WIFREDO LAM: BLURRING BOUNDARIES

Wifredo Lam: Blurring Boundaries Exhibition 10 – 21 October 2016

Hermès Trismégiste, 1945

Les Oiseaux VoilĂŠs (The Flying Bird), 1945

Wifredo Lam: Blurring Boundaries Exhibition 10 – 21 October 2016 Exhibition Dates and Location 10 – 21 October 2016 30 Berkeley Square, London W1J 6EX Viewing Monday – Saturday 10am–6pm Sunday 12pm–6pm

Phillips Deputy Chairmen Americas August Uribe +1 212 940 1208 auribe@phillips.com Worldwide Head Latin America Henry Hallsopp +44 20 7318 4060 hallsopp@phillips.com Head of Sale Latin America Kaeli Deane +1 212 940 1352 kdeane@phillips.com Exhibitions Manager Edwin Pennicott +44 20 7901 2909 epennicott@phillips.com

NAMLA Founder & Owner Gary Nader +1 (305) 576 0256 art@garynader.com Director of Sales, Latin America & Exhibition Manager Christina Warner +1 (305) 576 0256 cwarner@garynader.com Director of Sales, Latin America & Exhibition Manager Conrado de la Torre conrado@garynader.com Collection Manager Cesar Zuloaga cesarin@garynader.com

Foreword.

Preamble.

In 1902 Wifredo Lam was born in Cuba to an inimitably syncretised family: his father a Chinese immigrant, his mother a Catholic from a long line of Congolese slaves, his godmother a celebrated Santería priestess.

Even before moving to Spain in 1923, the boundaries within Lam’s personal patrimony were blurred to the point of confusion.

His unique vocabulary of cultural references was stretched still wider upon his arrival in Europe. While studying in Madrid, Lam would spend hours in the Prado copying the works of Old Masters, particularly Breughel and Bosch. Meanwhile, his evenings were spent in experimental workshops influenced by younger nonconformist artists such as Salvador Dalí. Lam was gaining exposure to both the canonical traditions of European art and the modern movements sweeping fervently through Western artistic circles.

In 1938, Lam moved to Paris and became closely acquainted with Pablo Picasso. The co-founder of Cubism was quick to offer Lam support and introduced him to important art figures, including Henri Matisse. If the boundaries within Lam’s frame of reference were already riotously blurred, the influx of Surrealist and Cubist influences jumbled them to the point of bewilderment.

Wifredo Lam: Blurring Boundaries.

“To bewilder: to confuse, especially by complexity or multitude of objects or considerations.” The term is appropriate for the power of the works Lam painted after returning to Cuba in 1941. Hermès Trismégiste (1945) epitomises this model of “confusion by multitude”, while Le portrait d’un inconnu (1972) and La Sposa (1962) “confuse by complexity of considerations”, presenting figures not recognisably human or animal.

This exhibition illustrates the continuous development of Lam’s style towards the

parameters of abstraction from 1933 to 1972, but there is an especially striking gulf between the two earliest works (pre-1941) and the others. If ‘to bewilder’ is an effect of his post-1941 paintings, ‘to be wilder’ is clearly the direction Lam’s oeuvre was taking following his first stint in Europe.

It seems incongruous, but while Picasso and André Breton were carving out their avant-garde designs, another trend had Parisian society enraptured: Exoticism.

This involved the representation of nonwestern cultures for consumption by western culture. As such, Afro-Caribbean cultures were hugely fashionable in Europe, but only insofar as they were ‘Other’: uncivilised and entertaining. The patronising trend was manifest in the uproarious popularity in Paris of Josephine Baker – her “danse sauvage”, performed wearing only a skirt of bananas, made her world-famous. Although himself fully accepted into Western artistic and intellectual circles, Lam was frustrated by black cultures’ invisibility in Europe. Baker’s comical primitivism was countered only by tourism brochures that projected picturesque Caribbean visions, whitewashing over the populations’ oppression in favour of the beaches and wildlife.

Just as he developed Surrealist and Cubist elements into his style, Lam carefully reappropriated strands of Exoticism.

His prominence in Europe gave him an unparalleled opportunity to make black cultures visible and valid, playing off voodoo and Santería iconography against contemporary avant-garde strategies.

Lam teases Europe’s perception of black cultures as ‘savage’ and ‘in need of civilisation’ by making it increasingly difficult and irrelevant to differentiate human, animal and even plant forms in his paintings. He plays passionately upon the preposterous colonial cliché that black people are more “connected with nature” than their “rational, intellectual” white counterparts, reinterpreting this connection as an invigorating life force.

Hence, the chasm between the two earliest paintings in this exhibition, both painted in Spain, and the others, in which syncretised life-forms and iconography become increasingly bewildering.

The earliest two are flecked with symbols of a “civilised” European lifestyle: the cross for Catholicism (1933 painting), the instrument and paper for education and “high culture” (1937 painting), the manicured gardens (1933) and the vase of cut flowers (1937) both for human control over nature. In spite of the works’ bright palettes, both have an eerily dispassionate quality. The absence of movement in the first, not one rogue cloud or stray leaf, and the morbid pallor and wistful distant expression of the musician in the second evoke a sense of lifelessness. By 1945, Lam’s figures are no longer recognisably human: multitudes of limbs and heads are interwoven in Hermès Trismégiste with leaves and branches suggestive of birds’ wings.

In Les Oiseaux Voilés and Butinantes (both 1945) the boundaries between human and animal are further confused by the invasion of voodoo imagery. Their skeletal bodies, wings and crowns give the figures in Butinantes the appearance of “angels of death” (a marked contrast with the sedate and immobile Christianity portrayed 1933). Lam’s later works eschew distinctions between human and animal altogether, confidently offering bold and fantastic figures in a distinctly Cubist style. The hybrid figures in La Sposa (1962), Here on Earth (1955) and Portrait d’un inconnu (1972 are somehow playful and disturbing, and the blurring of this boundary is crucial to Lam’s enterprise.

‘I wanted with all my heart to paint the drama of my country, but by thoroughly expressing the Negro spirit, the beauty of the plastic art of the blacks. In this way I could act as a Trojan horse that would spew forth hallucinating figures with the power to surprise, to disturb the dreams of the exploiters’ Wifredo Lam

Lam’s Afro-Cuban heritage is inescapably fundamental to his work, but his immersion in Europe is just as essential. He re-settled in Paris in 1952 and died there thirty years later.

Decades spent in Spain, France and Italy, marriages to Spanish, German and Swedish women, the esteem of Europe’s artists and intellectuals, his incorporation of Western movements into his work—all this confirmed Lam’s standing within Europe. This qualified him for the “Trojan horse” role: fully infiltrated into Europe’s artistic consciousness, a unique vantage point to ‘spew forth’ AfroCuban symbols with bewildering vitality.

Lam’s endorsement of voodoo, primitivism and human-animal hybridity subverts the colonising discourses from which he’s reclaimed them, demonstrating his images’ ‘power to disturb the dreams of the exploiters,’ overwhelming the staid and demure images of Europe in his earlier work.

Consie O’Neill

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1933 oil on canvas 74.9 x 109.5 cm (29 1/2 x 43 1/8 in.)

Signed lower right Gary Nader Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1937 oil on canvas 98 x 79 cm (385/8 x 311/8 in.)

Unsigned, undated Gary Nader Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1960

Figura (Figure), 1942

oil on canvas 80.5 x 60.5 cm (31 3/ 4 x 23 7/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

pastel and charcoal on paper 97.8 x 74.3 cm (38 1/2 x 29 1/ 4 in.)

Gary Nader Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1942 oil on paper 93 x 76.5 cm (365/8 x 301/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right (signature and date not by the artist) Gary Nader Collection

Mère et Enfant (Mother and Child), 1957 charcoal and pastel on paper mounted on board 103 x 84 cm (401/2 x 331/8 in.)

Private Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1944 oil on canvas 70 x 60 cm (271/2 x 235/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Femme Nue, III (Naked Woman, III), 1944 oil on paper mounted on canvas 75.6 x 61 cm (293/ 4 x 24 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Private Collection

Le Nid FascinĂŠ (The Fascinated Nest), 1944

Butinantes (Saque Adoras), (Les Saccageurs), 1945

oil on canvas 61 x 78.5 cm (24 x 307/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower left Private Collection

oil on canvas 78.8 x 81.3 cm (31 x 32 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Hermès Trismégiste, 1945 oil on canvas 160 x 127 cm (63 x 50 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Les Oiseaux VoilĂŠs (The Flying Bird), 1945 oil on canvas 111.2 x 126.3 cm (433/ 4 x 493/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Le Guerrier, I (The Warrior) (L’ Initiateur), 1947 oil on canvas 107 x 84 cm (421/8 x 33 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

PĂĄjaro (Bird), 1954 oil on canvas 72.5 x 91 cm (281/2 x 357/8 in.)

Signed and dated on the reverse Private Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1955 oil on canvas 90 x 72 cm (353/8 x 283/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Private Collection

Ici sur la Terre (Here on Earth), 1955 oil on canvas 105.4 x 99.7 cm (411/2 x 391/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Idoli, 1955 oil on canvas 80 x 102 cm (311/2 x 401/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Deux Personnages et un Oiseau (Two People and a Bird), 1957 oil on canvas 65 x 100 cm (25 5/8 x 39 3/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1957

Ça Va Mal (Trouble is Here), 1962

oil on canvas 141 x 98 cm (551/2 x 385/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Signed on back Private Collection

oil on canvas 70 x 100 cm (27 1/2 x 393/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Private Collection

La Sposa, 1962 oil on burlap 100 x 139.4 cm (393/8 x 547/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Private Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1964 oil on canvas 131.4 x 111.8 cm (51 3/ 4 x 44 in.)

Signed and dated lower right; signed and dated on the reverse Gary Nader Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1969 oil on canvas 68.8 x 49 cm (27 1/8 x 19 1/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Personnage 1/24 (Character 1/24), 1970 oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm (19 5/8 x 15 3/ 4 in.)

Signed on the reverse Private Collection

Oiseau et Personnage (Bird and Character), 1971 oil on canvas 65 x 96 cm (25 5/8 x 37 3/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower left Private Collection

Le Potrait d’un inconnu (A Portrait of an Unknown), 1972 oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm (19 5/8 x 15 3/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower left; signed and dated on the reverse Gary Nader Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1972 oil on canvas 25 x 35 cm (9 7/8 x 13 3/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower centre right Private Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1973 oil on canvas 45 x 35 cm (17 3/ 4 x 13 3/ 4 in.)

Signed lower right Private Collection

List of works.

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1933 oil on canvas 74.9 x 109.5 cm (29 1/2 x 43 1/8 in.)

Signed lower right Gary Nader Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1937 oil on canvas 98 x 79 cm (38 5/8 x 31 1/8 in.)

Unsigned, undated Gary Nader Collection Exhibition Dates and Location 10 – 21 October 2016 30 Berkeley Square, London W1J 6EX Viewing Monday – Saturday 10am–6pm Sunday 12pm–6pm

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1960 oil on canvas 80.5 x 60.5 cm (31 3/ 4 x 23 7/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Figura (Figure), 1942 pastel and charcoal on paper 97.8 x 74.3 cm (38 1/2 x 29 1/ 4 in.)

Gary Nader Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1942 oil on paper 93 x 76.5 cm (36 5/8 x 30 1/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right (signature and date not by the artist) Gary Nader Collection

Mère et Enfant (Mother and Child), 1957 charcoal & pastel on paper mounted on board 103 x 84 cm (40 1/2 x 33 1/8 in.)

Private Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1944 oil on canvas 70 x 60 cm (27 1/2 x 23 5/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Cover & Back cover Butinantes [Saque Adoras], [Les Saccageurs], (detail)1945

Femme Nue, III (Naked Woman, III), 1944 oil on paper mounted on canvas 75.6 x 61 cm (293/ 4 x 24 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Private Collection

Le Nid Fasciné (The Fascinated Nest), 1944 oil on canvas 61 x 78.5 cm (24 x 307/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower left Private Collection

Butinantes (Saque Adoras), (Les Saccageurs), 1945 oil on canvas 78.8 x 81.3 cm (31 x 32 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Hermès Trismégiste, 1945 oil on canvas 160 x 127 cm (63 x 50 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Les Oiseaux Voilés (The Flying Bird), 1945 oil on canvas 111.2 x 126.3 cm (433/ 4 x 493/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Le Guerrier, I (The Warrior) (L’ Initiateur), 1947 oil on canvas 107 x 84 cm (421/8 x 33 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Pájaro (Bird), 1954 oil on canvas 72.5 x 91 cm (281/2 x 357/8 in.)

Signed and dated on the reverse Private Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1955

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1964

oil on canvas 90 x 72 cm (353/8 x 283/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Private Collection

oil on canvas 131.4 x 111.8 cm (51 3/ 4 x 44 in.)

Signed and dated lower right; signed and dated on the reverse Gary Nader Collection

Ici sur la Terre (Here on Earth), 1955 oil on canvas 105.4 x 99.7 cm (411/2 x 391/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1969 oil on canvas 68.8 x 49 cm (27 1/8 x 19 1/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Idoli, 1955

Personnage 1/24 (Character 1/24), 1970

oil on canvas 80 x 102 cm (311/2 x 401/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm (19 5/8 x 15 3/ 4 in.)

Signed on the reverse Private Collection

Deux Personnages et un Oiseau (Two People and a Bird), 1957

Oiseau et Personnage (Bird and Character), 1971

oil on canvas 65 x 100 cm (25 5/8 x 39 3/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Gary Nader Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1957 oil on canvas 141 x 98 cm (551/2 x 385/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Signed on back Private Collection

Ça Va Mal (Trouble is Here), 1962

oil on canvas 65 x 96 cm (25 5/8 x 37 3/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower left Private Collection

Le Potrait d’un inconnu (A Portrait of an Unknown), 1972 oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm (19 5/8 x 15 3/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower left; signed and dated on the reverse Gary Nader Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1972

oil on canvas 70 x 100 cm (27 1/2 x 393/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Private Collection

oil on canvas 25 x 35 cm (9 7/8 x 13 3/ 4 in.)

Signed and dated lower centre right Private Collection

La Sposa, 1962

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1973

oil on burlap 100 x 139.4 cm (393/8 x 547/8 in.)

Signed and dated lower right Private Collection

oil on canvas 45 x 35 cm (17 3/ 4 x 13 3/ 4 in.)

Signed lower right Private Collection

Sans Titre (Untitled), 1964

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