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Lanzamiento del libro "José Antonio - Painting
Sculpture Drawing". Title: José Antonio - Painting
Sculpture Drawing A short Caribbean
concert by Jose Antonio Hechavarria Rivas in the style of John Cage.
Texto Central del Libro. Carina Pino-Santos, 2002. By Carina Pino-Santos
Jose Antonio Hechavarria’s work confirms this while, at the same time, amplifying that logical expectation. This is demonstrated in the panorama of his recent work depicting a mixture of trends, statements and genres that the artist combines in a constant unfolding of aesthetic diversity. He has not abandoned his previous intrinsic coherence in this interesting project: an inclusive art that uses multiple references to pre-modern and modern styles in the history of art, alongside allegories that combine a socio-cultural past and present, as much from the international language as the historic tradition of national art. It could be said that Jose Antonio has a “camp” sensibility, which he uses to glide over the vague conventional surfaces of artistic discourse. This purpose, which most people are already familiar with, is not overlaid with a distancing and frivolous “camp” attitude. Jose Antonio takes a humorous approach, in which one can find a deeper relationship with his own culture. A culture that, from colonization until the present day, has taught us to be extrovert and humorous in order to confront social, political, economic, ethical and emotional challenges. Hence the Cuban “choteo”: * the unexpected carnival that the artist is continually unfolding in his paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, evidenced in their hilarious titles; in the nonsensical closeness of an iconography very distant in geographical space and real time; or in his extravagant imagination where eclectic passion and versatility interweave the most dissimilar cultural allusions. * a colloquial term that defines Cubans’ attitude in dealing with life e.g. not taking life seriously, making fun of situations Thus, creation for Jose Antonio is also an amusing continuum that has always been accompanied by a slight, if respectful, modernist homage to a historian’s image of the past. In reality, this inclusive passion is a strategy that has been used by the mainstream for the last 50 years. It has a track record for Third World artists, whose cultural history shows us how they have learnt to simulate and appropriate for more than two hundred years, during which time they have had to actively assume colonial and postcolonial culture. This vast world of disparate, hybrid elements finds clear expression in Wellcome Gotic (Hechavarria’s one-man graduation show from the Higher Institute of Art, held at a central Havana gallery, in 1999). The artist culminates in a thesis of postmodern and Third World eclecticism, although this esthetic practice was not so common or widespread in Cuba at that time. Impetuously dismantling the conventions for creating different visual associations, Jose Antonio ingeniously designed extravagant environments integrating a group of unusual installations as uncommon architectural models. His intention was to give the exhibition a playful character; the spectator could assemble, like a jigsaw, his own “Fuente Eiffel” which distilled water from tanks linked by rusty iron bars, (similar to those found on the majority of flat roofs or inside apartments in Havana), resembling medieval armor. Or visitors could simply appreciate “El Bohio de la Virgen Maria” made from guano (Cuban Royal Palm tree leaves), but rendered in late Gothic style. All those pieces were made with the characteristic materials of the artists’ surroundings that, like a distinctive sign of identity, also reflect the conditions of our artistic output. Thus, in a relatively brief period of time, he has intensified his intention to include the maximum plurality of language, mainly achieving that aim in his installations. He likewise manages to cause functional disorder between sculpture and architecture, not without clearly criticizing sculpture’s role on architecture. Added to all that is the interest, explicit in these works, of blurring the borders that limit the arts. Restless and versatile, Jose moved onto other projects. He later experimented using matter-- manure, fiber and charcoal--not only to discover the possibilities of such unusual materials, but also in an attempt to create work, still in progress, that continues to dissolve the traditional margins that differentiate sculpture from drawing. Walking along his path of constant formulaic changes, Jose Antonio makes other inroads as well as those as a sculptor or, as it may be better to call him, a creator of installations. In one of his customary leaps, he turned to painting, finding brief inspiration in the social shake-up brought on by the large wave of migration at the beginning of the 1990’s. Those paintings, spanning a very short period, bear witness to a sparklingly hilarity dissolving what could have been an essentially dramatic expression. The artist takes it on board without forgetting intertexuality, or rather without forgetting to mix hybrid images that harmoniously juxtapose classical, renaissance and dream-like elements in a naive style: all is resignified in painting that only appears to be naive, using pure color. We view a symbolism of fantasies and unbelievable dreams that speak to us of the emigrants’ guileless and credulous Utopia. But he very soon abandoned such a surreal social chronicle to work on paintings featuring a bestiary of rare mythological creatures together with Persian, Egyptian and Greek decorative motifs. In 1999, Jose Antonio once again provoked certain amazement in regular visitors to art galleries by showing work tempering revivals of Japanese historical painting. His exhibits combined elements of Op Art, Action painting’s drip technique, distinctive Buddhist iconography, and subtle references to Cuban culture. One could say that the ambiguities followed one after another, in a vast “etcetera” that includes everything but the kitchen sink (or, as Cubans say !Hasta la madre de los tomates!, the title that Jose Antonio gave the exhibition). His latest paintings and sculptures continue to
interweave new interconnections with the Greco-Roman and Byzantine world, at
the same time as combining the figuration and influences of geometrical
abstraction. Currently, the artist’s sensual delight is reaching a
crescendo, above all evidenced in a repetition of soft, rounded forms that
appeared to capture his flexibility in a setting that the artist feels is
impossible to arithmetically geometrize. To conclude, it is now impossible to qualify--in one definite way or another--the art of a creator who resists freeze-framing his work in only one form of expression. If anything can be said in this respect, it is that Jose Antonio seems to me to be a naughty and terrible voyeur. I once wrote that “after quotations, variations, and inclusions, the artist was always willing to disguise himself, as if he was going to a fancy dress party, taking a peek at our reactions.” I compare his exhibition to a short John Cage concert, except instead of parodying classical symphonies with umbrellas, blenders and juicers, Jose Antonio plays Bach to a background of bongos, old-fashioned boleros and bamboo flutes serving as an accompaniment to a large number of Caribbean son players who, from time to time, interrupt their rumba to sing Frank Sinatra melodies. I know that in a few months time I won’t be saying the same thing. Jose Antonio continues to confound and clarify my expectations and, as he gains more strength and complexity, I know that we will be able to disentangle new and subtler readings of his work. Translation: Bernie Dwyer and
Roberto Ruiz |
It is
always exciting to view a new artist’s exhibition, not only because one is
tempted by the element of surprise in contemporary art but also for the
pleasure derived from seeing the innumerable ways that the artist puts over
his ideas about life itself.