Penultimatum

AND

Last May 26th Ricardo Regazzoni died in Amsterdam. He was born in 1942 in Mexico City, where he spent his final decades, mostly with his partner, Guido. His passing leaves a void in the arts, especially sculpture.

A disciple of Luis Barragán, he studied architecture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and furthered his studies in Paris and Washington. His name made headlines in 1977 when he exhibited his clearly gay work at the Pecanins gallery. A moralistic critique sought to erase him from the scene, something Carlos Monsiváis avoided in a lucid essay, along with favorable opinions from members of the intellectual community, such as Sergio Pitol and Vicente Rojo.

Later, his preferred field of work became sculpture, thanks to Barragán's advice. His beautiful columns stand out, featuring complex architectural and geometric designs, in which he employed a medieval technique: gold leaf. He perceived geometry as an organizing axis of the cosmos, thus seeking a form of perfection that was granted to him in all its splendor.

His work has been exhibited in major cities around the world. One stood out above all: the 2005 exhibition at the Masters' House of the legendary Bauhaus in Germany. Its director, Omar Akbar, stated at the time: "The consistency with which each of his sculptures draws continuously polyhedral volumes in space is reminiscent of the experimental constructive exercises of Josef Albers or Max Bill at the Bauhaus in the 1920s ." But Regazzoni denies any similarity, uniting the dynamization of form with the plastic geometry of glossy surfaces .

In the obituary that the distinguished photographer Flor Garduño wrote about her beloved friend, she states: "His passing leaves a void in art, in sculpture. And, above all, in those who had the privilege of knowing his generous soul, his sharp humor, and his unwavering passion for beauty ."

And he was a person deeply consistent with his work: elegant, enigmatic, precise. A creator of worlds made of steel and poetry , with whom he shared not only his vision of form and light, but also life, with its wonder and its silence .

In short, an exceptional humanist and creator.