha­mu­las, su re­fe­ren­cia a di­chos atri­bu­tos es se­cun­da­ria, na­rra­ti­va, pe­ro tam­bién inevitable en cuan­to a la iden­ti­fi­ca­ción requerida por quien la ve. Una for­ma en sí es cual­quier co­sa y no re­quie­re de nada más; una fi­gu­ra hu­ma­na en es­cul­tu­ra, sin embargo, es de fac­to de al­gún lu­gar, se se­ña­le o no. En su preo­cu­pa­ción por la se­me­jan­za, sur­gió la ne­ce­si­dad de desplazarse entre re­tra­to y ar­que­ti­po permitiendo que una Eve­lia fuera to­das las mu­je­res, una Es­pe­ran­za to­das las Ju­chi­te­cas (y su es­pe­ran­za), una So­le­dad to­das las mu­je­res de un pue­blo (y la so­le­dad de ca­da una de ellas). Si­tuar el en­tor­no al em­pla­zar a la fi­gu­ra en el um­bral de una puer­ta ob­ser­van­do el pai­sa­je, de­li­mi­tan­do in­te­rior y ex­te­rior, incluyendo a la tie­rra como pretexto para la for­ma, como había hecho en la mayoría de sus cuadros.

Por ese en­ton­ces es­cri­bió: “…com­ple­tar una se­rie de imá­ge­nes de mu­je­res de Mé­xi­co. Imá­ge­nes que sean an­te to­do es­cul­tu­ras. De ahí sur­gen fi­gu­ras de pie, de cu­cli­llas, sen­ta­das o agru­pa­das, que es­tán sien­do no ha­cien­do, imá­ge­nes de la fer­ti­li­dad, de la an­gus­tia, de la me­lan­co­lía, de la so­le­dad, re­sis­ten­tes a la mi­se­ria. Ma­triar­cas mon­ta­ño­sas, te­rre­na­les y tan­gi­bles…”.

La ma­yor par­te de las es­cul­tu­ras de ese pri­mer pe­rio­do son en ta­lla di­rec­ta, es de­cir, trabajadas de afue­ra ha­cia aden­tro, pero al abandonar un dibujar, por así decir compulsivo, y reemplazarlo por la disciplina cotidiana de trabajar con un modelo, invierte el orden para apro­xi­mar la es­cul­tu­ra. Con di­bu­jos en di­fe­ren­tes téc­ni­cas empieza a trabajar de adentro hacia afuera, o sea, sa­lir de la es­truc­tu­ra ha­cia la su­per­fi­cie. En los dibujos se distingue con claridad la intención ornamental de la estructural, cuando de­jan de ser una si­lue­ta para es­ta­ble­cer la for­ma y son ya pro­yec­to pa­ra es­cul­tu­ra. En al­gu­nos di­bu­jos ve­mos lí­neas con­ti­nuas que re­mi­ten a la for­ma ge­ne­ral; des­nu­do, fi­gu­ra sen­ta­da, de pie, los cor­tes de la lí­nea se pro­du­cen al fi­nal de una ac­ción des­crip­ti­va. En otros, la lí­nea es irre­gu­lar, lí­neas cor­tas en zig­zag, per­pen­di­cu­la­res al cen­tro o pa­ra­le­las, para ar­ti­cu­lar directamente la ten­sión es­truc­tu­ral, de mo­vi­mien­to in­ter­no, or­gá­ni­co; la cons­truc­ción de una ma­no, un pie y también vistos en es­cor­zo, lo que per­mi­te fun­cio­nar a la for­ma. La lí­nea, de­ter­mi­nan­te en una es­cul­tu­ra más abs­trac­ta a la manera de Brancusi, se integra co­mo ele­men­to grá­fi­co a la fi­gu­ra. Esa es la tec­no­lo­gía de la re­pre­sen­ta­ción y la ma­yo­ría de esos di­bu­jos per­ma­ne­cen en el es­ta­dio de bo­ce­to.  Lo abs­trac­to en su tra­ba­jo es ho­mo­gé­neo y cons­tan­te, vi­si­ble en el pro­ce­so mis­mo de rea­li­zar una es­cul­tu­ra an­tes de pro­ce­der a la apli­ca­ción del ba­rro o ye­so; se arma un esqueleto de car­tón, me­tal y alam­bre. Durante la preparación del li­bro Zú­ñi­ga, (Alí Chu­ma­ce­ro, 1969), in­sis­tió que se reprodujeran fo­to­gra­fías de las ar­ma­zo­nes me­tá­li­cas y en los cua­der­nos de di­bu­jo en­con­tra­mos una can­ti­dad con­si­de­ra­ble de bos­que­jos de dichas armazones previas a la rea­li­za­ción de la escultura. Es el caso, por ejemplo, de la enor­me se­mi­lla en ce­men­to que si­túa en la par­te tra­se­ra del Mo­nu­men­to al agri­cul­tor (cat. # 726), a la que con­si­de­ra­ba no só­lo co­mo la se­mi­lla del agri­cul­tor, si­no co­mo el al­ter ego de las figuras en el primer plano. Sin embargo, muchas veces esa necesidad de identificación es vis­ta en su obra co­mo prue­ba de ‘re­gio­na­lis­mo’. ¿Qué con­du­jo a Zú­ñi­ga a enfatizar esas lí­neas del ropaje de una Ya­lal­te­ca? (cat. # 738) Se trata de un elemento gráfico, sin duda narrativo como dijimos, pero que acentúa el sitio de origen, una identidad particular.

Muchos elementos funcionan como atri­bu­tos: panes, pes­ca­dos o fru­tas que más de una vez al­can­zan el gra­do de ofren­da: Mu­jer con fru­ta o pes­ca­do, Ni­ñas con pa­nes, etc. Otros re­mi­ten a la geo­gra­fía: mu­ros, puer­tas, ven­ta­nas, es de­cir territorio y ar­qui­tec­tu­ra, o definen la com­po­si­ción pro­pia de la fi­gu­ra: re­bo­zos, pa­ños, to­ca­dos, ca­nas­tas, a lo que también se puede añadir la des­nu­dez.

El in­te­rés por la des­nu­dez, pre­tex­to for­mal im­plí­ci­to en su es­cul­tu­ra, se man­tie­ne a lo lar­go de la obra y en los años se­sen­ta tie­ne gran res­pues­ta por par­te de los co­lec­cio­nis­tas al pun­to de mo­di­fi­car el ritmo de su pro­duc­ción. Sin dejar de tener siempre en mente el taller donde se formó, con­tra­tó a va­rios can­te­ros que pre­pa­raban los blo­ques de ónix y már­mol que él invariablemente terminaba, pa­ra po­der cu­brir la de­man­da. Du­ran­te esos años rea­li­za una se­rie de des­nu­dos, par­ti­cu­lar­men­te en ma­te­ria­les más blan­dos y fá­ci­les, co­mo so­lía lla­mar­los, que mues­tran una ten­den­cia com­pla­cien­te y retórica, pero insiste en las torsiones y los giros que exige al cuerpo, bus­can­do po­si­bi­li­da­des ex­pre­si­vas hasta que dan de sí y la con­se­cuen­cia es un cierto em­po­bre­cimiento­ for­mal, pero también parte de su recorrido.

Esa exigencia que explora, sobre todo en el dibujo, en lu­gar de abrir­ en bus­ca de un cen­tro de don­de to­do pueda volver a sur­gir, encierra al cuerpo sobre sí mismo. Su reac­ción an­te esa búsqueda, se­ría el hie­ra­tis­mo y ri­gor de las ‘figuras de pie’. Una vez más ese mo­vi­mien­to pen­du­lar en­tre lo sen­sual y lo tenso, en­tre su ori­gen tro­pi­cal y el drama que encontró en Mé­xi­co.

En cuan­to a los ma­te­ria­les, ex­pe­ri­men­ta, pe­ro se man­tie­ne fiel a aque­llos que lo con­ven­cen y la elec­ción de cada ma­te­rial siempre corresponde una so­lu­ción for­mal propia. Aban­do­na la pie­dra Xal­tó­can, cu­yos blo­ques de ca­li­dad son ca­da vez más di­fí­ci­les de con­se­guir. En ese mo­men­to el tra­ba­jo es­cul­tó­ri­co de afue­ra ha­cia aden­tro pa­sa a se­gun­do pla­no y se vuel­ve prio­ri­ta­rio ex­plo­rar la ten­den­cia a proceder a la inversa, de aden­tro ha­cia afue­ra; a par­tir de la es­truc­tu­ra. Se concentró entonces en los múltiples y ricos tipos de ónix para satisfacer una pro­ducción independiente alejada del tra­ba­jo pa­ra el Es­ta­do. Los materiales de apoyo adquirieron una importancia mayor, como el ba­rro, dúc­til y sen­sual o el ye­so, pa­so necesario para fundir en bron­ce. Material resistente que pue­de ser ta­lla­do, escarbado, pe­ro tam­bién so­ba­do, aca­ri­cia­do; fa­ci­li­ta múl­ti­ples en­cuen­tros con la ri­que­za de la tex­tu­ra de la su­per­fi­cie. Es­truc­tu­rar di­rec­ta­men­te en ye­so con­fron­ta la ar­qui­tec­tu­ra del cuer­po, la ma­no que lo trabaja re­mi­te a lo sen­sua­l del ges­to y ofre­ce una ca­ra de lo dra­má­ti­co dis­tin­ta que la del ba­rro. Lo dra­má­ti­co ad­quirió pa­ra Zú­ñi­ga ca­da vez más im­por­tan­cia en su trabajo, en el mo­do co­mo en­tendía la fun­ción del es­cul­tor, y co­mo po­co a po­co en­fren­ta­ría su cre­cien­te preo­cu­pa­ción por lo finito; la muer­te.

“El ar­te, pa­ra aquel que lo crea, se vuel­ve una ex­pe­rien­cia ca­da vez más in­quie­tan­te, fren­te a la cual ha­blar de in­te­rés es cuan­do me­nos un eu­fe­mis­mo, ya que aque­llo que es­tá en jue­go no pa­re­ce ser de nin­gu­na ma­ne­ra la pro­duc­ción de una obra be­lla, si­no la vi­da o la muer­te del au­tor, o cuan­do me­nos de su sa­lud es­pi­ri­tual”.4

Cuan­do en 1979 rea­li­zó una pri­me­ra obra de ta­ma­ño na­tu­ral en Ca­rra­ra (Ita­lia), pre­pa­ra­da por los can­te­ros ita­lia­nos, su an­gus­tia notable – que pude percibir y confirmar durante nuestro viaje a esa ciudad –, era cau­sa­da por la meticulosa ha­bi­li­dad de los canteros ita­lia­nos pa­ra re­pro­du­cir ‘an­ge­li­tos re­na­cen­tis­tas’, y se pre­gun­taba: ¿Có­mo van a in­ter­pre­ta­r, du­ran­te el pa­so de una fi­gu­ra pe­que­ña a una cua­tro o cin­co ve­ces más gran­de, al­gu­nos ele­men­tos de la obra con los que nun­ca an­tes han es­ta­do en con­tac­to? Su de­seo de lle­gar al ta­ller an­tes de que la obra es­tuviera de­ma­sia­do avan­za­da, era evi­tar pro­ble­mas que no tuvieran so­lu­ción salvo reduciendo su tamaño: ‘¡Ima­gi­na, me decía en ese mo­men­to, una só­li­da Ju­chi­te­ca Sen­ta­da(# 645), ro­bus­ta, cu­yo ros­tro y ma­nos sean re­suel­tos co­mo los de an­ge­li­tos ita­lia­nos! Ya no ha­brá már­mol su­fi­cien­te pa­ra mo­di­fi­car una co­mi­su­ra de la bo­ca ha­cia aba­jo y no ha­cia arri­ba, una pro­por­ción en la for­ma de las ma­nos ha­cia aden­tro y no ha­cia afue­ra’. Es­ta preo­cu­pa­ción pue­de en­ten­der­se en tér­mi­nos des­crip­ti­vos, pe­ro el pro­ble­ma con­cre­to a que se en­fren­tó en el ta­ller ita­lia­no a su lle­ga­da, fue mu­cho más elo­cuen­te que to­das las ex­pli­ca­cio­nes. El tra­ba­jo fue di­fí­cil, ya que en efec­to su preo­cu­pa­ción co­rres­pon­día con la rea­li­dad. Afor­tu­na­da­men­te la pie­za ter­mi­na­da se lo­gró, y ade­más obtuvo res­pe­to y admiración de los can­te­ros ita­lia­nos, en ge­ne­ral iró­ni­cos an­te es­cul­to­res que vie­nen de tie­rras pa­ra ellos de­ma­sia­do le­ja­nas y cu­ya tra­di­ción de can­te­ría la más de las ve­ces ig­no­ran.

Para Zú­ñi­ga, la vo­lun­tad de ha­cer un ob­je­to con­tun­den­te im­pe­raba so­bre su cua­li­dad de ob­je­to be­llo. Nun­ca se sa­lió de su es­que­ma: es­cul­tor de la representación. Siempre se sometió a sí mismo al orden interno de la obra. Di­bu­jar o ele­gir un ma­te­rial solamente tenían validez en fun­ción de lo es­cul­tó­ri­co, y su apre­cia­ción del ar­te con­du­cía, ne­ce­sa­ria­men­te, al ol­vi­do del ar­te a nom­bre de la obra en sí. Cuando menos has­ta el Re­na­ci­mien­to, la ‘obra de ar­te’ ca­re­cía de ese s­ta­tus, y una de las in­ten­cio­nes indirectas en el tra­ba­jo de Zú­ñi­ga fue de­sa­fiar a la ‘obra de ar­te’, man­te­ner a la es­cul­tu­ra en su ni­vel de re­pre­sen­ta­ción, de ma­ne­ra si­mi­lar a la que te­nían los ob­je­tos es­cul­pi­dos en el mun­do antiguo, re­pre­sen­ta­ción de dio­ses, de hom­bres, de objetos, siem­pre con una fun­ción es­pe­cí­fi­ca. “No soy ar­tis­ta, decía a me­nu­do, soy es­cul­tor, ha­ce­dor de es­cul­tu­ras”.

Cuan­do las fi­gu­ras de Zú­ñi­ga no son si­len­ciosas o dra­má­ti­cas, son sen­sua­les o go­zo­sas. Pe­ro si una fi­gu­ra lo­gra trans­mi­tir un de­jo de me­lan­co­lía, ca­si in­di­fe­ren­te, pro­du­ce una in­quie­tud pro­fun­da y es­pi­ri­tual que vie­ne del pa­sa­do, del tiem­po en que gra­ni­zo, true­no y tor­men­ta pro­du­cían ur­gen­cia de fer­vor, una in­quie­tud que las apa­ren­tes cer­te­zas de la tec­no­lo­gía per­mi­ten a me­nu­do ig­no­rar, de­jar pa­ra más tar­de u ol­vi­dar. Sin esa pre­sen­cia que re­sis­te y cre­ce, se per­de­ría el li­na­je, el sen­ti­do de esa di­men­sión del ser y el es­tar que con­tie­ne ani­ma­li­dad y no se jus­ti­fi­ca só­lo por la ac­ción; por eso son fi­gu­ras que es­tán sien­do y no ha­cien­do. De alguna manera en su obra el mo­vi­mien­to se opo­ne a la fuer­za de las fi­gu­ras de pie que se en­cuen­tra jus­ta­men­te en su hie­ra­tis­mo y en su pos­tu­ra fron­tal; in­clu­so puede decirse que su mo­vi­li­dad se en­cuen­tra en su quie­tud.

“Si­len­cio tal vez, pe­ro un si­len­cio que de un mo­do lin­güís­ti­ca­men­te inex­pre­sa­ble, no es mu­do”.5

Po­cos años des­pués en­fer­ma y en un cor­to pe­rio­do pier­de la vista sin nin­gu­na po­si­bi­li­dad de con­trol so­bre la ver­ti­ca­li­dad de sus fi­gu­ras, el re­co­rri­do entonces se vuelve re­su­men, lo que to­mó po­co más de una úl­ti­ma déca­da. Surge entonces un asir­se de­ses­pe­ra­da­men­te a la me­mo­ria y la ob­se­sión pri­mor­dial es vol­ver a aque­llo que con­si­de­ra in­com­ple­to y si posible re­me­diar­lo. La con­ti­nui­dad es más se­lec­ti­va y en las fi­gu­ras en cerámica de alta temperatura de ese úl­ti­mo pe­rio­do, pre­va­le­cen unas pos­tu­ras so­bre otras. En al­re­de­dor de cien obras, la vi­tal fi­gu­ra del des­nu­do de cu­cli­llas ca­si de­sa­pa­re­ce, existen apenas un par de ejemplos. Se man­tie­nen las fi­gu­ras de pie, a me­nu­do aque­llas con vo­lun­tad de mo­vi­mien­to vi­si­ble en los pa­ños y fal­das y la ca­be­za que las co­ro­na ad­quie­re ma­yor im­por­tan­cia. [Co­mo da­to cu­rio­so, en los ros­tros pue­de per­ci­bir­se una re­fe­ren­cia di­rec­ta a su pro­pia cicatriz en el ojo iz­quier­do]. Tam­bién per­ma­ne­cen al­gu­nos de los atri­bu­tos ges­tua­les, en lo par­ti­cu­lar la po­si­ción de las ma­nos que re­mi­ten al len­gua­je, al diá­lo­go. Un hom­bre sen­ta­do (cat. # 1029), des­nu­do y cie­go, co­mo au­to­rre­tra­to pós­tu­mo, nos atrae por el cui­da­do en el de­ta­lle a pe­sar de sus pe­que­ñas di­men­sio­nes. Una fi­gu­ri­lla con fal­da, gra­cio­sa y de gran sen­sua­li­dad (cat. # 1067). Una mu­jer sen­ta­da con las ma­nos en el men­tón, tier­na y a su vez me­lan­có­li­ca (cat. # 1026). Un asir­se a la vi­da co­mo re­tor­no al orige­n.

Hay al­go ar­cai­co en todas ellas. La gra­cia en el mo­vi­mien­to y la pos­tu­ra de las ma­nos re­mi­ten a la im­por­tan­cia que siem­pre tu­vie­ron las ex­tre­mi­da­des en la obra. Son los com­po­nen­tes cor­po­ra­les que lle­van a ca­bo el mo­vi­mien­to y el ta­ma­ño de ma­nos y pies, en re­la­ción a la pro­por­ción ge­ne­ral de la fi­gu­ra, tien­de a ser de­ter­mi­nan­te de for­ma y ex­pre­sión, pero estas obras finales requieren aun de una aproximan nuestra más incisiva.

Las múl­ti­ples opciones para re­pre­sen­ta­r a la fi­gu­ra en es­cul­tu­ra, si­gue sien­do ofer­ta válida, y en to­das ellas co­mo un in­vi­si­ble hi­lo con­duc­tor, se si­gue man­te­nien­do el te­mor a la in­vi­si­bi­li­dad, al des­va­ne­ci­mien­to de la for­ma, el te­mor al en­vol­vi­mien­to de la bru­ma, el te­mor a de­jar de ser, por­que co­mo su­ce­de con to­do len­gua­je, se de­ja de ha­blar cuan­do se vuel­ve im­po­si­ble asig­nar­le una po­si­ción al su­je­to.

©Ariel Zú­ñi­ga

(Texto de 1999 editado en 2021 para la versión en línea de escultura).

¹ Vi­si­ta al mu­seo de la mo­ne­da, Texto de Fran­cis­co Zú­ñi­ga de 1945. Pag.
² Gram­mai­re his­to­ri­que des arts plas­ti­ques, Alois Riegl (pre­sen­ta­ción de Ot­to Pacht) Edi­tions Klinck­sieck, Pa­rís. 1978.
³ La res­pon­sa­bi­li­té de l’ar­tis­te, Jean Clair. Ga­lli­mard, Fran­cia, 1998.
4 L’homme sans contenu, Giorgio Agamben, Circé, Francia 1996. pag. 13.
5 Erra­ta, Geor­ge Stei­ner. Ya­le Uni­ver­sity, 1998, pag. 82.

Le dur dé­sir de du­rer.

Paul Eluard

In sculpture, twenty years are nothing,
time goes by slowly,
It is necessary patience to see and do.

Fran­cis­co Zú­ñi­ga

It is obvious that human figure is the axis of the dynamics in the sculpture of Francisco Zúñiga. Form and representation, which has been a constant in the history of the art and refers to how to represent the human figure. In that process he found the sense of his task.

Our sculptor oscillates between archetype and portrait keeping throughout his plastic journey that ambiguity as a modus operandi. For him, all ‘pure’ form vanishes as a component of the figure. For that reason, he chose then, with passion, to keep his gaze attentive to the surroundings in the most direct, fresh and spontaneous way in what he understood as a ‘continuity’.

In the work prior to the arrival in Mexico, there was a concern for style and a personal stamp. His strong interest in the portrait, the question of resemblance in representation, led him in Mexico to a defined position. When he refers, for example, to the figures in the Moneda Street Archeological Museum, and the curiosity and appetite they awakened in him, he linked them immediately with real individuals he could see in the surroundings and his mode of representation is quite eloquent in that respect. In an attached text he tells us about prodigious portraits that besides he can also see wandering in the streets around the museum, as if those individuals with whom he intersects in present time, were the same as several centuries ago.¹

And he used to say:

“That does not happen in Egypt, Greece, or what was the Persian territory, where the contemporary man seems to have nothing to do with those to whom the sculpture had magnified in the past”. The great strength and resistance capacity of Mexico hypnotized him, so to speak, and justified his desire to make a series of figures that would refer to the continuity that the richness of human landscape offered him, and to keep alive a way of representing.

From his arrival in 1936 until the year 1969 – when the Museum of Modern Art of Mexico invited him for a personal retrospective exhibition –, he had only exhibited here collectively one or two isolated works, mostly drawings, and the work had not been seen together. The first individual exhibitions in the United States around 1965, covered local audiences and went directly to the hands of the collectors literally disappearing in the collection’s intimacy. As every maker he was interested specially in the works carried out in present time, the most are gestation in his journey and many he was interested particularly, were only exhibited later.

Our text contains, without a doubt, a subjective echo that may or may not coincide with that of other people interested in the work, so it is intended to be only a summary as complete as possible, in the hope that other investigations and analysis complete our task or take it through a more extensive or more academic perspective.

The first thing Zuñiga learned was the craft to carve wood and stone in his father’s workshop. His mother, whose influence was important, was little attached to the image, if not openly iconoclastic, and it can be perceived in the formation of the sculptor a dichotomy in the face of the representation problem.

Zuñiga searched for his path in a previous time because all his surroundings referred to tradition, to inherited values. Carving as a function of man in the world. In that sense, the sculpture as a direct expression of man, a corporal extension, another body over which to act to keep it up to date. To remake and update representation. The iconoclastic phenomenon and abstraction fascinated him in such a way, that they played an important role in his figurative intention as a sculptor. It is an early human activity, like to make bread, cloth, poetry; a task of doing and remodeling representation to keep it alive, in its physical and symbolical entity.

Among those who collaborated at his father workshop, there are several important personal relationships of his formative period, outside the family environment. One with the sculptor and painter Max Jiménez, a dedicated reader with a large culture with whom Zúñiga had intensive dialogues on the art and its possibilities, one more with the sculptor Juan Manuel Sánchez for the parallel and differences in their developments as young men, and another one with the sculptor Nestor Zeledón V, with whom he traveled through the jungle of the Guanacaste in the north of Costa Rica. There Zuñiga discovered the importance of those ‘strange and marvelous beings that animals are’, as he used to say, and who served as a pretext for his first sculptures when form and volume imposed their evidence to him. From the first he learned concepts, with the second he competed, and with Zeledón he learned the craft of carving stone. His sister Carmen was determinant for his approach of the feminine and there are more portraits, drawings and oil paintings from her than from anybody else then.

The religious themes of the works produced at his father workshop – Saints, Virgins, Christs -and the way they worked, were essential in his development. First because in the workshop there was a permanent gathering attached to the Renaissance tradition; their works were discussed among themselves. They received European and Cuban journals, in which he could admire the work of Brancusi, Zadkine and Archipenko, as well as the work of Joseph Bernard, the master of the current known as ‘direct carving’ with which he felt immediate affinity. He also saw in them reproductions of the so-called municipal sculpture: monuments to the heroes or the dead. In those infinite options which corresponded with his time, there is a fusion of spontaneous and direct with the conceptual, more pragmatic, and questions arise: What is my site? With what am I related?

The most important is that those religious images had to respond to conventions and strict attributes that parishioners require for its identification. A Saint Anthony or a Virgin of Mercy require precise attributes, regardless of the figures style applied. The use of those attributes, an expressive convention, marked in a definitive way – even more than other influences – his later journey.

One example is the Saint John of the Cross (cat. # 26), a standing figure, severe, with a simple contour, carved in stone but stylized to the point that the cross fuses with the tunic as a relief or pure design, inspired by other modern sculptors recently discovered by him. It had been commissioned to Don Manuel by a group of priests which did not know the young sculptor, but as the father did not carve stone it was executed by the son and the sculpture has the signature of Don Manuel (MMZ). Luis Ferrero Acosta, an important connoisseur of sculpture in Costa Rica confirmed it. Most of his brothers and sisters worked at the workshop, some stuck gold leaf, others burnished or painted flower vases. Several painting of that period, which has been attributed to Francisco, may have been drawn by him, but finished by his sisters (Julieta or Margarita) and more than one example was signed by them with Francisco’s name, which has aroused confusion, but it has been common in the artistic workshops always.

From the beginning drawing was his natural form of expression, and he used any pretext in an almost compulsive way, to draw. His models were all that he found in front of him; the latrine, the clothesline at the back yard; the pot with chayotes; his brothers and sisters seating, standing or reading; a rabbit or historical characters portraits: Juan Santamaria (National hero of Costa Rica) or Simón Bolívar as well as characters of the silent movies. In the same way he started sculpture with little nativity figures in painted clay, he sold to his neighbors; the earliest pieces known from him (cat # 1 – 8).

In the aforementioned gatherings, Max Jiménez, painter and sculptor, read and referred texts that were not always translated into Spanish and of which Zúñiga would keep an almost mythical memory; Rembrandt by Georg Simmel, the Historic Grammar of Plastic Arts by Alois Riegl, Abstraction and Nature by Wilhelm Worringer or Modern and Contemporary Sculpture by Heilmeyer. Hence the Riegl concept of Kunstwollen emerged, and it seems important to understand the idea, sometimes romantic, that Zúñiga had of his task and his function as a sculptor.

For Riegl, Kunstwollen would mean in a literal sense: the ‘esthetic impulse’ of artistic will and the vision of the world that mark the art. “The great artistic inventions, writes Riegl, are not due, for example, to a constellation of circumstances completely accidental or to an artist caprice”. In the presentation of a more recent reissue of the text, Otto Pacht writes: “Riegl is confronted, for example, with the question of how can be established the relations between the individual artists and the National School to which he belongs. What is the relationship between the artistic intentions of an individual artist and the stylistic tendencies which transcend individuals? In other words, the relation between Rembrandt’s Kunstwollen and Dutch Kunstwollen considered as a whole. Riegl’s answer is unequivocal. “The authors do not remain outside their national tradition; they are part of it”.²

For Zúñiga the vision, the individual work, even the style, are necessarily attached to the work of others. For him, any individual example of sculpture must serve only as a partial interpretation of a wider territory, the one of the statues.

The first personal stone carving produced in Mexico was inscribed in that logic; the Portrait of Rómulo Rosso, a Colombian sculptor with whom he maintained a close relationship during his first Mexican years (cat. # 35), and that work also refers us immediately to the Indian Head (cat. # 13). “It is very important for me not to have a closed spirit and believe that mine is the only path of the sculpture, though I assume it as my way”, he said in more than one interview. For him, the human activity of the sculptor is integrated to history. Ruptures refer to the approach manner, to the chosen journey, only secondarily to invention. The sculpture as a representation of man facing his expressiveness capacity, his anguishes, fear of death. Making the figure as a way of shaping and reshaping each time himself and man in general.

When Zúñiga arrived in Mexico at the age of twenty-four, he had a craft and a clear concept of what he was looking for. One of the first who detected his formation and wrote about it, was Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, with whom he had a close, cordial and long friendship and who exerted a strong influence during the first Mexican years, during which Zúñiga had not completely abandoned painting. Figure and geography play an important part in Lozano’s painting, his walls as amplified columns, pretext for color expression and reminiscence of classicism; such a relationship between figure and space impact Zúñiga. It offered him the parameters for the encounter with his own geography, his own relationship between space and figure, beating the scared attitude imposed to him by the immensity and grandiloquence of the Mexico Valley. In the images of Rodríguez Lozano, the limpid and perfect walls, unconcluded, which are only block, pretext for form, demarcate the space converting it into formal expression, which permits Zúñiga to establish a distance from the religious works among which he had learned and to keep, in a similar way as his new teacher, the taste for the strict and rigorous attribute.

That formal tendency that keeps a close relationship with the tradition, convinced him more than the formal offer of the avant-garde in vogue.

In Mexico, Zúñiga found a National School as he understood it and he integrated it to give free circulation to his own expression, a personal path, the scope of formal strength and the abandonment of all frivolity. In art one can be involved in the frivolous or be supported by sobriety. From that election, all concepts of originality become tangential and replaced by the necessary and possible principle of continuity. Rupture and return to order are the zigzagging modes of the journey, never in straight line or in progression but as work mechanisms which integrates to a wider task than the personal one. The field of sculpture was a more fertile land for his development and he met the representants of sculpture; Rómulo Rosso and Luis Ortiz Monasterio in the yards of the Rancho del Artista with whom he shared stone blocks and concepts on Mexican art; the close collaboration with Guillermo Ruíz where the main official monuments were made and where he met Juan Cruz Reyes; the War Materials workshop where he met Moisés del Águila, from whom he learned more than one secret about lost wax foundry and who would later become his founder. In the Monument to the Revolution, he had a large personal responsibility thanks to Oliverio Martínez from whom he got later his chair at La Esmeralda, and it happened his encounter with the great stonecutters’ tradition of Mexico.

The need to practice a profession he knew and live from it, led him to realize what he called ‘public work’, at that time unthinkable without the use of allegory. Without taking it too light, he played the game thoroughly, leading the first steps of his journey and produced rhetorical work within the rules, without any guilt or any kind of ‘purity’ loss feeling, finding satisfaction on the exercise of a craft for which he already had experience enough.

In the yards of the workshop that would become La Esmeralda, the state school of painting and sculpture, he worked with Juan Cruz with whom he wandered in Teotihuacan, Malinalco and Tenayuca. At that time, it was clear that all the sculptors had to compete for carrying out the public projects, not the only way but the main one to develop themselves; more than one sculptor made a project about the flag, the Valsequillo Dam, the Dolores del Río portrait, figures for a fountain or heroes’ portraits. All of them shared the same models. That encounter with new versions, new angles, new points of view integrated into what used to be called a national vision, seemed legitimate to him, and he became more involved within the local sculpture. In more than one occasion, we heard him say: “An anonymous sculpture with a strong connotation, in the imaginary museum, says more and is a more solid achievement, than a museum with your name, full of sketches, experiments, failed works outside of context, even if they are accompanied by a well-articulated rhetoric”

“As soon as a transcendent order does not come to guarantee the order of the values, all necessity disappears. That romantic plague which is originality. Every trace requires soul, finally as a loving act, a way to address the true origin, to the sole creator and not to the will to replace it. The premeditated. It is not for the artist a matter of producing something original, cut from its origin, but to render visible an unprecedented reality. The expression on the part of the artist of his recognition of the origin, thanks to what we have called the representation of the past. To conquer the disjointed. To improvise as a way to remember what comes from behind and what seems to be forgotten”.³

For Zúñiga, the sculpture must look for a permanence beyond fashions and periods. Sculpture, of anonymous and symbolic origins, as something more important than the sculptors. Not because of a lack of vanity or personal ambition, of course, but because those achievements would fall behind if the objective was wider and support its permanence. “Who remembers Pedro de Mena, beyond some specialist? Who desires a museum to him? However, Who can doubt that the intensity, solidity, and strength with which his sculpture integrates itself, essentially, to the imagery of Spanish Baroque?”, he told us more than once.

The technical solutions are independent of the subject, that is why it was necessary for him to see; that seeing which Cézanne refers to in his letters to Emile Bernard. When he discovered Wotruba’s work, for example, he found something common in the work of the Austrian sculptor with prehispanic art, conscious or not. The function of the block and its wide range of symbolism/eroticism. Hence, Zúñiga try to clear up distances as if he wished himself bridge between the symbol and the erotic. Abstract or figurative it has to do first of all with the formal structure. If it does not refer to man, it refers to his environment, to the space where it is, and it has to suggest it, independently of the way of seeing, the gradient path or the strength achieved, as is the case of those sculptors who always attracted him.

In Zúñiga, we have said, it is a matter of representation, which should not be confused with the reality it designates, nothing to do with that mythology which continues to circulate of “imitating life”. His will was neither beauty per se but organic vitality as a primary source that supports an eventual beauty. And if beauty there is, it would be as the essence of vitality, wider than the esthetic category. Remembrance of the time when art, sculpture in particular, did not have as a priority goal to satisfy taste.

Praise for the resistance against technology dictatorship. ‘The proper of man is resist and there is no life but marginally’, wrote Balzac.

He did not have an infinity of subjects, only two or three departure points from which he deduced some thematic lines: the series of triangular figures, kneeling or seated, the spherical series of crouching women and the standing ones who become groups and start, later, certain displacement. In front of the systematic question that everyone asked him: Why women?, taking the appearance of the object for the object itself, as Magritte would put it, generally lead Zúñiga to respond: “resistance, landscape or surrounding space are my subjects as well as the figure that suggest them or in which it is inscribed”.

His modus operandi was to articulate the attributes of resemblance. A foot, a hand, an arm rising to express a signifying gesture, the shyness expressed by a hand covering the mouth. The head that bend to affirm or reject. The relationship between form and surface is subdue to the rules of gesture, to the active function of being in front of doing. Drawing, origin of plastic structuration form can also keep a presence at the surface without penetrating into the volume, as an accent. Volume as lightness or heaviness. Everything leads to the same goal, to show form. That is why marble carvings, for example, were not bright polished and, when the material allowed it, stones kept a closed pore that emphasize the block, not the object.

With Maternity (cat. # 34) or Hamac (cat. # 218), the great harmony established between volume and design can be seen. In the case of the Seated figure (cat. # 135), several aspects are important in the management of the surface: a texture for the clothing, worked with a sledgehammer, which when hitting against the surface creates a roughness that unveils more richness as opposed to the polished surface of the skin. Another aspect is the grace with which a foot rises to rest above the other one, invoking the grace of its movement. It is agreeable that such a position, so soft and gracious, had been carried out in stone, a hard matter, even if it is a stone which hardness is more apparent than real, since the enclosure stone (family to which Xaltocan belongs) is a soft stone compared with a basalt or a granite. However, to be able to evoke that movement, that trembling of the flesh, in the shift of that foot over the other convinces; and yet another aspect pertains to the retraction of the body towards itself, morphologic expression of a body rather robust and short that refers to the local environment.

Later, when he underlined the ‘region’ of women in their title or in the graphic accents of the figure, as it is the case of Yucatecan, Women of Yalalag or Chamulas, its reference to such attributes is secondary, narrative, but also unavoidable as to the identity required by the one who sees it. A form in itself is anything and does not require anything else; a sculpture of a human figure, however, is de facto from some place, pointed out or not. In his concern for resemblance a need to move between portrayal and archetype arose, allowing an Evelia to be all women, an Esperanza all Juchitecan (and their hope), a Soledad all the women of a town (and the loneliness of each one of them).4 To situate the surroundings when placing the figure in the threshold of a door watching the landscape demarcating interior and exterior, including the earth as a pretext for form, as he had done in most of his paintings.

By that time, he wrote: “… to complete a series of images of women from Mexico. Images that are first of all sculptures. From there emerge standing figures, crouching, seated o grouped, which are being not doing, images of fertility, anguish, melancholy, loneliness, resistant to misery. Mountainous matriarchs, earthly and tangible…”.

Most of the sculptures of the first period are direct carving, that is, worked from outside towards the inside, but when he abandons ‘compulsive drawing’ and replace it with the everyday discipline of working with a model, he inverts the order to approach sculpture, with drawings in different techniques and starts working from the inside towards the outside, which means to go out from the structure towards the surface. In the drawings it can be clearly distinguished the ornamental intention from the structural one, when it ceases to be an outline to establish form and become projects for sculpture. In some cases, we see continuous lines that refer to the general form; nude, seated figure, standing, the cuts of the line are produced at the end of a described action. In other ones the line is irregular, short lines in zigzag, perpendicular to the center or parallel to directly articulate the structural tension, of internal movement, organic; the construction of a hand, a foot, and also seen in perspective, which permits form to function. The line, determinant in a more abstract sculpture in the Brancusi manner, transcends to the figure as a graphic element. That is the technology of representation and the majority of those drawings remain in the state of sketch. Abstraction in his work is homogeneous and constant, visible in the process itself of realizing a sculpture before proceeding to apply clay or plaster, when a skeleton of cardboard, metal and wire is assembled. During the preparation of the book Zúñiga, (Alí Chumacero, 1969), he insisted to include photographs of the frames and in the drawings notebooks we find a considerable number of sketches of those previous frames for the sculptures. It is the case, for example, of the enormous cement seed which is in the back of the Monument to the Farmer (cat. # 726), which he considered not only the ‘farmer seed’, but as the alter ego of the figures in the foreground. Nevertheless, this need of identification is seen in Zúñiga’s work as ‘regionalism’, What led Zúñiga to emphasize those lines of the clothing in a Woman from Yalalag? (cat. # 738) It is a graphic element, no doubt narrative as we said, but it accentuates the place of origin, a particular identity.

Many elements function as attributes: bread, fish or fruits. And more than once they reach the offering degree: Woman with fruit or fish, Girls with bread, and so on. The external iconographic elements of the figure usually refer to the geography: walls, doors, windows, that is to say territory and architecture as well as those related to the composition of the figure itself: shawls, cloths, headdresses, baskets, to which we may add also nudity.

The interest in nudity, formal pretext implicit in his sculpture, is maintained throughout of the work and in the 1960’s it had a great response from collectors to the point that his production rhythm changes. Without having always in mid the workshop where he was formed, he employed several stonecutters that prepared the onyx and marble blocks that he invariably ended, in order to cover the demand. During several years he produced a series of nudes, particularly in softer and easiermaterials, as he used to call them, which show an indulgent and rhetorical tendency, but he insists in the torsions and turns he demands from the body looking for expressive possibilities, until they reach their limit and the consequence is a formal impoverishment, but it was also part of his journey.

Such demand that he explores, mainly in his drawings, instead of opening in the search of a center where everything could emerge again, lock up the body into itself. His reaction before that search would be the rigor and rigidity of the ‘standing figures’. Once more that pendular movement between the sensual and the tense, between his tropical origin and the drama he found in Mexico.

As for the materials, he experiments, but remains faithful to those which convince him, and the choice of each material always corresponds to a proper formal solution. He abandons the Xaltocan stone, whose quality blocks became more and more difficult to find. In that moment the work from outside towards inside reaches a second plane and it becomes a priority to explore the tendency to proceed from inside towards outside from the structure. He concentrates then in the multiple and rich kind of onyx to satisfy an independent production away from work for the State. The support materials acquire more importance like clay, ductile and sensual or plaster, obliged passage towards bronze casting. A resistant material which can be carved, dug, but also rubbed. It facilitates multiple meetings with the rich texture of the surface. To structure directly in plaster, confront the architecture of the body. In relation to the hand that handles it, it refers to the sensual of the gesture and offers a different face of drama than clay. The dramatic acquired for Zúñiga more and more importance in his work, in the way he understood the function of the sculptor, and how step by step he would face his growing concern for the finite, the death.

“The art, for the one who creates it, becomes an increasingly uneasy experience, in the face of which to speak of interest is at least a euphemism, since what is in play does not seem to be in any way the production of a beautiful work, but the life or death of the author, or at least of his spiritual health «.5

When in 1979 a first work of natural size was carried out in Carrara (Italy), prepared by the Italian stonecutters, his remarkable anxiety – which I could perceive and confirm during our trip to that city -, was caused by the meticulous skill of Italian workers to reproduce little Renaissance angels, and he asked himself: How are they going to interpret, during the passage from a small model to a four or five times larger piece, some of the elements of a work with which they have never been in touch before? His wish to arrive at the workshop before the work was still too advanced was to avoid problems that would not have a solution unless the piece was reduced in size. ‘Imagine, he told me then, a solid Seated Juchiteca (cat. # 645), robust, whose face and hands are treated as Italian angels!! There would not be marble enough to modify the corners of the mouth towards the bottom and not to the upper part, a proportion in the form of the hands towards the outside and not to inside’. That concern can be understood in terms of description, but the problem he faced in the Italian workshop at his arrival, is much more eloquent than all the explanations. The work was difficult, since in fact his concern corresponded with the reality. Fortunately, the finished work was successful, and he also obtained respect and admiration from the Italian stonecutters, in general ironical towards sculptors who come from a land for them too far away and which tradition of stonecutting most of the time they ignore.

For Zúñiga, the desire to do a convincing object was imperative over its quality of beauty. He never abandoned his scheme: sculptor of representation. He always submitted himself to the internal order of the work. To draw or choose a material only had validity in relation to the sculptural, and his appreciation of art conducted necessarily to the forgetfulness of art in the name of the work itself. At least until the Renaissance men facing a work of art, were not in front of one, the ‘work of art’ did not have such a status, and one of the indirect intentions in the work of Zúñiga was to defy the ‘work of art ‘, to maintain sculpture in its representation level, in a similar way that other sculpted objects had in the ancient world, representation of gods, men, objects, always with a specific function. «I am not an artist, he used to say, I am a sculpture maker».

When the Zúñiga figures are not silent or dramatic, they are sensual and joyful. But if a figure manages to transmit some melancholy, almost indifferent, it produces a deep and spiritual anxiety coming from the past, from the time in which hail, thunder and storm produced the urgency of fervor, an anxiety that the apparent certitudes of technology often allow to ignore, leave for later or forget. Without that presence that resists and grows, the lineage would be lost, the sense of that dimension of being and being there which contains animality and is not only justified by action; that is why they are figures being and not doing. In some way in his work the movement is opposed to the force of the standing figures that is found in their rigidity and in their frontal posture; their mobility is in their stillness.

«Silence maybe, but silence that in a linguistically inexpressible way, is not mute.»6

A few years later, in sickness, in a short time he lost his sight and without any possibility of control over the verticality of his figures, the journey became a summary, which took a little more than a last decade. It arises then a desperate attachment to memory and the primary obsession was to go back to what he considered uncomplete and if possible apply a remedy. The continuity is more selective and in the high temperature ceramic figures of that last period, some postures prevail over others. In about one hundred works, the vital crouching figures desert, there are only a couple of examples. The standing figures remain, often those with a degree of mobility visible in their cloths and skirts and the head that crowns them acquire more importance. [As a curious detail, in their faces a direct reference to his own scar in the eye can be seen]. Some of the gestural attributes also remain, in particular the position of the hands that refer to language, to dialogue. A Seated man (cat. # 1029), naked and blind, as a posthumous self-portrait, attracts us by the care in details despite its small dimensions. A little Figure with skirt, gracious and of great sensuality (cat. # 1067). A Seated Woman with her hands at her chin, tender and melancholic at the same time (cat. # 1026). An assumption of life as a return to the origin.

There is something archaic in all of them. The grace in the movement and the posture of the hands refer to the importance that extremities always had in the work. It is the corporal components that carry out the movement and the size of hands and feet, in relation to the general proportion of the figure, tend to be decisive of form and expression, but these final works still require a more incisive approach from us.

The multiple options to represent the figure in sculpture is always a valid offer, and in all of them as an invisible conductor thread, the fear of invisibility remains, fainting of the form, the fear of envelopment by the mist, fear to stop being, because as it happens with all language, you stop talking when it becomes impossible to allocate a position to the subject.

©Ariel Zuñiga

(Text from 1999 edited in 2021 for the online version of Sculpture).

¹ Vi­si­t to the Museum of Moneda Street, text by Fran­cis­co Zú­ñi­ga for the Costa Rican magazine Brecha directed by Ar­tu­ro Eche­ve­rría, friend of the sculptor, never published. The text is included in this catalogue.
² Gram­mai­re his­to­ri­que des arts plas­ti­ques, Alois Riegl (pre­sen­ta­tion by Ot­to Pacht) Edi­tions Klinck­sieck, Pa­ris. 1978.
³ La res­pon­sa­bi­li­té de l’ar­tis­te, Jean Clair. Ga­lli­mard, Fran­ce, 1998.
4 In Spanish, Esperanza is a woman 1st name and means also Hope, Soledad is a woman 1st name and means also loneliness.
5 L’homme sans contenu, Giorgio Agamben, Circé, France 1996. p. 13.
6 Erra­ta, Geor­ge Stei­ner. Ya­le Uni­ver­sity, 1998, p. 82.