Uruguayan photographer captures free-spirited gauchos

Based in New York City, the self-taught artist, now 57, was exposed to culturally diverse experiences when growing up, dividing time in South America, Europe and the United States. Since 2000, he has been focusing on Uruguay's cultural heritage; he lived with the gauchos for months to capture the many dimensions of their life and to reveal their outlook on life.

Wu Weishan, director of the National Art Museum, says the exhibition takes viewers upon "a pictorial journey to the grassland in northern Uruguay, exploring the livelihood of gaucho herdsmen, by which the distance between people of the two countries is shortened".

Fabini says it was during a meditation, at the end of a three-year intense practice of Zen Buddhism, that he came up with the idea of photographing gauchos. He took a camera, two fixed lenses and some film rolls, and hitchhiked to the north of Uruguay.

After traveling for months, Fabini came across a member of the group. "I found myself sitting in front of a gaucho by a campfire. I asked him, as we shared yerba mate (the tea-like beverage unique to South America), who the gaucho was. He replied that the gaucho was the piece of land under his feet.

"His words hit me deeply. It was an epiphany to me."