Latin American Masters presents, Art of Illusion, recent paintings by Gustavo Acosta (Cuba, 1958).  Gustavo Acosta is obsessed by the power of architecture.  As impressive as his cityscapes appear, they are empty of people.  Acosta’s deserted cities suggest the false promises of history, that revolutions and empires leave only their architectural remnants. 

Art of Illusion explores the architecture of Miami.  Acosta’s Miami is a real estate developer’s dream: bathed in turquoise light, graced with palm lined avenues and luminous skyscrapers rising ever upward.  Yet, all is not as it appears.  The lights are on in those luxury condos, but no one is home.  For all its shimmering surfaces, the city is little more than a ghost town, perfectly maintained and manicured, yet empty.  In a world where time seems to be rapidly accelerating, Acosta captures a fleeting moment, signpost of an era that has already gone by.  In Art of Illusion, we are exiled to a world, which we can look at, but never truly enter.

Gustavo Acosta has exhibited in important public institutions worldwide, including: Museo Nacional, Havana, Cuba; São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo, Brazil; Museum of Fine Arts, Caracas, Venezuela; Palazzo Mediceo, Seravezza, Italy; Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida; and El Museo del Barrio, New York.  

 

 

 

La galeria de arte contemporaneo Lyle O, Reitzel con cede en Santo Domingo y Miami, presenta a partir del miercoles 16 de diciembre del 2009. el Solo Show “The Time Machine”, del reconocido artista cubano, radicado en Miami, Gustavo Acosta, en su espacio de la Torre Piantini, en la Gustavo Mejia Ricart, esq. Ave. Abraham Lincoln de Santo Domimgo, a partir de las 7:30 p,m. hasta las 11:30 p.m. Gustavo Acosta visita nuevamente nuestra isla y estrena su nueva coleccion “The Time Machine” rompiendo un silencio de 6 anos sin exponer a nivel individual en Republica Dominicana, su mas reciente exhibicion habia sido “Viajando de incognito”, en el 2003.

La esperada exposicion individual esta conformada por 15 obras ineditas producidas en acrilico sobre lino y algunos dibujos en graffito sobre papel.

Segun las palabras del curador del Museo de Arte Moderno de Santo Domingo, Amable Lopez Melendez:

“En las obras pictóricas recientes de Gustavo Acosta confrontamos la representación conceptualizada de vistas aéreas, signos arquitectónicos, escalinatas, puentes, murallas, estructuras interiores y exteriores que, más allá del intento de “frisar” únicamente la ilusión del mundo perceptible y el carácter de fachada de nuestra civilización, nos sitúan ante la advertencia del carácter polisémico del producto artístico contemporáneo. Estas obras resultan de una práctica creadora procesada con tal grado de especialización que, ya en su analítica construcción de atmósferas cristalinas y expresivas formulaciones de lo matérico, así como en su expansivo repertorio simbólico, percibimos un universo visual vitalizado, en primera instancia, por una serie de recursos expresivos que operan partiendo de la sutil transmutación de los elementos fundamentales de la paisajística occidental tradicional”

Sus obras se encuentran en la Coleccion Permanente de Museos de gran prestigio internacional, tales como: Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA. Miami, USA, Diputacion Provincial de Ciudad Real. Spain, Lowe Art Museum. Miami, USA, Nassau County Museum of Art. New York, USA, Museum of Contemporary Art. Rep. of Panama., entre otros.

Las obras estarán en exhibición al publico hasta el 30 de enero de 2010.

The Great Systems

The idea of being constantly watched drove him to paint what seem like views seen through night vision goggles. These images looked like they were made by somebody who went around while everybody was sleeping and registered what he saw. While experimenting in this direction Gustavo started to play with the color green and the infinite possibilities that it offered. This led him to use the color as a filter, as if he was permanently looking at his surroundings through a green glass. The result is these group of paintings in which he has ‘softened’ the color in a more even tone, getting farther away from the goggles effect and giving the impression of an image captured when the light had a rare diffusion.

Secret codes
In this series of works Gustavo is exploring night views in which he shows us how cities are mapped out by their lights reflected against the dark background of a starry night, almost like electric Nazca lines. There is a sense of abstraction with pure color points made of light dots, the pitch black background emphasizing the emptiness between the ground and the air.

19 de septiembre - 10 de octubre de 2009

Inauguración 18 de septiembre de 2009 a las 7:00 pm

Del 19 de septiembre al 10 de octubre de 2009 la Galería Siguaraya presenta la exposición “Herir la memoria” de los artistas cubanos Gustavo Acosta y Carlos Garcia de la Nuez, quienes exponen por primera vez en Berlín, sus más recientes pinturas.

Gustavo Acosta y Carlos Garcia de la Nuez son dos destacados pintores de la llamada Generación de los Ochenta, que dio inicio al período conocido como Nuevo Arte Cubano. Ambos integraron el Grupo 4x4, que esta considerado como uno de los más importantes del contexto de las artes plásticas de esa década en Cuba.  Después de 23 años ambos artistas van a exponer por primera vez juntos.

Gustavo Acosta, obsesionado por la arquitectura como expresión del poder, su obra parte de la recreación de ruinosos ingenios, estaciones de ferrocarril y casas coloniales;  a fragmentos de ciudades deshabitadas, aeropuertos, aviones, artefactos tecnológicos de su juventud y vistas aéreas. El trazo figurativo, confiesa Gustavo,  salta cada vez con más frecuencia en los últimos años a la mancha tocando el abstraccionismo, y lo hace cómodo y consciente. Mientras,  a Carlos Garcia le sucede lo mismo pero en sentido contrario, su obra ha transitado por un abstraccionismo al que ha ido incorporando cada vez más trazos figurativos, escrituras y puntuación para crear un lenguaje de comunicación. Podría decirse que el camino de ambos artista se cruza, y Berlín ha sido el punto de reunión escogido por ambos.

Gustavo Acosta (La Habana/Cuba, 1958) comienza sus estudios en la Academia de Bellas Artes de San Alejandro en La Habana, en 1974; y los continúa en el Instituto Superior de Arte de La Habana de 1979-83. Actualmente vive y trabaja en Miami, EUA. Ha recibido varios premios internacionales.

Carlos García de la Nuez (La Habana/Cuba, 1959) comienza sus estudios en la Academia de Bellas Artes de San Alejandro en La Habana, en 1975; y los continúa en el Instituto Superior de Arte de La Habana de 1979-83. Realizó una maestría en Artes Visuales en el Massachussets College of Art en Boston, EUA en 1988. Actualmente, vive y trabaja en la Ciudad de México. Dedicó muchos años a la docencia del arte y del diseño tanto en México como en otros países. A finales del 2008 se publicó el libro monográfico “Carlos García”, el cual abarca 30 años de trabajo del artista.

 

GALERIE SIGUARAYA

Alejandro Villalon

Kleine Hamburger Str. 2

10115 Berlin Mitte

(49)01749222060

www.siguaraya-gallery.com

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Panama (MAC) is proud to present the exhibition “Preguntas al Espejo” (“Questions to the Mirror”), recent works by the Cuban American artist, Gustavo Acosta.  Opening reception will be on Thursday, June 25th, 2009, at 7:30 p.m.

Once again, the urban landscape is the main character and the stage in his works.  “I’ve always been interested in the landscape as a place of a possible mise-en-scène.  I’m interested in it is unreality, its symbolic meaning.  I want them to work as models, or paintings of models; a still life of physical spaces.”
Progressively more abstract, his nocturnal views or his city landscapes “present an intimate code to express memories, nostalgia, and emotions inherent in his art – isolation, yearning, estrangement, fear, hope and fantasy.  The spaces he creates are carefully delineated, totally believable, but somehow not quite correct.  They are drawn and painted with exactitude so, in an almost voyeuristic way, we are able to see down into the streets and coastlines from above – as if we have the power as viewers to manipulate what is happening.  But we see no people.  We have no clues.  We cannot be sure if it is night or day, or where we are.  Are we looking at ourselves, our lives and the story of our existence?  Is this the mirror we question with the artist?
These grids of modern life, laid out with the precision of an engineer, are the locations for thousands of human beings without depicting a single figure – like flying above the earth and imagining life.  We know there are people down there, but we cannot see them.  Finding the grid, trying to place someone within, returning it to real life – those are the challenges and enigmas inherent in Acosta’s work.  Acosta returns the grid to real life through painting and transforms the feats of engineering and architecture into the artist’s canvas.  He then infuses the grid with anonymity and with it a sense of fascination, and loss.
Undoubtedly the sense of loss relates to his homeland of Cuba, which he left in 1991 for Mexico, then Spain, and finally to Miami, where he now resides.  Cuba is the place on his maps.  Even when it is another location represented, it is Cuba that was the first place and from which he began his journey into the exploration of cities and seas – real and imagined.  It is Cuba that he painted to capture and preserve its history and memory.  Only after many many images of the beautiful city and its land and sea, could he venture forth to create other places, now significant to his life.
In this exhibition, we recognize Havana and Miami and fragments of places that can be anywhere, aerial views with that implied human presence that are now broader and more universal.  Emblematic elements may associate them with certain places.  However, more often the runways of one city’s airport are as indistinguishable as its crowded inner neighborhoods.  The distant becomes familiar, but not recognizable.  The urban environment becomes a theater, a stage set for relationships that play out beneath us, without sharing the intimacies we crave to know from above.  The lives are puzzles, as much as the labyrinth of the city’s grid is only a suggestion for our journey within that is difficult to begin and more difficult to complete.  (Dr. Carol Damian, from the catalogue “Questions to the Mirror”).
On a formal side, important departures –that were slowly taking place since 2006- are now more evident.  The use of color and light, a twist on the representational and spatial levels of the images depicted, an approach to abstraction and, above all, the use of a full aerial perspective characterize all the works of the show.
This way of looking from above, from "a bird’s-eye-view or from an airplane or a satellite”, comments Acosta, “offered me the opportunity to explore new possibilities that appeared after such a seemingly simple adjustment; all the new meanings and nuances that the same elements, which I had always worked with, now had to offer.”
And, from these new heights, do we take control or are we controlled?  Are we observers or are we being watched?  Will we find answers or do we asked ourselves more questions?  By the hand of a master with a profound humanity, hypnotized by the vastness of his landscapes, the muted colors of his palette or the blinding lights nocturnal views; his technical virtuosity and disorienting perspectives, we will not find certainties, but each work will gets us closer to our own personal mirrors.

Gustavo Acosta was born in Havana, Cuba (1958), and works and lives in Miami since 1992.  He studied at the acclaimed School of Visual Arts of San Alejandro and the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA).  The recipient of numerous awards, Gustavo Acosta is one of the leading artists of his generation.  His works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe, and Latin America, and they are part of the permanent collections of important museums and private collections around the world.  Gustavo Acosta is represented in Panama by Allegro Galeria.

“Preguntas al espejo” presents a group of sixteen paintings and 2 drawings, as well as a video, produced by Gustavo a Zoé Valdés as a testimony of the artist’s process.

A fully illustrated catalogue, in Spanish and English will be available, and includes essays by Dr. Carol Damian, Director and Curator of The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami, Florida, and by guest curator, Mirie de la Guardia.



Organized by: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Panamá (MAC)
                       Allegro Galeria  
Guest curator: Mirie de la Guardia

For further information:

http://www.allegrogallery.com, T. + 507 226. 6967, E-mail: info@allegrogallery.com
http://www.macpanama.org, T. + 507 262-3380, E-mail: museocontemp@cwpanama.net

Pan American Art Projects Miami, is presenting "Hipotesis de la Locura" the recent works of Gustavo Acosta. Gustavo Acosta's big canvases are showing a departure from his previous work. Although still interested in urban settings he ofering a new view of the city and its surroundings. In these works he ventures into a different treatment of light, resulting in images that look almost abstract.

miami@panamericanart.com

Latin American Masters presents our second solo exhibition for Gustavo Acosta (born Cuba, 1958). Acosta makes paintings that are philosophical and enigmatic objects of painterly allure. His landscapes depict architecture both historic and banal: Ferris wheels; airports; freeways; modernist swimming pools. “Momento,” a painting from the current exhibition, shows a Zeppelin, an object of child-like wonder, floating like an enormous balloon over a cloud-laden landscape. Buried within the skin of the Zeppelin’s iconography is the disaster of the Hindenburg, a disaster which undercut the promises of the Modern Age.

Imagine a tourist walking the cobblestone streets of a grand historical city, only to find that the city has been transformed into a ruin, perfectly intact but uninhabitable.
There is in Acosta’s worldview, the recognition that one may revisit the past, but never fully enter into it. This is no doubt connected with the artist’s feeling of exile. We have all had the experience of returning to a significant place from our past, only to discover that even if the place appears outwardly the same, it remains illusory, little more than a backdrop to our memories of another time. This quality of temporal displacement, of past and present coexisting in a transit zone, is central to Acosta's art, and is perhaps his greatest achievement.

Gustavo Acosta has exhibited in important public institutions worldwide, including: Museo Nacional, Havana, Cuba; São Paulo disaster of the Hindenburg, a disaster which undercut the promises of the Modern Age.

Pan American Art Projects is pleased to announce Gustavo Acosta's solo exhibition opening on Saturday, January 5, with a cocktail reception from 5 to 8 p.m. The artist will be in attendance. This exhibition will be on view through February 9.

Gustavo Acosta's enigmatic paintings investigate the domestic and urban environment in a strikingly intimate and impersonal manner. These large scale figurative paintings observe or illustrate a moment, but without passion. Empty of human presence, Acosta investigates the shapes, colors, and visual suggestions that coexist in the spaces we inhabit everyday. Using a photographic perspective, he frames and angles each scene, removing all context so that the remaining fragments resemble an actorless mise en scene, referencing the theatrical traditions of Latin American art. Aesthetically, there is a constant tension between the textural painted surface of the modernist canvas and Acosta's classical use of pictorial space. He intensifies these tension with high contrasts of light and dark. His skills as a draftsman balance the orthodoxy of figurative tradition and the challenges of contemporary visual language, allowing his work to be traditionally thematic, but conceptually contemporary.

Los Juegos del Principe, esta frase vendria a ser el comentario final sobre el conjunto de obras, conjunto de subseries que presento en la Galeria Nina Menocal. Tres subseries para ser especifico, “The Golden Voice”, “Stalker” y una tercera sin nombre pero recurrente en mi obra, que insiste en la exploracion atemporal de la trayectoria, en el destino y la ubicuidad.
Los dipticos bajo el nombre “The Golden Voice” comentan sobre la inevitable contundencia de los poderes naturales, la vulnerabilidad “civilizada” y ademas las inquietudes y enigmas que tras milenios de esa civilizacion racional nos llevan insistentemente a un punto cero.

De la marca humana, en la cultura occidental especificamente, hablan las obras de la serie “Stalker”, el observador en este caso, es espia, testigo, victima y complice. Es la linea de especulacion tematica en mi obra, digamos que de “ultima generacion”, en ellas pretendo definir una posicion respecto a la paisajistica contemporanea, donde la seduccion y la frivolidad se confunden con la estetica del desecho, con la voracidad de la expansion y con tragedias anunciadas, inevitable la alusion al abrumador poder de la tecnologia, a los controladores que ponemos a controlarnos. Neurosis colectiva de la que invariablemente somos divertidos complices, aunque nos pase como a Chacumbele (asi dicen los viejos cubanos) que el mismito se mato.

Por ultimo la serie de la trayectoria, las tres ciudades que la definen; La Habana, Mexico y Miami. Es un grupo de obras enlazado estrechamente a los origenes de mi trabajo, a la memoria y al replanteamiento de esta, a enjuiciar historia personal y coyunturas locales o universales desde nuevas perspectivas, jugando como el o los traviesos principes a reordenar un enorme  rompecabezas con piezas perdidas, otras que desechamos y las que por el camino van apareciendo.

Gustavo Acosta
Miami, 2006.