Page 6 - CATALOGUE POINT RENCONTRE
P. 6
ting place for wandering imaginaries
Yolanda Wood
The wondrous mystery of a trip creates the so-awaited possibility of a meeting point where a trajectory ends, and a fruitful dialogue begins with the unknown,
thus revealing a roadmap to paths to come.
Case in point, the city of Paris which, as the years passed, became such a focal point, allowing all possibilities of relationships, specifically for the artistic world, as
this is where the most creative and fascinating exchanges were initiated. Paris is a city beyond time and it does make sense that there exists an Art Gallery whose
name perfectly defines that intent: “Intemporel”. In that space of “artistic intemporality”, artists from different origins and cultural experiences meet together,
and it is precisely there that will take place an exhibition where everyone will have the opportunity to appreciate the scope of creativity itself.
Both artists and art pieces bring forth what can be called « wandering imaginaries »: coming to a meeting ploint. The exhibit will take place in this aesthetic
realm that functions with it’s own temporal codes. It facilitates the discovery of an unusual dialogue, but so necessary to our contemporary society, that brings
together the distinct Caribbean and Catalonian discourses, both Mediterranean in that they come from countries surrounded by the ocean, in the midst of the
earth. On one side, an American discourse, even though recognized as specifically Caribbean; on the other, a legendary Europe brimming with it’s own past
and present History. Thus, an exhibition out of the ordinary that does not attempt to accentuate the differences born out of that geography, but on the contrary
endeavors to present each artist’s individuality along with what is intrinsic to art: the universality of artistic emotion. The pieces being exhibited cover a vast
period of time and a field of references that is even larger. Through them, multiple impressions and reflections are intertwined and so, as they are placed in
relationship, they go beyond their original context creating an art space that escapes any specific rooting, becomes international, comes and goes around. It is
in that perspective that this exhibit is a must, becoming a nexus beyond schools, trends and styles, but still does not pretend to be an argument to federate nor
discriminate art pieces. Therefore, here you will meet artists who were born before and after the second half of the 20th century, art pieces that are posterior and
more recent ones, masters, recognized artists and emergent ones. This exhibition offers to better understand what is specific to each artist: their imaginaries,
all of them wandering artists on this particular circumstance.
Indeed, there is a divergence between the means and the languages at hand: a collection of engravings with mixed techniques representing Catalonia thanks
to emblematic artists of last century such as Miro, Dali and Tapies, facing the pieces usually found at Intemporel Gallery. This fracture in Art History through
the diverse figures and styles exposed in this show, can be viewed as a tribute of sort reaching beyond critical distanciation between those who were not yet
present when others were, and those who are here today while others are not any more. This dimension that bypasses time and space, allows the actualization
of a discourse that abolishes hierarchies and reveals the awesome transversality of the art world, as it puts forth creators with different means of expression,
whether from continental Europe or from the Caribbean islands.
In doing so, the peripheral lines of a dominant cultural mapping that wrote Art History with self-assurance and authority, are redrawn.
Through it’s diversity, the exhibit unveils the emotional switch that occurred in art in order to open the way for contemporary art, following the second half of
the 20th century, when Miro, Dali and Tapies were the most prominent creators and advocates. Surrealism as much as abstraction were central to the art new
directions, in the very heart of the symbolic power centers and peripheral spaces, witnessing the historico-artistic shift in the creative process; such was the
case in the Caribbean, whether the artists lived in their own native land or in the diasporas.
Foremost, it was abstractionism, not the form of it from the start of the 20th century that less interested Caribbean artists, but rather the renewing influences of
Arte Povera and informal art that boosted a change in aesthetic norms and art critics by placing to the forefront the notion of the supreme freedom of creative
subjectivity in the use of artistic resources. A new universe became wide open for the artists who understood that reality could now be created rather than
merely be represented, and that the delicate concept of surface could be conceived as the receptacle of new innovative alternative materials and means of
communication. All of a sudden the scope of creative possibilities became demultiplicated, and the notion of symbol emerged at the center of creativity mainly
as visual signs understood as objective references, were transformed into attributes charged with meaning. Selection and synthesis were transformed into pure
intellectual proceedings and reached the point of absolute conceptualization of objective reality as a wholesome unit
All of this can be seen in the pieces being displayed, even when the figuration is still clearly present; the underlined achievement of the exhibition is even more
striking thanks to the mixed artistic languages being used and the freedom underlining the visual expression. What it’s about is nothing less than a moment
of major interconnectivity, unusual and without precedent, that could be fathomed as the internationalization of art, born from multiple existential shifts of
periods, of emotional and conceptual changes as well as of successive crisis where distances between territories are narrowed, the strength of the back and
forth allowing a new landscape of exchanges between societies to be seen. However, art does not position itself in opposition to reality nor does it distance
itself from it; it only offers to simply create itself from a cultural and imaginary point of view.
It is all about an internal debate on European modernity under the influence of artistic movements stemming from the United-States, equally marked by
a Caribbean imprint. Thus, the art piece opens up to a better understanding of the History of the significance of abstraction, better apprehended as an art
aesthetic in the creative process; whereas others figurative approaches started to appear on the international art scene in the 1960’s and 1970’s such as Pop Art
and New Figuration that also were involved in the opening of the artistic dialogue about contemporaneity.
As it expanded the artistic possibilities of all the methods used by the artistic languages, art also captured some areas of the artist’s spiritual world that empha-
sized some unknown ways of doing and of thinking art in the realm of a new visual Culture, just like what the Caribbean artists do when you focus your atten-
tion on their production, most precisely from Caribbean spirituality and inter-textual resources.
The universe of reality has given up on a role of standard, and the artists have entered into a world of never-ending self introspection, feeding on all types
of imageries in order to enrich their creations so as to show what is visible and invisible, reality and figuration. It is with upmost strength that this synthesis is
revealed in the graphic works of the Catalonian artists.
A common approach brings closer together these spaced-out pieces. The wandering imaginaries of the artists allow to reduce dramatically the physical dis-
tances between Catalonia and Paris, and even more so between the old continent and the Caribbean.
The free style and spontaneity of the drawing, the thickness of the pigments, the duration of the art piece intrinsically alive in the art piece itself, the autonomy
of the images; all of the above points to areas of exploration that allow to reach into a cultural consciousness in which the flexibility of the language of signs
has not only simplified the artistic codes by a process of an ever increased syntheticness and expressiveness, but also increased the awareness of the art lover in
order to reveal the way in which reality and imaginary erase the borders between different geographical spaces in order to bring together artistic imaginaries
to a meeting point called “Intemporel”.
Cojímar, 12 de juillet 2014
Yolanda Wood
The wondrous mystery of a trip creates the so-awaited possibility of a meeting point where a trajectory ends, and a fruitful dialogue begins with the unknown,
thus revealing a roadmap to paths to come.
Case in point, the city of Paris which, as the years passed, became such a focal point, allowing all possibilities of relationships, specifically for the artistic world, as
this is where the most creative and fascinating exchanges were initiated. Paris is a city beyond time and it does make sense that there exists an Art Gallery whose
name perfectly defines that intent: “Intemporel”. In that space of “artistic intemporality”, artists from different origins and cultural experiences meet together,
and it is precisely there that will take place an exhibition where everyone will have the opportunity to appreciate the scope of creativity itself.
Both artists and art pieces bring forth what can be called « wandering imaginaries »: coming to a meeting ploint. The exhibit will take place in this aesthetic
realm that functions with it’s own temporal codes. It facilitates the discovery of an unusual dialogue, but so necessary to our contemporary society, that brings
together the distinct Caribbean and Catalonian discourses, both Mediterranean in that they come from countries surrounded by the ocean, in the midst of the
earth. On one side, an American discourse, even though recognized as specifically Caribbean; on the other, a legendary Europe brimming with it’s own past
and present History. Thus, an exhibition out of the ordinary that does not attempt to accentuate the differences born out of that geography, but on the contrary
endeavors to present each artist’s individuality along with what is intrinsic to art: the universality of artistic emotion. The pieces being exhibited cover a vast
period of time and a field of references that is even larger. Through them, multiple impressions and reflections are intertwined and so, as they are placed in
relationship, they go beyond their original context creating an art space that escapes any specific rooting, becomes international, comes and goes around. It is
in that perspective that this exhibit is a must, becoming a nexus beyond schools, trends and styles, but still does not pretend to be an argument to federate nor
discriminate art pieces. Therefore, here you will meet artists who were born before and after the second half of the 20th century, art pieces that are posterior and
more recent ones, masters, recognized artists and emergent ones. This exhibition offers to better understand what is specific to each artist: their imaginaries,
all of them wandering artists on this particular circumstance.
Indeed, there is a divergence between the means and the languages at hand: a collection of engravings with mixed techniques representing Catalonia thanks
to emblematic artists of last century such as Miro, Dali and Tapies, facing the pieces usually found at Intemporel Gallery. This fracture in Art History through
the diverse figures and styles exposed in this show, can be viewed as a tribute of sort reaching beyond critical distanciation between those who were not yet
present when others were, and those who are here today while others are not any more. This dimension that bypasses time and space, allows the actualization
of a discourse that abolishes hierarchies and reveals the awesome transversality of the art world, as it puts forth creators with different means of expression,
whether from continental Europe or from the Caribbean islands.
In doing so, the peripheral lines of a dominant cultural mapping that wrote Art History with self-assurance and authority, are redrawn.
Through it’s diversity, the exhibit unveils the emotional switch that occurred in art in order to open the way for contemporary art, following the second half of
the 20th century, when Miro, Dali and Tapies were the most prominent creators and advocates. Surrealism as much as abstraction were central to the art new
directions, in the very heart of the symbolic power centers and peripheral spaces, witnessing the historico-artistic shift in the creative process; such was the
case in the Caribbean, whether the artists lived in their own native land or in the diasporas.
Foremost, it was abstractionism, not the form of it from the start of the 20th century that less interested Caribbean artists, but rather the renewing influences of
Arte Povera and informal art that boosted a change in aesthetic norms and art critics by placing to the forefront the notion of the supreme freedom of creative
subjectivity in the use of artistic resources. A new universe became wide open for the artists who understood that reality could now be created rather than
merely be represented, and that the delicate concept of surface could be conceived as the receptacle of new innovative alternative materials and means of
communication. All of a sudden the scope of creative possibilities became demultiplicated, and the notion of symbol emerged at the center of creativity mainly
as visual signs understood as objective references, were transformed into attributes charged with meaning. Selection and synthesis were transformed into pure
intellectual proceedings and reached the point of absolute conceptualization of objective reality as a wholesome unit
All of this can be seen in the pieces being displayed, even when the figuration is still clearly present; the underlined achievement of the exhibition is even more
striking thanks to the mixed artistic languages being used and the freedom underlining the visual expression. What it’s about is nothing less than a moment
of major interconnectivity, unusual and without precedent, that could be fathomed as the internationalization of art, born from multiple existential shifts of
periods, of emotional and conceptual changes as well as of successive crisis where distances between territories are narrowed, the strength of the back and
forth allowing a new landscape of exchanges between societies to be seen. However, art does not position itself in opposition to reality nor does it distance
itself from it; it only offers to simply create itself from a cultural and imaginary point of view.
It is all about an internal debate on European modernity under the influence of artistic movements stemming from the United-States, equally marked by
a Caribbean imprint. Thus, the art piece opens up to a better understanding of the History of the significance of abstraction, better apprehended as an art
aesthetic in the creative process; whereas others figurative approaches started to appear on the international art scene in the 1960’s and 1970’s such as Pop Art
and New Figuration that also were involved in the opening of the artistic dialogue about contemporaneity.
As it expanded the artistic possibilities of all the methods used by the artistic languages, art also captured some areas of the artist’s spiritual world that empha-
sized some unknown ways of doing and of thinking art in the realm of a new visual Culture, just like what the Caribbean artists do when you focus your atten-
tion on their production, most precisely from Caribbean spirituality and inter-textual resources.
The universe of reality has given up on a role of standard, and the artists have entered into a world of never-ending self introspection, feeding on all types
of imageries in order to enrich their creations so as to show what is visible and invisible, reality and figuration. It is with upmost strength that this synthesis is
revealed in the graphic works of the Catalonian artists.
A common approach brings closer together these spaced-out pieces. The wandering imaginaries of the artists allow to reduce dramatically the physical dis-
tances between Catalonia and Paris, and even more so between the old continent and the Caribbean.
The free style and spontaneity of the drawing, the thickness of the pigments, the duration of the art piece intrinsically alive in the art piece itself, the autonomy
of the images; all of the above points to areas of exploration that allow to reach into a cultural consciousness in which the flexibility of the language of signs
has not only simplified the artistic codes by a process of an ever increased syntheticness and expressiveness, but also increased the awareness of the art lover in
order to reveal the way in which reality and imaginary erase the borders between different geographical spaces in order to bring together artistic imaginaries
to a meeting point called “Intemporel”.
Cojímar, 12 de juillet 2014
