Krefeld, Germany, 1972.

Lives and works in Berlín (Germany).

Uriarte studied business administration in Madrid and Mannheim and Audiovisuals in Guadalajara (Mexico). After working for several years in different companies such as Interlub, Siemens and Canon in Spain, Germany and Mexico, he left this type of work, which he called "serious" and began to dedicate himself to what he calls "office art". According to the artist himself: “When I left my last administrative job to dedicate myself as an artist full-time, I realized that the freedom I had just gained was a great responsibility. In no way did I want to abuse art for the sake of personal liberation, which would have made me a marginal artist-cliché. Instead, I decided to stay in my own personal “petty bourgeois” reality to face it from within, using the experience gained over the years. That is why I have not stopped using the same tools and methods, like those of any office worker, working routinely and with routine as the main theme”.

My starting point is the little creative moments within office routines, most of which have a ridiculously little "artistic" aspect to them. For example: when we scribble during a telephone conversation (Document Proof Monochromes, 2012) or when we fold a sheet of paper before putting it in an envelope (Fluctuating Folds, 2012) we are making small pictorial and sculptural gestures. The systematic repetition of these actions according to predefined rules turns them into meta-routines, into recreations of the myth of Sisyphus. The only difference is that the resulting pieces record in detail the methodical and repetitive work that went into their creation. In this way, the routine survives, allowing the audience to read it and recreate it mentally.

Aesthetically, my work shows clear references to the conceptual and minimalist art of the 60s and 70s. In those years, the dematerialization of the art object in the art world and the substitution of products for services in the business world occurred almost simultaneously. Perhaps that is why aesthetics also began to resemble each other, for example in the chromatic limitation or formal simplicity, which would indicate how both commercial products and art objects would be generated in a (blank) mind. We could even talk about a mutual fetishization that led, for example, to the use of neon light and the archive as an artistic medium and the preferential use of minimalist art as decoration in offices.’ - Ignacio Uriarte, biography Nogueras Blanchard.