“La obra de Gustavo Peña refresca no solo la mirada, sino también el pensamiento”
Gustavo Peña, Paleta 5, 2021, Oil on canvas, 60h x 72w in, 152.40h x 182.88w cm
Para leer mas sobre la critica de Gustavo Visitar este link:
Lor gallery presents: Jose Garcia Cordero with "Opera Nera"
Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery presents 'Opera Nera' by José García Cordero:
José García Cordero, Luna de la Muerte, 2014, Acrylic on linen, 69h x 214w
The contemporary art gallery, Lyle O. Reitzel, founded in 1995, celebrates its 26 years of existence, by presenting the subversive solo exhibition 'OPERA NERA' by renowned Dominican master, Jose Garcia Cordero, along with the release of the book bearing the same title, this coming Tuesday, June 22, running hours from 11:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m. at the Torre Piantini.
"Opera Nera'' covers the period 2001-2020, and is made up of a body of 16 works, produced in acrylic on linen, revealing a Dominican socio-political history rarely addressed in images, where corruption, impunity, citizen insecurity and state crimes are developed for decades in a sort of 'normality'. Garcia uses irony as a battle tool and a transgressive double meaning that characterizes his black humor. His irreverent language; a monochromatic plastic universe, where black and white, light and shadow, are executed with a disturbing skill.
In one of the texts that appear in the book 'Opera Nera', the controversial artist leaves his poetic imprint: "Black this abandonment of all ethics. Black this future. Black the tight leash. Black the mantle that has to cover so many murders". Likewise, the writer and artist Rita Indiana "La Montra", gives her avant-garde pen, dispatching herself as follows: "Thorny parapets give the starry night excuses to do nothing in concrete hammocks in the shadow of a decree, a mangy viralata thinks that it is very tasty to knock dust and lick sack, even if it scares the armpit of his mafia paladin".
On the other hand, the writer Soledad Alvarez offers a more optimistic point of view: "The dream of the night changes the parliament/ will defeat the nightmare".
García Cordero studied painting with the master Hernández Ortega. With a successful career of more than 40 years. He has recently been selected to be part of the book "A-Z of Caribbean Art" where he appears alongside some of the most transcendent exponents of universal Caribbean art, such as Wifredo Lam, Cruz Azaceta, Duval Carriè, José Bedia, Mario Benjamin, Freddy Rodriguez, Tania Bruguera among others.
He has received multiple awards such as: "Medal of Merit" by the Senate of the Republic of France, "Gold Medal" in the I and III 'Biennial of the Caribbean', Museum of Modern Art, Santo Domingo, among others. He has exhibited his works in important collective and individual exhibitions in galleries, museums, art fairs such as ARCO, Madrid, KIAF, Korea, Art Miami during Art Basel, ArteBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Zona Maco, Mexico, FIAC, Paris, Scope New York, as well as in institutions in Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States. In 1994, he was part of "Modern and Contemporary Art of the Dominican Republic", America's Society, New York and Bass Museum of Miami Beach, Fl. 1995 exhibited in the traveling exhibition "Caribbean Visions", Smithsonian Museum, Washington D.C. 1996 selected for 'Premio Marco", Museo Arte Contemporáneo, Monterrey, Mexico. 2003 (Solo) "Human Conditions", Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California. 2015 'Caribes' Cortes Collection, Museum of San Juan, Puerto Rico, among others. His works belong to the Permanent Collection of Salon Vitry-Sur Seine, France. Jesús David Alvarez/Vega Sicilia, Madrid, Spain, Angel Romero, Madrid, Spain. FRAC- Regional Fund of Contemporary Art, Martinique. Cortes Collection Foundation, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. MoLAA-Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California. Marcelo Narbona Collection, Panama. Leon Jimenes Center, Santiago, DR. Museum of Modern Art, Santo Domingo, DR. Chamber of Deputies, National Congress, SD, DR. Central Bank, DR. Ortiz Guardian Foundation, Leon, Nicaragua, Banco de Reservas Collection, Santo Domingo, Lyle O. Reitzel Collection, Samuel Conde Collection, Raul Lluberes Collection, Bonarelli Collection, among others.
José García Cordero, El Batman de Villa I, 2007
Acrylic on linen, 88h x 247w cm
Tendencias Hoy: Featuring LOR gallery
Entre estas últimas se puede citar Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery, un espacio ideal para tomar contacto con la obra de algunos de los mejores artistas dominicanos a través de exposiciones individuales y colectivas y, de paso, llevarse en las retinas todo el colorido que, por lo general, caracteriza sus creaciones.
Gustavo Peña: "Un Riesgo Necesario"
La galería Lyle O. Reitzel presenta “Un Riesgo Necesario” de Gustavo Peña.
Gustavo Peña, Big Blue Geometry 2020, oil on wood, 48x48 in
La galería de arte contemporáneo Lyle O. Reitzel, fundada en 1995, presenta la esperada exposición individual del artista dominicano, de nueva generación, Gustavo Peña, bajo el título “Un Riesgo Necesario”. La exhibición reúne en espacio y tiempo, un cuerpo de obras producidas durante el confinamiento en la era del Covid19, abarcando el período 2020-2021. Las inspiraciones se desprenden de sus nostalgias ochenteras adolescentes, e intentan convertirse en referencias de una memoria cultural generacional, marcada por íconos y gráficas de computadora. A partir de estas iconografías virtuales, el artista fusiona lenguajes abstracto-geométricos o contructivistas, integrando elementos figurativos o al revés, o todo lo contrario, obteniendo como resultado mutaciones e híbridos estilísticos, en composiciones que desde interiores, emergen visiones a paisajes o autopistas alucinantes en exteriores, con una paleta de tonalidades sobria y explosiva que conviven en sorprendente armonía. La exposición será inaugurada a nivel virtual y por invitación, el próximo 5 de abril del 2021, en el espacio de la galería(Torre Piantini.
Según las palabras del curador Omar Castillo, “indicadores. La permanencia de un sentido del humor absurdo en sus pinturas (desde sus tempranas hasta las actuales), y el derroche de dominio técnico, léase su efectiva (que no efectista) capacidad de mezclar recursos: gráficos y gestuales. Eso, combinado a que el universo digital que emana o se experimenta en la cultura de los videojuegos y los referentes inmediatos de la cultura urbana, así como su círculo de coetáneos, conviven en su pintura de una manera natural” y más adelante agrega “Puede que igualmente esa naturalidad le venga dada por el hecho justo de ser caribeño; porque en nuestro Caribe (sobre todo el Insular), los mestizajes y las apropiaciones son los procesos naturales de creolización sincrética cómo reciclante modelo collage desde el cual se han construido nuestras culturas, y por ende nuestros imaginarios”.
Como eje central de la muestra se destaca el gran políptico “Minimal Graphics”, donde impresiona el juego óptico y la destreza técnica de Peña crea un vértice entre lo real y lo real y lo imaginario. El trompe l'oeil que nos ofrece el artista sirve de invitación para reconsiderar el pie en el que estamos parados física y sensorialmente.
Gustavo Peña nace en Santo Domingo en 1979, realizó estudios de Bellas Artes,
Diseño Gráfico, Ilustración y Fotografía en la Escuela de Diseño de Altos de
Chavón (La Romana, Rep. Dominicana). Ha participado en la Bienal Centro León
Jimenes, Santiago, Rep. Dom.; “Under Construction”, William Road Gallery,
Londres; “On Common Ground,” Washington, USA; Global Caribe, Little Haiti
Cultural Center, Miami, USA y Caraïbes, Musée d’Art Contemporain (MAC) San
Juan, Puerto Rico; “Super Heavy” y “Estética Sold Out”, Lyle O. Reitzel, Santo
Domingo, Rep. Dom; Global Caraïbes, Focus sur la création contemporaine
caribéenne, Musée International des Arts Modestes, Francia; “Global Caribbean
Project”; during “Art Basel Miami Beach 09” curated by Edouard Duval Carrie,
Little Haiti Cultural Miami, USA y Borderless Generation: Contemporary Art of
Latin America, The Korea Foundation Cultural Center,Seúl, Korea.
La exposición estará abierta al público hasta el 15 de mayo del 2021.
Gustavo Peña, Desk 2 2020, oil on wood, 48x48 in
Global/Borderless Caribbean XII: Focus Miami presents Contemporary Visual Expression, Local Global, and Dèjá Vu
2020 marks the 12th anniversary of the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance’s ongoing exhibition series, Global Caribbean/Borderless Caribbean. It is also an unusual year when the public stands more than ever to benefit from contact with the arts. Social distancing creates a challenge for Art Basel, Miami Art Week as well as all institutions and organizations devoted to the arts in general but yet it presents an opportunity to develop creative solutions.
This year, The Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance with its long term partner, The Little Haiti Cultural Complex will celebrate this partnership by reopening, of course within the parameters dictated by this ongoing pandemic, with various exhibits focusing on their commitments to the visual arts stemming from this community, this city, and the Caribbean region.
Since 2009, Global Caribbean / Borderless Caribbean has been included in Art Basel’s satellite programming and presented at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex’s main gallery. The first Global Caribbean project was proposed by the French Government, curated by artist Edouard Duval Carrié, and presented with the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance. At that time, the French Government’s Institut Français had just completed a 5-year contemporary arts program focused on Africa. Deciding to do the same for the Caribbean, they reached out to Carrié. He proposed Miami as a home for this new exhibition series — in that very year, a beautiful new facility, the Little Haiti Cultural Center, now called Complex, had just been completed. For the first iteration, Global Caribbean I, Focus on the Caribbean Contemporary Landscape, Carrié wrote: “My aim with this exhibit is not just to show that these islands all have artists worthy of the appellation but more so to underline the universality of their “regional” visions. Whether they are part of well-intentioned cultural directives or they are solo acts whose productions are in defiance of all odds, I want to honor their efforts by presenting them and their works in a pristine new facility, which provides the proper environment to enhance their visuals acts”. Since then, Global Caribbean has expanded as Global Caribbean / Borderless Caribbean, featuring not only Caribbean artists of the archipelago and its surrounding landmass but also those of its diaspora. These major exhibitions included: Kingdom of this World (2011), French West Indies & Guiana (2012), Liquid Knowledge (2016), Visionary Aponte (2017).
Over the years, Global Caribbean / Borderless Caribbean has engaged with multiple countries, organizations, and institutions. Alongside annual exhibitions, we have organized seminars, workshops, and encounters between artists, curators, and researchers to facilitate contemporary cultural dialogues on the Caribbean. All of this occurs within the context of a major international art fair. Miami, as a major intersection point for the Caribbean, is a natural home for this program. Global/Borderless Caribbean has had a significant impact on Miami and the larger contemporary art community by focusing on our neighbors to the south. Many Caribbean artists were first widely seen in these exhibitions, and a conversation around the idea of “Global Caribbean” continues to develop. We have along the years invited guest curators and other academics to formulate what a cultural production from the region could consist of. The goal is to form a dialogue focused on a region whose vibrant visual production is now gaining greater visibility and still may not even see itself as a unified group of places and cultures with a common history.
We thank our many partners such as Miami-Dade County Cultural Affairs, The Knight Foundation, Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States amongst so many others for their generous support as well as the Little Haiti Cultural Complex whose director Ms. Sandy Dorsainvil and its cultural advisor Ms. Marie Vickles have shown constant support and dedication to this ongoing program.
Edouard Duval Carrié
HCAA Director
Contemporary Visual Expression: outdoor exhibition at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex
Local Global: indoor exhibition at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex gallery
Dèjá Vu: indoor exhibition at IPC ArtSpace
For more information and images on the artists participating press the button.
José Bedia and Luis Cruz Azaceta
José García Cordero
Luis Cruz Azaceta Solo Show: "Personal Velocity in the Age of Covid"
Luis Cruz Azaceta, Vitral, 2020 Acrylic on canvas, 48h x 96w in, 121.92h x 243.84w cm
Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery presents "Luis Cruz Azaceta: Personal Velocity in the Age of Covid.
Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery celebrates its 25th anniversary with a spectacular exhibition by New Orleans-based Cuban-American master Luis Cruz Azaceta. The show is set to open, for the first time ever at LOR Gallery in a virtual manner, via Instagram live @lorgallery, Wednesday December 3rd, 2020.
The exhibition is made up of a selection curated by Reitzel of 5 unpublished pieces produced by the artist during the confinement in the 2020 quarantine, along with 6 other works at a retrospective level, which belong to the period 2007-2019, connected to each other in a natural evolution in terms of language, palette and composition within the iconography that identifies Azaceta’s universe.
In paintings such as "Pandemia 2" and "Pandemia 3" Azaceta addresses the "poetic window of the virus and its state of mutation; a cacophony of horror and beauty". He embraces the chaos it has caused and channels it through his own artistic hand, bringing us in the end a powerful exhibition both visually and philosophically.
According to Cruz Azaceta: "In my work I always face reality, whether implementing figuration, abstraction or a combination of both, which allows me the freedom to express my ideas in relation to the situations that occur in the world, creating images to express this condition... Once the work becomes something mechanical to a certain degree in which I know what is going to happen I stop and move on to something else. I don't like to repeat myself and let the work become totally mannerist and mechanical. That's boring to me. I like to be surprised by the process, creating things I don't expect, and that's what keeps me excited and moving forward”.
Luis Cruz Azaceta, born in Havana in 1942, immigrated to the United States in 1960, settled in New York and graduated from the School of Visual Arts, beginning his 40-plus year career as an artist. Cruz Azaceta bursts into the Big Apple as one of the great pillars of Latino origin, with a proposal committed to social causes, denouncing from the vanguard the violence in the streets, the drama of AIDS, the war in Iraq and oil, the dictatorships in Latin America, and being also the first to address, in his plastic discourse, the migration crisis of Cuban rafters.
The artist has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally and has received awards from The Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, and The Joan Mitchell Foundation. His works belong to the Permanent Collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y., Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), N.Y., The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, The Museum Of Fine Arts Boston, MA. The New Orleans Museum Of Art, New Orleans, Cortes, Art Collection, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island School Of Design Museum Collection, Providence, RI. San Antonio Museum Of Art, TX, Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, Museo del Barrio, New York, The Smithsonian American Museum of Art in Washington, DC, MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Mexico, PAMM Museum, Miami, FL.
LOR Gallery has represented Cruz Azaceta's work for over 15 years, organizing seven memorable solo exhibitions, including "Migrations, Labyrinths & Hallucinations"(2005), "No Words"(2007), "Labyrinths"(2010) "Falling Sky"(2013), "Swimming to Havana" in New York(2016) and "A Question of Color" (2018).
The exhibition will be open to the public until January 30, 2021.
Luis Cruz Azaceta, Laberintos, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 48h x 96w in, 121.92h x 243.84w cm
Luis Cruz Azaceta, Amazona Devastation, 2020 Acrylic on canvas, 48h x 96w in 121.92h x 243.84w cm
The entire exhibition can be seen here:
CURATED GROUP SHOW at LOR Gallery
CURATED GROUP SHOW
Come visit new works by our selected artists!
On display until November 1st. 2020
Santiago Ydáñez
Cara Azul, 2020
Acrylic on linen
79h x 73w in
Gustavo Peña
Cabezón 3, 2020
Acrylic on wood
48h x 48w in
Gerard Ellis
Promontorio, 2020
Acrylic and oil on canvas
80h x 60w in
José García Cordero
Delicias, 2003-2020
Acrylic on linen
200h x 200w cm
Santiago Ydáñez
S/t
Acrylic on linen
78h x 74w in
Ignacio Iturria
Un Poco de Miedo, 1994
Oil on canvas
59 1/18h x 70 13/15w in
José Bedia
Otra gente de la sierra
Mixed media on canvas
71h x 122w in
Pierre Monestier
Essayage, 2018
Acrylic on paper
25h x 19w in
Edouard Duval-Carrié
Lava Dandy, 2008
Mixed media on paper
61h x 81w in
Luis Cruz Azaceta
Laberintos, 2019
Acrylic on canvas
48h x 96w in
Luis Cruz Azaceta at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans
News! The work of the Cuban/American master Luis Cruz Azaceta, is currently featured in a new exhibition, MAKE AMERICA WHAT AMERICA MUST BECOME at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans. Curated by George Scheer, CAC Executive Director,, Katrina Neumann, Curator, Private Collection, NYC and Toccarra A. H. Thomas, Director of the Joan Mitchell Center, N.O.
New Acquisition: "Lost at Sea", By Edouard Duval-Carriè at the Art Bridges Foundation
Great News! Lyle O. Reitzel Arte Contemporáneo, is thrilled to announce the acquisition into the ‘Art Bridges Foundation’ of the piece “Lost at Sea”, by Haitian Master Edouard Duval-Carriè.(Courtesy of LOR Gallery). After being exhibited in multiple cultural institutions across the United States, the remarkable artwork will now be a part of the museum’s permanent collection, which receives over six-hundred thousand visitors every year.
“Lost at Sea” by Edouard Duval Carriè, 2014, Mixed media on aluminum, 94h x 144w in, (238.76h x 365.76w cm) has been exhibited in the following museums: • Perez Art Museum, Miami, Florida. • Molaa (Museum of Latin American Art) Long Beach CA • Wallach Gallery Columbia, New York, NY • Frost Museum FIU Miami, FL • Portland Museum of Art Portland, ME • Delaware Museum of Art Wilmington, DE.
Edouard Duval-Carrié, Lost at Sea, 2014, Mixed media on aluminum, 94h x 144w in, 238.76h x 365.76w cm
This artwork is part of a series of works called Imagined Landscapes that was originally created in 2014 for an exhibition at the Perez Art Museum Miami titled, "From Revolution in the Tropics to Imagined Landscapes: The Art of Edouard Duval-Carrié", it was a response to the landscape of the Caribbean and Latin America as an attempt in the 19th-century post-Monroe Doctrine to reevaluate and reassess the landscape of nations to the South of the US.
In this body of work, Edouard Duval-Carrie tries to revisit the work of artists such as the ones from the Hudson Schools which were part of this program. Lost at Sea simultaneously references the land as a wondrous paradise, through the idyllic setting of trees and calm waters with silver highlights, and a latent menace, as suggested by the presence of a black man in the water who makes direct eye contact with the viewer. At the exhibit, the PAMM bought two of the pieces from the series, in which one is part of their permanent collection and the other exhibited at the Perez Family Foundation new space. Six of the others from the series were later sold to Miami International Airport. Lastly, the Berg En Dahl Africa Museum in Holland bought one of the pieces as well.
“I’m the kind of artist which believes in the power of the image and anything to render and frame the work as to make it more powerful the better . For the Imagined Landscape series I envisaged, as the work were quite large to eliminate the frames which are part and parcel of my work.
But I could not resist the idea and came up with this solution of framing that group of work with this rather peculiar material . It is not sand by the way but rather what they call micro pellets which are used to create styrofoam. They are literally microscopic plastic balloons which when heated blow up to create the styrofoam. Their interest is that they are very light and floated when dispersed in the acrylic resin and as a border they formed a cloudy border which I thought was very Venetian in style and effect. Remember the work was conceived as a “galerie des glaces”. I have used this on frames and also in paintings as the effect, though random, I manage to control and feel that it does have a moody , atmospheric and cloud like appearance which feels as if the paintings were piercing through a cloudy sky. A bit of poetic license which was not readily perceived as what was intended!”
LUis CRUZ AZACETA
at the 2020 LOUISIANA CONTEMPORARY Exhibition
“Crisis” 2020, 70x70”
Luis Cruz Azaceta at Ogden Museum of Southern Art
Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery congratulates the master Luis Cruz Azaceta for winning second place at the 2020 LOUISIANA CONTEMPORARY exhibition, featuring the artwork above.
Guest curator, Rene Morales, Chief Curator, PEREZ ART MUSEUM MIAMI (PAAM). September 5 to February 7, 2021
The Cuban-American Master develops parallel series in several media at once, combining materials in unexpected ways. He works constantly and is extremely prolific. For Azaceta, art is a way of facing the world and addressing the human condition.
He has over 100 solo exhibitions and more than 400 group exhibitions. He’s been awarded numerous grants and his work is part of major museum collections nationally and internationally.
Luis Cruz Azaceta’s Statement
“As an artist you use your experiences dealing with your surroundings and your conditions. The condition of being an exile is of being in two places simultaneously-physically in your place of exile, emotionally and spiritually in the place you left behind, your roots. This experience allowed me as an artist to address the condition of violence, racism, isolation, separation and oppression through my work. It gave me an eye to understanding that this experience goes beyond my personal journey to a perspective of a more global condition that many live within.
The rapid state of change in the world at large- the environment, collapsing economies, greed, war, revolution, terrorism – a point where individual citizens are rising against political economic and social injustices is at hand.
Through art I confront this reality. My intention is to create compassion. The vehicle for compassion is the aesthetic that draws one into looking closely at what are, perhaps, sometimes horrific subjects and embracing them”(Azaceta, 2020).
Visit the complete article here:
https://ogdenmuseum.org/winners-of-the-2020-of-louisiana-contemporary-presented-by-the-helis-foundation/
EDOUARD DUVAL CARRIÉ X ARSTY
INVITED BY ARTSY, THIS GREAT INITIATIVE'S GOAL IS TO CREATE CONTENT WITH ARTISTS HIGHLIGHTING HOW THEY ARE ENDURING THIS UNIQUE SITUATION, BRINGING THEIR VOICES TO OUR COMMUNITY AND PROVIDING INSPIRATION FOR ALL.
IGNACIO ITURRIA x ARTSY
Invited by ARTSY, this great initiative's goal is to create content with artists highlighting how they are enduring this unique situation, bringing their voi...
How does art keep you going during difficult times?
Art has kept me present. To me, nothing has changed. For me, painting is isolation in a way, and it's what i have done all my life. Now that I see the current situation, I realized I've been in isolation all my life. When I've travel, I lock myself up and paint; it's what I've always done. So, present times have not altered my pictorial rhythm.
How has your art practice been affected by self-isolation?
Same answer as the first, this self isolation is what I've always practiced and even recommended. To me, It is a way to learn to be with yourself, always thinking that what you're doing is a discourse for others, and is a way of living without the anxieties of rapid communication. It's a communication where one can practice and reflect on the discourse before expressing it to others.
How are you staying creative?
Well, the same way. I sleep, I paint, I sleep, I paint. I don't see anything too weird about it. The weird thing of these times is the appearance of a virus; the one I find more relevant the one virus germinated on TV. The TV is virulent, It's the most contagious of all. In any idle moment I turn on the TV there is always these images that slowly burn into my retinae, and then in my conscious and my subconscious, and little by little these will find their way into my painting. Some elements have surfaced already, but it's important to digest all of what is happening well at first, and then we'll see how it reemerges in what we are doing.
Are you creating new work while social distancing?
Actually, I keep doing the works I was doing. The present times have done some sort of parenthesis; people are not as eagerly calling to the galleries, no rush from museums, nor agitation from art-fairs... everything has slowed down. So, my artists friends and I are in a strange position: All this nervousness and adrenaline evaporated. I just spoke to a friend of mine who was about to exhibit in Washington (and who is really sad it is not longer happening) , whereas I am celebrating not having to enter the voragine and nervousness of the exhibitions I had planned this year. All the preparations, flights, being there... all those things that are not my favourite part of painting. Now I am enjoying quietly like a child who has the justification not to go to school.
Ignacio Iturria
Untitled, 2019
Acrylic on canvas
39 2/5 × 51 1/5 in
100 × 130 cm
Who are some other artists you are moved by right now?
There are artists that always touch me, I can't see why it has to be in his precise moment. I haven't spoken with many of them, I don't know the situation they are in. Well,
I am touched by art in general, almost anyone who paints and specially by people who have been painting for longer than 10 years; one can sense the seriousness of what they are doing and whose work always gives us something to dwell on, to be touched by. Even the person who even trying to do it well hasn't found a message or something interesting is touching, because there is a sort of drama that is also valid and interesting.
How are you staying in touch with your community or supporting other artists?
In the Iturria Foundation there is an art school with several teachers who keep teaching remotely online, and at some point I will be there too. I have also been asked by the Chancellery to send messages, which is not what I planned to do (because I haven't found my way around it) but regardless of my slow pace I will do it in the future.
What work of art in your home means the most to you?
I have a painting by Carlos Federico Saez, a very important painter in Uruguay, a virtuoso who died too young. By familial coincidence, I inherited the small painting, a landscape of Florence from the time he was living in Italy. After that, there's a painting of mine, a gigantic Willow plate in the dining room (that the family says we can't sell) which is about 2 meters by 1.3 meters and is already one with the space, a part of all the pictures of family gatherings.
Ignacio Iturria
El Lobo, 2017
Acrylic on canvas
72 × 68 in
182.9 × 172.7 cm
LUIS CRUZ AZACETA x ARTSY
How does art keep you going during difficult times?
Art is what always sustained me as a person & as an artist. We have ups & downs in life, economic difficulties, etc. Being a Cuban in exile, uprooted from my country were difficult times which made me adapt, persevere & have faith. To me, art keeps me grounded & engaged with reality.
How has your art practice been affected by self-isolation? In my case, to create art you have to be in isolation. I guess most artists are surrounded by 4 walls - isolation allows you to think, meditate & create ideas. This kind of isolation due to the virus which effects us all collectively in many ways besides being physically impacted we are also affected psychologically. Right now I have a series of paintings addressing the virus (covid19) like I did with the Aids epidemic (HIV) back in the ‘80s.
How are you staying creative?
For me, art is a necessity. I always stay creative - that’s why I make sure to have extra materials & art supplies on hand in my studio in case of a sudden event that may stop you form making art: you may not have the means to acquire the materials necessary - like at this moment. I’m never without materials. When I sell a work, part of the money goes towards materials. Might be a psychological factor for me--the importance of having supplies abundant at all times.
Luis Cruz Azaceta Floating Head, 2008 Acrylic, chacoal, shellac on canvas "94x95.5"
Are you creating new work while social distancing?
The galleries are the ones facing social distancing at this point.
Who are some other artists you are moved by right now?
For me the artist that always keeps me going is Picasso - his endless energy & passion. To me, the greatest humanist is Jose Clemente Orozco.
How are you staying in touch with your community or supporting other artists?
I’ve supported many artists by writing recommendations for grants. The young artists I try to encourage them to have perseverance, discipline & tenacity.
What work of art in your home means the most to you?
FLOATING HEAD, 2008 - is a painting that I’ve had in my living room for the past two years. Its a head (self-portrait) surrounded by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. In New Orleans people suffered, lost their lives, homes, jobs & were displaced. This tragedy brings to mind the suffering within the horrific pandemic we’re experiencing now. The unexpected that shakes us to our core.
Luis Cruz Azaceta River Flow I, 2008 Acrylic, charcoal on canvas 98 × 95 1/2 in
Luis Cruz Azaceta Pandemic 3, 2020 Acrylic on canvas 72h x 96w in
ZONA MACO 2020 - Booth A122
Lyle O. Reitzel Contemporary Art Gallery has been invited to the 17th edition of the prestigious Latin American art fair Zona MACO Mexico 2020, presenting a solo show by renowned Cuban artist José Bedia. Zona MACO will present galleries from 26 countries representing the Americas, the Caribbean, Asia and Europe, starting February 5th to 9th at the Citibanamex Center. This event will for the first time link four fairs simultaneously, bringing together Modern and Contemporary Art, Design, Photography and Antiques.
In the words of José Bedia:
“It's flattering to be exhibiting in Mexico again within the Zona MACO. I have a cultural-affective bond with Mexico, firstly because of my studies, since I had the opportunity to visit the country for the first time (1986) and shortly after I lived there permanently (1990-1993). I feel indebted to Mexican culture and especially to its pre-Hispanic past and its living indigenous cultures. As far as possible, I continue to go to Mexico from time to time in order to assimilate these influences first-hand, which are a very important part of my own work. Returning to Mexico, for me, is an act of perpetual learning.”
José Bedia was a pioneer of the radical transformation of Cuban Art that inaugurated the Exhibition Volumen 1, in which he was an integral part of. His passion for the primal Amerindians complemented his anthropological studies on Afro-Transatlantic cultures, studying in depth the faith, beliefs and religion of the “La Regla Kongo” (in which he was initiated in 1983), the “ Regla de Ocha”, and the Leopard Society of Abakuas, among many others. His works are in very important private and Public collections such as Museo Nacional Palacio de Bellas Artes (La Habana), MoMa (New York), Metropolitan Museum (New York), the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), Guggenheim (New York), Tate Modern (London), Smithsonian Museum (Washington), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO), the Daros Collection (Zurich), MEIAC (Spain), DA2 (Spain), IVAM (Spain), CAAM (Spain), MOCA (Los Angeles) and PAMM (Miami).
Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery participated in the beginnings of Zona MACO, then called MUESTRA 2’ in 2003, presenting a group show with José García Cordero and other up and coming caribbean artists. Over the last 23 years the gallery has taken part in prestigious international fairs like FRIEZE(New York), ARCO(Madrid), VOLTA(New York), ArteBA(Buenos Aires), KIAF(Korea), PULSE(MIAMI), SCOPE(Miami/New York), Art Miami(Miami)
The galleries participating in Zona MACO are some of the most relevant in the world's capitals, such as La Caja Negra (Madrid), Enrique Guerrero (Mexico), Henrique Faria (New York), Kurimanzutto (Mexico), Galerie Lelong & Co. (New York), Lisson Gallery (London), Pace Gallery (New York), Ruth Benzacar (Buenos Aires), Galería Alfredo Ginocchio (Mexico) and La Cometa (Bogotá)
PROGRAM JAN - MAR 2020
JOSÉ BEDIA AT ZONA MACO 2020
5 - 9 FEB 2020
LOR Gallery is thrilled to announce our participation by invitation with cuban icon José Bedia in Zona MACO 2020, on Booth A122, General Section. ZⓈONAMACO, Latin America’s art fair, introduces a partial list of selected exhibitors for its 2020 edition, which will take place from February 5 to 9 in Centro Citibanamex,. For the first time, the fair will present in one same location modern and contemporary art, design, photography and antiques, gathering its four fairs (ZⓈONAMACO México Arte Contemporáneo, ZⓈONAMACO Diseño, ZⓈONAMACO Foto, and ZⓈONAMACO Salón) for ‘ZⓈONAMACO Art week.
LOS BRAVÚ AT VOLTA NY 2020
5 - 8 MAR
We are pleased to announce our 5th participation in VOLTA ART FAIR NEW YORK with Spanish duo LOS BRAVÚ , from Wed, Mar 4, 2020 – Sun, Mar 8, 2020 on Metropolitan West, New York. Most of their pictorial production emerges from their residences around the world. For this single show we present a selection of paintings made on both sides of the Atlantic, an artistic journey from a cultural standpoint, between West Africa and the Caribbean. During 2019, chance or destiny took Los Bravú to three outstanding destinations of the colonial past: Santo Domingo, Cadiz and Senegal. Their art is a constant reformulation of the academic resources of Renaissance and Baroque painting, worked from an ironic perspective focusing on the social and cultural peripheries.
JOSÉ GARCÍA CORDERO - OPERA NEGRA
26 MAR 2020
We seal the first quarter with an astounding show by dominican master and french senate laureate José García Cordero with his OPERA NEGRA, a solo show comprising his darkest and most politically charged works to date. This event will take place in parallel locations LOR Gallery Santo Domingo, Palacio Nacional de Bellas Artes and Centro de la Imagen, and will accompany a homonymous publication encompassing both past and recent artworks of monochrome nature.
Tania Marmolejo x ARTSY
INVITED BY ARTSY, THIS GREAT INITIATIVE'S GOAL IS TO CREATE CONTENT WITH ARTISTS HIGHLIGHTING HOW THEY ARE ENDURING THIS UNIQUE SITUATION, BRINGING THEIR VOICES TO OUR COMMUNITY AND PROVIDING INSPIRATION FOR ALL.
How does art keep you going during difficult times?
Art is the outlet that keeps me grounded. No matter how bad a situation gets- if I can physically create something, then I feel I still exist. I’m still ok.
How has your art practice been affected by self-isolation?
It is a continuation of my normal life, with stricter measures. A normal day for me is painting isolated in my studio. Now that isolation is forced- It makes me crave human contact and search for deeper human meaning.
How are you staying creative?
It is a no- choice situation for me. I am lucky to have found space in my mother’s house- where I have been in quarantine, and am lucky I had materials already waiting for me here. I am creating constantly.
Tania Marmolejo,
I Always Come Back Here, 2019
oil on canvas
48 x 79in
Are you creating new work while social distancing?
Yes! I am very inspired, creating in a frenzied state. I haven’t painted this much- in such an urgent way, in a long time. I feel there is a specific situation, that is global and human, and I’d like to document it. I don’t want to live through it without learning something.
Who are some other artists you are moved by right now?
I am moved by the art of Edvard Munch, Egon Schiele, and The German Expressionists. They lived through very hard times, the Spanish Flu is one- Munch survived and painted the experience, Schiele and Klimt for example did not survive. Munch is especially inspiring with his paintings of angst, sickness and human emotion. These artists have always inspired me for their very honest, raw art.
What work of art in your home means the most to you?
My Swedish Grandmother’s sketch book, from her young adult years. It is a mirror into my own soul, I have so much in common with her art yet never knew her. She has always inspired me.
Tania Marmolejo
I'll stay right here, 2019
Oil on linen
42h x 50w in
106.68h x 127w cm
The Kingdom of This World, Reimagined - OPENING DEC 6TH
The Kingdom of This World, Reimagined , curated by Professor in Art History in Texas Tech University Lesley A. Wolff, (Ph.D.) & organized by Marie Vickles, celebrates the 70th anniversary of Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier’s historical novel, The Kingdom of This World (1949). The story follows the trials and tribulations of Ti Noël, an enslaved laborer on a colonial sugar plantation in Saint Domingue. After Ti Noël’s friend, Makandal, loses his arm in an accident and flees the plantation, the events surrounding the Haitian Revolution are set into motion. During this volatile era of revolution and change, Ti Noël struggles to find a place for himself as a free man on an island where he was once enslaved. As Ti Noël’s journey unfolds, so too do the historical events before, during, and after the Haitian Revolution (circa 1791-1804), which Carpentier cleverly weaves into the fictional and marvelous tale of Ti Noël’s many spiritual and physical transformations. This storied novel is credited with helping to launch the literary genre of lo real maravilloso [the marvelous real] in the Western Hemisphere and has served as an archetypal framework for the comminglings of histories and imaginings in the Caribbean since its initial publication seventy years ago.
This exhibition brings to life the slippages of past and present manifest in Carpentier’s masterpiece through a dynamic grouping of contemporary artworks, each of which responds to the novel’s vivid and violent descriptions of colonial enslavement and the struggle for Black freedom and nation. Participating international artists include Dudley Alexis, José Bedia, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Scherezade García, Sergio García, José García Cordero, Simryn Gill, Leah Gordon, Roberto Juárez, and Maggie Steber. The works featured will emphasize painting, photography and mixed media compositions that utilize Carpentier’s imaginative work as the catalyst to engage dialogues about the “Global Caribbean” through themes of revolution, autonomy, history and Caribbean ecologies.
The Little Haiti Cultural Complex will host an opening reception for the exhibition from 4PM to 6PM on Friday, December 6, 2019, which will be precede and followed by receptions for related exhibition programming sponsored by the Little Haiti Cultural Center and the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance. All programs are free and open to the public.
The exhibition will be on view by appointment from December 6, 2019 through January 20,
2020 at the Little Haiti Cultural Center Gallery Satellite Gallery, 307 NE 61 st St., Miami, Florida
Opening Re-Fresh
Lyle O. Reitzel is pleased to announce the Group Exhibition “Re-Fresh”, opening Thursday August 15th featuring recent works by Gustavo Peña, Santiago Ydañez, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Edouard Duval-Carríe, Jose García Cordero, Gerard Ellis. The gallery has invited the artists Walkind Rodriguez (DR), Fernanda Brunet (MX), Pierre Monestier (FR), Melissa Mejía-Rizik and Fernando Varela for the exhibit.
Special thanks to the marvelous turnout that joined us for the opening!
Luis Cruz Azaceta Measure of Equality, 2019, Acrylic, yarn, wood framed on canvas, 73 x 97 x 5
Luis Cruz Azaceta at Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans
About the Exhibition
At a time of heightened division both at home and abroad, imagining a world of shared experience and solidarity between ideologically opposed groups seems like the stuff of dreamwork. Difference, and what to do with it, remains the most significant question of our era and forces a consideration of the role that identity—or, the representation of the individual “self” through personal idiosyncrasies, language, actions, beliefs, appearance, experiences, and forms of social belonging and/or oppression—plays in grappling with heterogeneity in the sociopolitical sphere.
Identity Measures presents a diverse group of artists working in a range of material practices that engage identity not as a fixed structure, but as an insistently mobile and often resistant assemblage of traits and vulnerabilities. This exhibition is predicated on the understanding that identity is shaped by a variety of historical, racial, gendered, socioeconomic, geographical, physical, and ideological experiences through time. By opening up a dialogue about difference through the language of contemporary visual art, this exhibition claims that one’s structural location in the world matters to the articulation of personal and collective identity—a process that poses itself as a dynamic site of agency, creativity, resistance, visibility, ambiguity, and belonging.
This exhibition is organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, and curated by Dr. Jordan Amirkhani. Support for this exhibition is provided by Sydney & Walda Besthoff, The Helis Foundation, the Welch Family Foundation, and the Visual Arts Exhibition Fund. This exhibition is also supported by the City of New Orleans through a Community Arts Grant, as well as by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council.
About Luis Cruz Azaceta
Luis Cruz Azaceta—a visual artist born in Havana, Cuba—is best known for his paintings, drawing, and mixed-media works. Azaceta emigrated to New York City at the age of 18 where he studied at the School of Visual Arts, and he has lived and worked in New Orleans since 1992. Over the course of his career, Azaceta’s work has addressed war, terrorism, displacement, identity, racism, and collapsing economies. Azaceta has exhibited extensively—both nationally and internationally—and has been awarded grants from organizations, such as The Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Joan Mitchell Foundation. His work is in the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Whitney Museum of Art, New York, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Museo De Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela, Marco, and Museo de Arte Contemporaneo De Monterrey, Mexico, among others.
Source: https://cacno.org/identitymeasures
LUIS CRUZ AZACETA AT LOUISIANA CONTEMPORARY
Luis Cruz Azaceta presents at Louisiana Contemporary Exhibition at The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans- August 3, 2019-January 5, 2020 Guest curator: David Breslin, Curator & Director of the Collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
About Louisiana Contemporary, Presented by The Helis Foundation Established in 2012
This statewide, juried exhibition promotes the contemporary art practices in the state of Louisiana, providing an exhibition space for the exposition of living artists’ work and engages a contemporary audience that recognizes the vibrant visual arts culture of Louisiana and the role of New Orleans as a rising international art center.
Artwork:
Luis Cruz Azaceta
APOCALYPSE NOW OR LATER, 2019
Mixed media on canvas
72″ x 72″ x 14.5″