Salas, salones y otras diversiones / Rooms, halls and other amusements (Texto de Reuben Zahler, Associate Professor in History University of Oregon)



"These collages remind me of the literary style of “magical realism,” particularly of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Within these images, fantasy and reality are intermixed so that you can’t tell the difference between them. It is as if certain important, thin membranes are disappearing, or degrading. The membrane between life and death, between the world of humans and that of spirits, between humans and animals, civilization and chaos, life and decay, these membranes are disappearing.

These images relay a sense as though we no longer have a sense of what is reality. We are uncomfortable, I am uncomfortable, with this change and I miss that sense of clarity. I assume that the artist misses, or has a nostalgia for, knowing where is north, for clarity. The art demands, or forces us, to accept that those certainties no longer exist.

I see in these collages a celebration of human diversity, of the variety of human pleasures and appetites. At the same time, within this celebration of variety, there is a despair, a theme that even among all this diversity, none of it matters. Everything will disappear, will die. The art reminds me of Ecclesiastes, which says:

All is dust. All is vanity.

He who increases wisdom increases sorrow

Even among these impressions, the mood can change from one piece to another. For example, in “Casita con Angel” has these moods, and is very dark and despairing. Truthfully, it is hard for me to look at. On the other hand, “Casita Victoriana” has those same impressions, but with brighter colors, more energy. This one imparts an energy that is much lighter, a sense of silliness and humor and sex and bodily pleasure. It has a very different mood.

These are some of my initial impressions. These images seem related to the COVID quarantine. But even more they seem to come out of life in the last 10-20 years of living in Venezuela."

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