Presents
A p r i l 3 0 - M a y 4 , 2 0 09
Location: Chicago-ARTEahora '09 River North Gallery District 233 W Huron St. Main Floor Chicago, IL 60654 312/222.0774 or 312/337.2536 info@artaldo.com www.chicagoarteahora.com
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Antuan, Mind Hook, 2003, Photograph
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Irreversible Serendipity Chance encounters, serendipity and the proverbial finger prints art has left on me from far flung sources gathered under the tent pole that is the Miami “Art Week” satellite fairs & Art Basel Miami Beach are the inspiration for this issue. The majority of featured artists were among the thousands of people who gathered here in Miami for the world’s premier arts confab. While filming our “Best Of “ video, covering the frenzied activities, (look for it at irreversiblemagazine.com) I encountered Jakarta's Haris Purnomo at a sprawling booth at the inaugural edition of the Art Asia Fair. Scrawled on a wall was a message that read: “DHL Lost My Baby”. Intrigued, I approached Purnomo and discovered the artist’s works hadn’t arrived in time for the opening so he was busy drawing on the barren walls. In this issue you will find images of Purnomo’s pieces documenting his concerns over what he calls Indonesia’s “Lost Generation.” Japan’s Maki Hashizume astonished collectors and the curious with a whimsical installation titled “Gulliver” in which she created a Lilliputian urban space full of fanciful creatures in which people could interact and become part of her proposal. China’s booming art scene was front and center with Art + Shanghai displaying some of the most intriguing paintings that have emerged in the Asian market in recent memory.
Giselle Delgado “Leave Your Print”
IRREVERSIBLE MAGAZINE PUBLISHER/EDITOR Norelkys Blazekovic norelkysb@irreversiblemagazine.com Contact: 786- 444-2790 CONTRIBUTORS
In fact, Art Asia was one of the biggest crowd magnets this year and a constant source of amazement.
Carlos Suarez De Jesus
Likewise, I was beguiled by Houston’s Denise Prince who I met at the Bridge Art Fair. Her uninhibited exploration of intimacy and adultery will provoke your senses.
Babacar MBow, International Exhibits Coordinator, Broward County Libraries Division, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
At Chicago’s Aldo Castillo Gallery, also at Bridge, I met Miami artist Sergio Garcia who is represented by Castillo. Check out the graphic, gut-wrenching imagery of a tortured introspection the homegrown talent has become known for.
Diana Freundl Is a freelance journalist and art writer based in Shanghai. She has worked for the curatorial department at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA Shanghai) and is currently the art Director of Art + Shanghai, China
At the Green Art Fair, Irreversible sponsored a delightful puppet show by conceptual marionette master Pablo Cano. Discover his wizardry with cast off media and why the local artist has been bewitching audiences the past decade. Add to the excitement Michelle Weinberg’s eye-popping mural at Wynwood’s alternative showcase Locust Projects, and Alexis Montero’s searing portraits of the denizens of Madrid’s underground scene and you will find that Irreversible has left no stone unturned in bringing you images and people that we hope will linger in memory unexpectedly. In recent decades artists have progressively expanded the boundaries of art, as they have sought to engage with an increasingly pluralistic environment. Irreversible welcomes you to participate in exploring the freedom of developing new models and instruments from everyday life. As we evolve in our efforts to become a creative medium for the better understanding of the complexities of our contemporary existence, we hope you join us on the journey. Our programs include but, are not limited to: Irreversible Website, International Cultural Exchanges, Art Projects, Art Collaborations, Video Art (Documenta), Art Fairs and of course, OUR BOOK (around which all our efforts revolves) Lastly, keep your eyes open for Deja Tu Huella (Leave Your Print) by Giselle Delgado. Through a series of interactive performances, she will be handing out her finger prints to strangers, and collecting others people’s prints for a project that she will unveil at the end of the year. See you at the Fair! Noor Blazekovic Irreversible will reach out to the performance world for our next issue, we invite your comments, suggestions, or works for our consideration and look forward to more chance encounters for inspiration. Summit works to: Irreversible Magazine 540 West Ave # 814 Miami Beach, FL 33139 or contacts us at norelkysb@irreversiblemagazine.com
Copyright© Irreversible Magazine an International Art Project. 520 West Ave, # 803 Miami Beach, FL 33139 USA www.irreversiblemagazine.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, digital, or otherwise without the prior consent of the publisher. Irreversible Magazine an International Art project
Bob Cherin Robert Cherin is a former journalist with United Press International, the author of three published books and numerous short stories. Presently he is an active member of Mystery Writers of America. Therdo Leguizamon A.K.A 3rd-O is a freelance writer and subversive designer based in Miami. GRAPHIC DESIGN Cover & Editorial Design Molly Damsky Die & Pop-Up Design Yuri Jai PHOTOGRAPHY Jorge Parra Jacek Garcanz for Pablo Cano Luis Olazabal for Michelle Weinberg FILM & VIDEO Alfonso Vasquez
For me my performance and video work is an open door through which a flood of humanity has been beginning to pour through. I don't reveal things about myself for personal reasons but to step into a position of being willing to speak for all of us. The pieces I am working on right now are about passionate love and unashamed sexuality. The one about shame is going to be amazing. For once, instead of recounting a story about something I did, I am going to use an incredibly "shameful" story to undo the ideas I was handed about sexuality at a young age. I will tell the story in its true light, as if there were nothing shameful in the least about it. In fact as though what I did was incredibly wonderful, touching and worth honoring. I'm really excited. The love one will work well with it because it is about being willing to be openly happy, revel in the experience. I feel so much feeling is supposed to be hidden away. I have had a difficult time in my life being willing to feel joy openly. I crave it and am so thrilled to have it in abundance.
Denise Prince Houston, Texas, USA
Intimate Distance Adulterer Performance
Denise Prince has shown nationally and internationally since 1987. After coming of age along with the Deep Ellum music and art scene in Dallas, she spent twelve years living and working in Los Angeles and New York, where she studied fine art, critical theory and film at CalArts and New York’s School of Visual Arts. For years afterward, Prince concentrated on a photographic series entitled Things I Never Told You which was selected for exhibition in public spaces, galleries and museums. Jerry Saltz, Senior Art Critic at The Village Voice noted, “Denise Prince’s Jesus, Empire Waist investigates the last great unexplored frontier of art — the secret life of women.”
First Job
Art + Shanghai Shanghai, China Archetypes that have traditionally served, as imagemakers for mankind, giving them a sense of maturity and defining what it means to be human no longer exist. Shifting societal structures and gender roles have eroded the traditional barriers, liberating the average person to find their own sense of identity.
Wang Xiaodi Born 1984 in Chongqing, Wang Xiaodi studied in the Oil Painting department of the Sichuan Fine Art Institute. She is a young female artist dealing with the status of women in present day China. She unites two traditional Chinese male images - the bald Buddhist monk and the high-browed Wise Man' (one of the 8 immortals in Chinese mythology), and transforms them into a feminine young woman.
Wang Xiaodi, Oriental Show 4
Shen Jingdongi, Hero
Shen Jingdong Born 1965 in Jiangsu Nanjing, Shen Jingdong, who served for sixteen years in the Chinese military, merges Pop Art with Marxist propaganda.
Tian Tai Quan, Fluttering
Tian Tai Quan Born 1960 in Chongqing, Tian Tai Quan graduated from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1988. His work tackles metaphysical issues of life and death poetically, yet skeptically through the use of photographic technology. Tian Tai Quan is fostering a new and revolutionary form of art, one that is bringing brave ideas and images to the art world — both within and outside China. There is a spirit of boldness and innovation in his artwork that reflects the unique challenges and excitement of a changing society.
As one of the leading second generation of contemporary Chinese artists, his aesthetic concerns can be clearly linked to age-old traditions and history, yet his technique and portrayal of the subject matter points more keenly toward a new China one that is challenging the past.
Tain Tai Quan’s work reflects a China in transition and focuses on the experiences of his seniors and their social place in contemporary society. As viewers we encounter his photography to discover a portrayal that is as visually impressive as it is engaging. He work illustrates a China today—the paradox of a society steeped in history, yet striving to be “new.”
Shi Lifeng Born 1968 in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, Shi Lifeng studied at the the Hebei Normal University. Shi's paintings display an evolution from the Socialist Realism of the 1980s to the starting points of Expressive Individualism in Chinese contemporary art. Exploring the colonialist characteristics of society, Shi focuses on the groping for and excavation of the world of individual inner feeling; his attitude toward life is also gradually evolved from a collective group consciousness into a self-centered creative conception of identity.
Shi Lifeng, Manipulation 25
Art + Shanghai is a unique and high profile art space located in the heart of Shanghai’s former French concession amidst the escalating Shanghai contemporary art scene. It is an intimate gallery and courtyard extension dedicated to the exhibition, promotion and development of contemporary art in Shanghai. Maintaining a groundbreaking program of small scale solo exhibitions and group shows that introduce exciting new work to local audiences, Art + Shanghai aims to bring to the art world original visions, new ideas and shared knowledge though intimate gatherings, with artists, critics and experts from various creative industries. Diana Freundl is a freelance journalist and art writer based in Shanghai. She has worked for the curatorial department at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA Shanghai) and is currently the art director of Art + Shanghai, China.
If it is true that there are two type of artists— those whose work is an expression of the type of person they fantasize about being, and those whose work is an extension of who they are— then I’d say Sergio Garcia, an intense, engaging man who’s focus remains flinty-eyed through a perennial fog of cheap cigarette smoke, belongs to the latter. After a bruising ego-implosion in his early 20’s and a decade of wandering through the wilderness of a mind-withering purgatory— where he literally waded through other people’s shit while eking out a meager existence as a free-lance plumber—Garcia crawled out of the existential cesspool in 1990, emerging from his insalubrious miasma as an artist striving for mastery over the dark forces of chaos. One’s initial reaction to his work is a strident, self-inflicted psychological autopsy by way of somber introspection. Ouch! Be warned. For those who can identify with shades of selfdestruction, the interior carnage Garcia doles out uninhibitedly, and, sans guile, casts a relentless pall that can ache. Garcia employs self referent heads, menacing daggers and a noxious, acid-toned palette to convey the turmoil roiling his skull. His large canvases often slashed then sutured by the artist—a symbolic act of incising his inner torments and self- healing—are charged with an inherent force that mush the eye sockets into cream corn. Recently he has reintroduced text, unleashing a fierce salvo of poetry in intriguing works on paper soaked in a toxic green Antifreeze radiator coolant hue.
Sergio Garcia Cuba
His fetching Naughty Girl Series, on display at the 2009 “Trends” segment of the Arte Americas Fair in Miami, were steeped with the twisted imagery of fragmented female forms mixed with his now ubiquitous heads, tumescent silvery penises and tongue-and- cheek odes to juicy vaginas and hamburgers and felt a lot like a love of art cresting with a schizzy dose of good old rock and roll. It was as if the gray beard punk rocker had briefly silenced the noise in his brain pan to beat out an infectious rhythm with his brushes instead, reminding us that a misspent youth can also be the salve for ennui in our bland and troubled times. Carlos Suarez De Jesus
Lord Man
Upon returning to Flushing, NY, I started to find materials on the streets where I lived. I wished to make a visual love letter for my muse as a Masters thesis exhibition in painting. Once upon a time, while gaining a Masters in Fine Art degree at Queens College, NY, there lived a wonderful girl whose heart matched her beauty. She became my muse. Everything I create is inspired by her face.
Pablo Cano Cuba
Looking back, being young and having no income, love provided me with all the elements I needed to create something grand. But what? While on a trip to Egypt during the summer of ’84, I visited the famous treasures or Tutankhamen. I love how those ancient artists created every detail with so much love. The texture of gold gilding on wooden sculptures and shrines really interested me.
My first marionette was Santa Barbara on horseback. Fascinated by EgyptianDesign, my marionette horse legs resembled the legs on Tutankhamen’s bed. My big breakthrough arrived when I discovered silver and gold foil inside Marlboro cigarette boxes. I used this beautiful material to enrich the surfaces of my marionettes and proscenium stage. All my thoughts turned to picking up hundreds of cigarette foils to create the surfaces of my stage, marionettes and backdrops. The cigarette foil was abundant and free.
Matilda Hippo
Then I started to recycle things I found on the street into kinetic marionettes inspired by Alexander Calder and Alexandra Exter. When I created Matilda Hippo in ’04, I was very inspired by the Egyptian bed with Hippopotamus heads that I saw in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum. Working with found objects and the idea of transforming shapes that moved and helped tell a story, came from the tradition of Dada art and later Surrealism. Looking at the Russian constructivists and Bauhaus designs also inspired me to create Matilda Hippo, a joyous looking beast, with a pair of hands made from round saltine tins spattered with white paint, and a body from a thrift store sign; the head is a broken acoustic guitar base with a red pocketbook inserted for a tongue.
El Caballero de Paris is among my most nostalgic marionettes, coming from my Cuban heritage. My sister Isabel Hernandez hand-sewed his costume and I provided his elegant black cape made from a discarded black umbrella. El Caballero marionette was invited to attend the coming out party of Princess Tula from the marionette MOCA production “City Beneath the Sea," written by Carmen Pelaez. In a very touching and memorable scene with Princess Tula, El Caballero marionette hands her a white rose.
El Caballero de Paris
I make my living playing with junk. My Moon Man comes from all those sources of inspiration. It’s made with a giant plastic ball lamp. He was created to be very light and easy to control. Be warned, his smiling face can sometimes be scary. Leonardo's portrait of Mona Lisa is among my favorite paintings. Creating my version of her was a challenge. Comedy was very important and giving her life was a thrill. I wanted to give her all the allure of a 20th century modern woman. Bawdy and sexy like the girls in Sex and the City.
Moon Man
Mona Lisa
Pablo Cano in his Studio
Busty Galore I created Busty Galore as a burlesque cabaret dancer in ‘20s. Thanks to Katherine Kramer’s brilliant choreography, Busty came to life as a vivacious sexy striptease dancer in the Viva Vaudeville marionette, a MOCA production in ’07. By working with found objects, I created her head from a straw basket and used silver cigarette foil to cover her face and body.
Still continuing my love story, the marionettes have become portraits myself and others who I wanted to include in my visual love letter. Telephone Lady, developed from my love of old ‘20s Candle Stick Telephones. My marionettes and sets were inspired by the music and films of the Roaring 20's. Tap dancing, Cole Porter, and great singers like Ruth Etting were a big influence during my American upbringing.
Telephone Lady
Marie Antoinette is one of my favorite puppets from the Viva Vaudeville production. She is designed to roll on stage and move her arms, neck, and hands. Inspired by the Rococo period in France, she is covered with silver cigarette foil, giving her a very di f f e r e n t l o o k f ro m tha t o f Egy pt ian ar t . Nevertheless, she is very inspired by the sarcophagus and mask of King Tutankamun. As in all love stories, my marionettes are a work in progress, and, I hope, unpredictable. Having very little money, youth and love combined to help me make something I thought was grand 24 years ago. Thanks to the support of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Bonnie Clearwater, my world of marionettes and art continues to be filled with new inspirations, such as collaborations with film producer Clifton Childree, and many great artists and musicians in Miami.
Marie Antoinette
The artist’s explorations have resulted in a new series of works titled “Identity,” in which Betancourt has endeavored to gather up the sharp and shattered bits of her cultural traditions through the mirror Santeria shops that specialize in divination, good luck amulets and spiritual healing. She discovered a labyrinth of symbolism where unfettered faith and reality are essentially the same, a construct of the subconscious, a place where the past exists side by side with the present. To Betancourt’s surprise, she noticed that often in these esoteric shops the image of a malevolent thug was placed alongside the Virgin of Coromoto, the patron saint of her homeland, and, both equally venerated by some. Everywhere multi-hued Santeria beads corresponding to a pantheon of diverse Yoruban deities, ritual herbal baths, jinx-removing spells and scented potions to attract lovers and money, conjured a mystifying realm the artist sought to capture in her beguiling mixed media works. In one striking piece, she places the image of Jose Gregorio Hernandez at the center of her composition. The man was a Venezuelan doctor who went on to receive legendary status after his death.
Luisa Elena Betancourt Caracas, Venezuela
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Luis Brito Reverón's Dolls Venezuela
Photographer Luis Brito, Venezuelan national prize award recipient, has showcased his work in galleries and museums worldwide. His passion and subject matter is always found through images of madness, religion and death, and his extraordinary ability as a portrait shooter help him channel his obsessions. Having secured access to painter Armando Reveron's dolls for a portrait sitting, he had to wait until the dolls came back to life and talked to him, just like they did to his creator. Only at this point was he able to capture the soul of these seemingly inert, hand-made bodies, who were Reveron's models for all of his last paintings, and beloved companions in his secluded life at "El Castillete", before schizophrenia took over. The portraits of these dolls, currently in exhibition in Miami, at the Lenard Tachnes Gallery, may remain as the only living document of Reveron’s multimedia creation, as the original puppets might soon vanish, due to improper storage. Ironies of life and death...
Luis Brito’s Photographs of Armando Reveron Reverón's Dolls
By combining her background in Architecture and Sculpture Maki Hashizume creates whimsical interactive art that relies as much in the interaction of the viewer as in the innate creativity and message of the artist. The late nineteenth century Hungarian Architect Adolf Loos stated that the “work of art is revolutionary�, while the work of the house is comfort and familiarity. With her BA in Architecture and MFA in Sculpture from the Osaka University of Art, Maki has merged the world of architecture and art to create a revolutionary conversation that is strangely natural and almost familiar. In 2008 Maki joined the Modern Asia Architecture Network as an assistant and participated in the workshop of the French Architect Dominique Perrault at Osaka University. During this time Maki started researching on the relationship between urbanism and nature from a contemporary arts perspective which lead her to the concept of merging urbanism and natural design through art figure pieces. Through this process Maki is able to introduce urban ideas in a more accessible manner.
Maki Hashizume Osaka, Japan
Cork Dress
Her art feels more like a three-dimensional moral infused fairy tale than a sculpture or installation. A great example of this is her enormous installation titled Emotional Volcano, a giant interactive turf covered bubble spewing volcano that instantly sparks conversation concerning the relationship between art and viewer and seeing and feeling. By encouraging the viewer to interact with the art Maki breaks down the boundary between art and urban life. In Maki’s world art is not something that is to be protected behind glass. Instead the art is giving a function, be it a button that alters the environment or simply a place to sit, and as a result the art is transported from the realm of aesthetically pleasing artifacts to the real world. Maki has recently been selected as a leader of Gojyou kai, a cultural public art organization in Kyoto, and will have her first solo exhibition at Kyoto in 2009.
Snow White and Mountain Man
Luis Kerch Mexico
Untitled
To paint following the “death of painting” (that notion that shook the international community during the ‘90s) does not refrain from remaining an abysmal practice that demands an artist employ his legerdemain. When new technologies appear to tyrannize the languages of art, and installations and electronic acrobatics become flag- bearing systems of legitimacy for the avant garde, painting—both solid and limited— has risen as an effective platform for fully generating sense and emotion in our times. Luis Kerch accepts the challenge to paint anew with the maturity that implicates revisiting the history of a nation he no longer inhabits. Mexico is the battleground he now analyses from his foothold in the Canary Islands. This magician of perceptions invites us to hasten closer to the baroque under the optics of expanded figuration and abstraction as well. This work is itself a revision of the fresco located in the presbytery of the Church of Tepotzoltan which has been the object of worshipful glances since the 1800’s. The angels, flowers and even the empty spaces left by the restoration of the original in the Christian temple are translated into a sprawling 12-foot canvas with the goal of evoking temporality, nostalgia and the process of a journey of departure and return where contemplation leads to prayer. Roc Laseca
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I shot this large series of portraits in a pub I own, the Eagle, a suburban gay sadomasochist pub, a must-see of the Deni Monde of Madrid. I’ve spent seven days a week for the last 13 years doing it.
Alexis Montero Spain
The Eagle opens at 2 pm. It’s a café that opens to the street on one window. Anyone could come in. People have coffee, read newspapers, or watch porno. The Eagle is part of the suburb’s daily routine—we’ve been there for 14 years—we all know and respect each other. At night, around 10PM, the doors close and everything turns dark. The stage intensifies, the show starts, and the costume party begins.
Zoom in: A neighborhood transitioning from a gritty, low-rent industrial zone in urban disarray to an iconoclastic showcase of art chic Miami, Wynwood art district. Zoom in closer: A quasi-Caribbean stretch of warehouses, small homes, barbed wire and empty lots. Some yards have chickens running through them, while others are filled with experimental, avant-garde art installations. Closer still and here you are: A warehouse that houses the edgy alternative art space known as Locust Projects. On its surface, artist Michelle Weinberg has instigated a conversation with it surroundings called Hand Painted Warehouse. The mural spans the entire façade, the South facing side, and heads to the back of the building. At first glance, this building looks like any other in Wynwood, a colorful twotone container with casually hand-painted text announcing the business within. In fact, the work blends in so well with its neighbors that one might initially pass it by. A double-take will bring the signage into clearer focus: “Social Club”, “Party Salon", "Supermarket,” “Ideas” and “Temporary Projects Selected by Committee”. To further confuse (or clarify?) Weinberg has inserted cartoon bubbles directing the passerby to “Make up Your Own Mind", claiming that it's “E-Z In‘N Out”, playfully critiquing the presenting and viewing of art.
Hand Painted Warehouse, already a Wynwood landmark, is a tribute to the folksiness of the neighborhood itself. Its visual archetypes are informal, naive and playful, suggesting that local propaganda, like everything else in the neighborhood, is undergoing a volatile social and cultural transition. Weinberg is known for other public projects and works on paper inspired by the latent, untapped aesthetic potential of warehouses and industrial spaces. She pulls out of their seemingly unremarkable architecture a place where we live, think and dream. Hand Painted Warehouse provides a backdrop for any of us to become a player in this explosive and rapidly transforming scenario of art and urban life. Dinorah de Jesús Rodriguez is a writer and film/video artist base in Miami
Michelle Weinberg Miami, USA
Mural Project Hand Painted Warehouse
Haris Purnomo FPA Gallery Jakarta, Indonesia
From 1977-1979, Purnomo was a mover and shaker of “Kepribadian Apa” also known as “PIPA.” It was born as a resistance towards Indonesia’s rigid academic doctrines taught in the art educational circle. PIPA established itself as the foremost and most respected art movement to complement Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (Indonesian New Art Movement) which occurred at the same interlude. This group created quite a stir in the mid-70s with one of their exhibitions. It was shut down by police due to its content, which was highly critical of the government. PIPA questioned the concept of identity, whether in art or in life. Their works mocked, parodied, and criticized Indonesian society's flaws. They were a generation that dreamed of democracy during the periods of oppression under the New Order regime. Purnomo’s most renowned work of that time was a wooden bed stuffed with plastic baby dolls that asked us to take into account the fate of future generations and the hopes for them. "Each Indonesian child,” Purnomo said, “newly born, carries the burden and debts of our past deeds." Art critic Halim HD felt that Purnomo’s babies were helpless and in need of care.
As Purnomo experienced the atmosphere of restriction regarding the interpretation of the state’s philosophies, the babies in his paintings show the traces of disgrace and rigidity of the official philosophical foundation of the Indonesian state. The conformist culture inherited from the New Order remained part of the ideas and themes of his art after the collapse of the regime and the coming of the 1996 reformation. It spawned a freedom, of sorts, for anyone to speak, and provoked a critical question among the viewers of his works. Purnomo verbalizes his concerns and pessimism about the new generation of such quality, while criticizing the old and parents responsible for the births of these babies. “A baby,” Purnomo said, “whoever its parents are, is a new human being, so that we can invest our hopes in children. I am perhaps too pessimistic to expect anything from old human beings, but there is something good in thinking that a thief getting caught and sent to jail is important but it is more significant to ensure that children will not become thieves.” Purnomo’s art asks who has the heart to wound a baby whose flesh is soft and delicate, on its innocent face? Bob Cherin
Nation and Character Building
FPAGallery selected Haris Purnomo, a well-established contemporary artist who exemplifies a consistency since his college days up until today. In his works, Haris expresses rebellious, strong characters, innocence, enlightenment, sarcasm as well as hope. Hopes for attention and spirit for the changes in the surrounding him and also the world.
Floyd Miami, USA
Right now Heglichs Perez, AKA “Floyd,” appears happy to dose mainstream culture with some raw street energy, reaching for soaring heights during head banging performances where he wails on the air guitar then thrashes his canvases with dancing acid flashbacks. The self-styled “Rock Artist” has recently blasted audiences while painting live with high-wattage bands ranging from Marvino Valentino, Kill That Rooster, Psycho Toilet, Beyond the Silence and Guajiro. The 37-year-old Cuban-American artist might strike some as a fugitive from the dark side of the moon. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise considering he takes his nom de guerre from English space rockers Pink Floyd and dyes his goatee a rosy hue as a nod to the pioneer experimental group.
Somos
At his simplest, Floyd is a painter: his work hints at psychedelic, cosmic Sixties Pop art or naïve childhood illustrations. He combines personal references that reflect a constant contradiction or friction resulting in works that at times creep around discordant topics and allusions mixing in a way that doesn’t always fit. In his studio practice the way he develops his work is particular in the sense that he hews to uncomplicated figurative depictions of malleable people, fanciful characters and the occasional clown. At times his flat, amorphous figures seem frozen in the process of melting together. Floyd’s “live motion” performance paintings are freighted with an energy marked by an unwavering irreverence and boldness intuitively absorbed from too many hours of rock & roll as a youngster. Details or forms related to teenage memories are mixed with gritty motifs in compositions resonating with a vibrant tempo where one nearly discerns the borders between the figurative and abstract. At the same time he makes use of strong and appealing contrasts of colors that often exude both a subtle and turbulent vibe enhanced by slashing, gestural stroke work and the application of paint by naked hand. Upon contemplating his paintings one recognizes images that turn out not to be what they seem, that confuse and cause feelings of uneasiness and restlessness as well as surprise or irony. It is exactly these left-field juxtapositions in both his work and approach that make Floyd a compelling figure to watch in action and to question. Carlos Suarez De Jesus
El Camino
The freshness of mind of Philippe Dodard has certainly to do with his continuous insufflating of vigorous fluxes to Caribbean art. The work must be apprehended from a quest for unity in continuity and historical consistency rooted in diversity. This artistic vision beyond postmodernism recenters Caribbean art at the heart of our preoccupations in an old clichés and “sell by date” interpretation of Caribbean visual productions dying era. Rejecting the supreme formalism that characterizes most of his contemporaries, the work of Dodard embodies different answers to our seemingly irresolvable Caribbean problems which have to found different articulations at this particular moment in our history.
Philippe Dodard Haiti, West Indies
Linking memory and history to art making, the work of Philippe Dodard emerges as a rejection of suggestions that artistic forms of vision change independently from feelings and state of mind. His aesthetic approach proposes a dialectic in which the mind and the world, the spiritual and material, subject and object all dissolve into a harmonious unity. Another key premise in Dodard articulation of memory and visual representation is his construction of memory in ways that make it operate through visual representation (with an emphasis on the prefix “re”) to reflect a process precipitated and shaped by the relaying of visual information. Here, Caribbean images engender modes of recollection as much as they are determined by them. Visual representation is in the work of Dodard, a way of demonstrating constructions of memory, conceptually based upon contingency, and bricolage engendered visually; and how visual and related forms of expressive culture are used to re-create memory in the present through a politics of re-presentation and “image-ination.” Babacar MBow, International Exhibits Coordinator, Broward County Libraries Division, Fort Lauderdale Florida The End of the Metanarratives 09
Exhibited at:: L'Almassera, Reial Monestir de Santa Maria de la la Valdigna, Valencia, Spain Museo Jacobo Borges, Caracas, Venezuela Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan The Florida Museum of Hispanic and Latin American Art, Coral Gables, FL GaudĂ GalerĂa de Arte, Madrid, Spain Lydon Fine Art, INC., Chicago, IL Now Showing at: Aldo Castillo Contemporary 465 E Illinois, Chicago IL 60611 312-222-0774 info@artaldo.com www.aldocastillocontemporary.com
Lorna Marsh, Easter Hunt, 2008, Mixed Media, 14 x 12 x 15 inches