Gastón Ugalde
More than an artist, Gastón Ugalde was an alchemist of landscape, turning the high plains into art and art into territory, widely regarded as the father of Bolivian contemporary art and a key global promoter of the destination since the 1960s.
Biography
Gastón Ugalde, 1944-2023, is considered the father of contemporary Bolivian art. His work is deeply rooted in Bolivian traditions and filled with socio-political references. He studied architecture (Universidad Mayor de San Andres, La Paz), Economics and Political Science Studies (Simon Fraser University, Canada) and completed his studies at the Vancouver School of Art. Spanning a half- century career, he is considered a video-art pioneer in Latin America and his work includes performance, painting, sculpture, installation, land-art, photography and printmaking. Gaston’s passion for the Uyuni Salt Desert dates back to the late sixties and has made him the recipient of the Vanity Fair Changing your mind in travel award for all the work he has done in the region over the past five decades. Casa Gastón will serve as a remarkable example of how sustainable tourism, community development, and cultural preservation can be integrated to create a thriving and resilient destination.
Matter and Spirit
Throughout his life, Gastón Ugalde turned the landscapes of the Bolivian highlands into his primary artistic material. He didn’t merely depict them, he lived them, intervened in them, transformed them. The Uyuni Salt Flats became his grand natural canvas, a place where art and land fused into radical poetry. In his words, “art is life, and everything around us is part of it.”
A provocateur and a visionary, Ugalde challenged the conventions of beauty and power, using irony, humor, and social critique as core elements of his work. He was an artist of paradoxes: deeply Andean and profoundly global. His work reflects sharp political insight, yet also a spiritual connection with nature and ritual.
Art as a Way of Life
For Gastón, art was not an object or a profession, it was a way of being in the world. His celebrated phrase, “All is life, All is art” was not a slogan but a deeply lived conviction. His studio, his home, his travels, even his conversations were imbued with a total artistic sensibility, where every gesture held creative potential.
This holistic vision led him to create installations in the desert, performances in public markets, and photographs where body and landscape converse as equals. Casa Gastón is born from this same spirit, a way of inhabiting territory through art, of finding meaning and beauty in the seemingly mundane.
A Legacy in Progress
Gastón Ugalde’s legacy does not end with his artwork, it lives on through the people and institutions that accompanied him and now safeguard his memory. The Gastón Ugalde Foundation, led by his children Canela and Mariano, is dedicated to preserving, researching, and promoting the artist’s archive while fostering emerging talent in Bolivia and beyond.
From international exhibitions to artist residencies in the highlands, the Foundation and its initiatives are a living continuation of Gastón’s philosophy: art as connection, as experience, as shared territory. Through Casa Gastón, his legacy moves forward, merging cultural tourism, sustainability, and critical thought into a vision for generations to come.
Art
Casa Gastón is a habitable work of art, a temple where light, materials, views, and design take center stage. A sanctuary to experience art, in the heart of the Bolivian salt desert.
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