GUSTAVO ACOSTA AND THE ANXIETY OF THE URBAN
From the end of the 1910s through the 1930s the city – with its promise of technological progress and potential of well-being formed the core of a utopian desire that was expressed in the visual images by many of the most significant generation of those artists who attempted to break away from convention and become quintessentially “modern”. From Europeans such as Fernand Léger and Robert Delaunay to South Americans like Tarsila de Amaral and Emilio Pettoruti and North Americans such as the Precisionist painters Ralston Crawford, Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler, depictions of urban subject matter embodied the optimism (albeit often only tenuous) of the early inter-war period.
In the 1980s, 90s and into the 21st century, artist have been re-examining the city through post-modernist eyes trained on the inherent dialogue that this theme implies between decay and redemption. This “nostalgia for the urban” might be epitomized in some of the works of German painter Anselm Kiefer who often exploits the notion of the megalopolis as a metaphor for overarching power, in both its positive and negative aspects. The work of Gustavo Acosta may also be examined in the light of this return to the built environment for inspiration – or discouragement. Acosta has made city streets, decay buildings, viaducts, monumental staircases, unvisited city parks and seemingly-abandoned rooms the principal points of focus in his art for a number of years. Before leaving Cuba and after arriving in Mexico and eventually, the United States, Acosta directed his pictorial efforts at evoking places, both specific and non-specific, in a way which often denies the possibility of the viewer’s direct entry. Through his characteristic use of subdued colors, usually subtly changing tones of brown, gray, white, black and sepia, he suggests palpable physical realities in a way analogous to the visual and psychological effects of black and white movies. In looking at them we know that the places are in some sense real but they are, at the same time, impenetrable to us because of the dreamlike nature of their description.
Although the words “stage settings” have been used by some to describe the mood established in many of Acosta’s paintings, it seems more fitting to describe the scenes he conjures up as representative of parallel realities. Although his paintings appear to depict unreal locales there is always a notion of concrete places in his paintings. At times they appear to be similar to those fantastical places constructed in the art of Italian 18th century painter Giovanni Paulo Panini who depicted disparate famous buildings together in one locale, yet we sense that the artist has been present in every building he renders. Acosta describes sites that are always palpable and exist in concrete terms in his imagination. He is a master at creating senecdoches- fragments that strongly suggest a much larger whole. A simple row of street lights connotes a long avenue, a fragment of a stone wall will define a structure that is monumental, solid and extends well beyond the plane of the picture. Acosta suggest rather than defines the moods which he attempts to convey in his paintings. A large tower or imposing staircase conveys notions of power embodied in a governmental palace, a prison or a tribunal. He is adept at conjuring up a sense of illusory grandeur in his architectural structures in a way not unrelated to Piranesi. And like that great Italian print maker, Acosta never neglects to inject a note of unseen dread. The artist’s handling of the surface of the painting, which often seems distressed and worked over by many layers of ever-deepening dark color, enhances the mood of dismay.
At times he will depict more intimate spaces. His rooms, however, are usually devoid of inhabitants. If they are occupied, it will be by an unseen individual whose presence is merely detected by a leg or some other part of the body that is just beginning to enter the scene. The contrast between the quotidian interiors with their banal furnishing and their slightly eerie, even vaguely sickening feeling that these rooms atmospheres convey to their viewers is exceptional. Acosta is able to suggest these emotional forces with a highly distinct, surreal, even de Chirico-like visual voice. It is this depth of allusion, this undercurrent of tension that forms a unique component of Acosta’s art which helps to explain its power and compelling appeal.
Edward J. Sullivan, 2001.
In the 1980s, 90s and into the 21st century, artist have been re-examining the city through post-modernist eyes trained on the inherent dialogue that this theme implies between decay and redemption. This “nostalgia for the urban” might be epitomized in some of the works of German painter Anselm Kiefer who often exploits the notion of the megalopolis as a metaphor for overarching power, in both its positive and negative aspects. The work of Gustavo Acosta may also be examined in the light of this return to the built environment for inspiration – or discouragement. Acosta has made city streets, decay buildings, viaducts, monumental staircases, unvisited city parks and seemingly-abandoned rooms the principal points of focus in his art for a number of years. Before leaving Cuba and after arriving in Mexico and eventually, the United States, Acosta directed his pictorial efforts at evoking places, both specific and non-specific, in a way which often denies the possibility of the viewer’s direct entry. Through his characteristic use of subdued colors, usually subtly changing tones of brown, gray, white, black and sepia, he suggests palpable physical realities in a way analogous to the visual and psychological effects of black and white movies. In looking at them we know that the places are in some sense real but they are, at the same time, impenetrable to us because of the dreamlike nature of their description.
Although the words “stage settings” have been used by some to describe the mood established in many of Acosta’s paintings, it seems more fitting to describe the scenes he conjures up as representative of parallel realities. Although his paintings appear to depict unreal locales there is always a notion of concrete places in his paintings. At times they appear to be similar to those fantastical places constructed in the art of Italian 18th century painter Giovanni Paulo Panini who depicted disparate famous buildings together in one locale, yet we sense that the artist has been present in every building he renders. Acosta describes sites that are always palpable and exist in concrete terms in his imagination. He is a master at creating senecdoches- fragments that strongly suggest a much larger whole. A simple row of street lights connotes a long avenue, a fragment of a stone wall will define a structure that is monumental, solid and extends well beyond the plane of the picture. Acosta suggest rather than defines the moods which he attempts to convey in his paintings. A large tower or imposing staircase conveys notions of power embodied in a governmental palace, a prison or a tribunal. He is adept at conjuring up a sense of illusory grandeur in his architectural structures in a way not unrelated to Piranesi. And like that great Italian print maker, Acosta never neglects to inject a note of unseen dread. The artist’s handling of the surface of the painting, which often seems distressed and worked over by many layers of ever-deepening dark color, enhances the mood of dismay.
At times he will depict more intimate spaces. His rooms, however, are usually devoid of inhabitants. If they are occupied, it will be by an unseen individual whose presence is merely detected by a leg or some other part of the body that is just beginning to enter the scene. The contrast between the quotidian interiors with their banal furnishing and their slightly eerie, even vaguely sickening feeling that these rooms atmospheres convey to their viewers is exceptional. Acosta is able to suggest these emotional forces with a highly distinct, surreal, even de Chirico-like visual voice. It is this depth of allusion, this undercurrent of tension that forms a unique component of Acosta’s art which helps to explain its power and compelling appeal.
Edward J. Sullivan, 2001.
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