The ANNEX
290 NE 2nd Avenue, Delray Beach, Florida
Alejandro Arostegui, Mesa Verde con Objectos
Alejandro Aróstegui (b.1935 Nicaragua)
Alejandro Arostegui paints haunting monocratic vistas. Lakeshores. Distant volcanos. In the foreground, a glimpse of his concern for the environment. Bits of scrap metal. An old drain. He is particularly fond of smashed cans. With them, he shows us reflected images of solemn figures and lost cities.
Aróstegui was born in Bluefields, Nicaragua. In 1954, he began studies in the USA at Tulane and then at the Ringling School of Art. From 1960 to 1962 he went to the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris. In 1963, he returned to Nicaragua. He had his first exhibition and co-founded PRAXIS.
Praxis
While in Europe, Aróstegui met Amaru Barahona, a writer from Costa Rica, in whom he discovered a shared concern for the suffering of the working classes in the Central American countries. Upon their return they contacted César Izquierdo, a Guatemalan artist with similar ideals, and between the three they established a place where artists, poets and intellectuals could argue without fear of reprisals.
They called the group “Praxis” and wrote a manifesto with its principles and objectives. Their motto: Action, Dynamism, and a permanent state of restlessness. The Praxis gallery in Managua was inaugurated in 1963.