ENRIQUE CARBAJAL: BIOGRAPHY AND MAIN WORKS - BIOGRAPHIES - 2025

Enrique Carbajal (1947) is the Mexican representative of the most important contemporary sculpture at the international level. His works also include other artistic expressions such as painting, architecture and design. He is better known throughout the world as Sebastián, a nickname adopted very early in his career by the artist from Ciudad Camargo, in Chihuahua, Mexico.

His specialty has to do with monumental urban sculpture, which in modern art refers to large works. This type of art is characterized by being more intended for the public, since it is usually found in outdoor areas.

Work of Enrique Carbajal in the State of Mexico. Source: Octavio Alonso Maya, via Wikimedia Commons.

His works use principles from other scientific areas, as he relies on the use of disciplines such as mathematics and geometry. In addition, sciences such as crystallography or topology have influenced his work.

Enrique Carbajal's works are easy to identify thanks to his use of geometric shapes and the presence of materials such as steel and concrete. It has more than 200 works in various cities around the world.

The majesty of his works allows some of his great sculptures to be seen from space. He is listed by Mathias Goeritz, an important German artist based in Mexico, as the most relevant Mexican sculptor of the time.

Biography

Early years

The Mexican artist was born in Mexico on November 16, 1947, more specifically in Camargo, a city that belongs to the state of Chihuahua. His full name is Enrique Carbajal González Santiván.

His mother, Soledad Carbajal, dedicated herself to sewing. According to Carbajal, she was the culprit of his passion for the plastic arts. Soledad was the one who spoke to him for the first time about great artists and gave him certain bases to understand art.

His mother affectionately called him 'Enriqueiros' in clear reference to David Alfaro Siqueiros, a famous Mexican artist who was also a native of Camargo.

His family is completed by his grandmother Ramona González and his brothers Raymundo and Ramón. Enrique's siblings were older than him by more than 10 years and all three were children of different parents. Ramón was the father figure in Carbajal's life.

In 1964 he moved to Mexico City without many economic possibilities, even without anywhere to live. She was only 16 years old and she even slept on the street.

Studies

Once in Mexico City, Carbajal managed to enroll in the National School of Plastic Arts of the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), formerly known as the Academia de San Carlos.

Due to his low economic possibilities, he became a kind of ghost within the institution, since some days he had to live within the academic campus.

Today, the Mexican artist recounts that stage of his life without problems and recalls some anecdotes. Among them, Carbajal says that at night he turned on the light in some rooms to be able to carry out his work.

This caused the guards to have to go to the place to turn off the lights on several occasions, without knowing why they were turned on.

It took months to discover the situation in which Enrique Carbajal lived. The plastic artist, Benjamín Domínguez managed to allow Carbajal to sleep on a sofa located in the Student Society.

During his student period he met the works of Leonardo da Vinci and the German artist Albrecht Dürer, through whom he began to delve into geometry.

Stage name

Although his name is Enrique Carbajal, he is better known in the world as Sebastián Escultor. He took this name in the late 60s, due to various moments in his life that led him to believe that this pseudonym was haunting him.

According to Carbajal's own stories, it all started when he was a student at UNAM. In one of their subjects they were exhibiting on Botticelli's work San Sebastián, but the then student fell asleep, a fact notorious for the rest of his classmates, who since then referred to Carbajal as San Sebastián.

Years later, Spanish citizens who were refugees in Mexico organized a dinner in honor of President Luis Echeverría. At the event was the poet Carlos Pellicer, who told Carbajal that it seemed that he had come out of Botticelli's work, San Sebastián.

Months later the anecdote would occur that would end up being definitive. After an interview on French art, Carbajal was referred to as an artist of Mexican origin who bore a strong resemblance to Andrea Mantegna's San Sebastián.

At that moment he decided to do something about it and adopted Sebastián as a strong name for him. For Carbajal it was relevant that his pseudonym could be written and pronounced in any language in almost the same way.

Then he added Escultor as a surname, since he thought that this way it was easier to determine his profession, especially for Spanish-speaking people, as well as English.

Influences

Werner Matthias Göeritz was one of the great influences that Carbajal had during his life. He dedicated himself to various areas of art, such as sculpture, architecture, painting, and writing. Of German origin, he lived in Mexico since 1952.

Carbajal met Göeritz when he was only 16 years old. She became an assistant to the German and traveled with her to Jerusalem, Israel, for several months.

In addition, he studied with special interest the work of the English sculptor Henry Spencer Moore. For Carbajal, Moore was very important because it allowed him to recognize different elements present in the sculptures.

Main works

Carbajal's works are contemporary with movements such as minimalism, scientism and pop-art, among other currents. He gained fame with his work with the Transformables works. These pieces can take different forms when manipulated. Among them he has Leonardo 4, Dürer 4 and Brancusi 4.

The number 4 meant that these works had four dimensions. They were characterized by being participatory works, a very marked concern at the beginning of his career. They were based on models of mathematics.

Although his first work of great importance was the Victoria Rosette. This work was done in 1967 and there you can see characteristics of kinetic art.

He wrote the largest sculpture in the world in 1970, where he presented his idea of ​​creating a work that had dimensions so large that it could even exceed the Earth.

More than 200 works bear his stamp, but not only on a sculptural level. He also did works in areas such as painting, design, jewelry, and architecture. His works are exhibited in different countries of the world. Mexico obviously has a large number of works by the author, but it is also possible to see his stamp in Italy, France, Brazil, Israel, Spain, Cuba, Argentina and Germany.

Some of his sculptures can be appreciated from space with the use of space technology. This is because most of his projects were focused on creating large sculptures in urban areas.

He has written a total of five books, in which he tries to teach, especially to children, his knowledge of geometry.

Asia

On the Asian continent, he has won several awards for the sculptures he has made. Most of her works have been made there since she participated in different competitions to work in different cities. In Osaka she even received awards for her work in the area of painting.

He started in 1993 with a competition that allowed him to devise a sculpture that would serve as a symbol for the city of Sakai, which is called the Phoenix Arch. Later, in 1995 he did the same in the city of Kadoma, with Tsuru. These works are joined by other sculptures such as Migración, Excelsitud and Esfera Vida, located in Tokyo, Kansai and Osaka.

characteristics

His works stand out in urban sites in different cities around the world. She enriches her work with the use of mathematics, in which she also tries to project a message on an aesthetic level.

His sculptures stand out for having different shapes and for the use of different colors. Some of them are modular and can be transformed.

Recognitions

For his sculptural work he has received more than 10 awards. Five of them were received in Japan. In Norway he was awarded the jury prize of the International Graphic Triennial.

In addition, he was honored with the National Prize for Sciences and Arts of Mexico, which honors the best exponents of the country's literature, culture, technology, arts and sciences.

Carbajal received the award in the Fine Arts category in 2015, together with Ignacio López Tarso and Fernando López Carmona. The Mexican even has a noble title in Denmark.

For his career, he has also received the honorary degree of Doctor honoris causa from six institutions. These doctorates were awarded by the University of La Laguna, Chihuahua, Colima, the Autonomous Metropolitan and the Autonomous of the State of Mexico. He is also an honorary doctorate from New York City College, a distinction he received in 2008.

Member

Carbajal is part of different associations throughout the world. He is a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague, as an honorary member. He is also part of the Academy of Arts in Mexico and one more member of the International Committee for Conservation, in Lascaux, France.

References

1. 8 monumental works by Enrique Carbajal - Sebastián. (2018). Recovered from mxcity.mx
2. Enrique Carbajal «Sebastián.» Recovered from pnca.sep.gob.mx
3. Enrique Carbajal "Sebastian". Recovered from miniondas.com
4. Flegman, J. (2016). Success factor. Mexico DF: ABG-Selector USA.
5. Rojas, S. (2002). No. 44 Enrique Carbajal González “Sebastián”. Recovered from comoves.unam.mx