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Carlos
Alfonzo, United States (born Cuba), 1950-1991
Lifetime [Curso de la Vida], 1988
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| As
its title indicates, Lifetime is autobiographical.
Its stream-of-consciousness imagery records the artist’s
thoughts, impressions, and experiences, his joys and anxieties,
and the kaleidoscopic variety of his everyday life. Carlos
Alfonzo came to the United States via the Mariel boat lift
in 1980 and settled in Miami. Lifetime incorporates
many elements from the artist’s complex, symbolic language:
disembodied eyes, grinning mouths, hands, heads, and skulls;
tears, drops of blood, and other body fluids; and phalluses
and testicles. The latter often assume the form of the figure
eight, the symbol for infinity. Other key elements are a ballerina’s
legs, symbolizing artistic inspiration and grace; a spiral,
representing vital forces of creation and destruction; and
squares or cubes, standing for perfection and eternity. The
loud colors and rhythms of Cuba and symbols from Afro-Cuban
folklore and religion, such as the daggers and arrows, are
also found in Lifetime and other works. The crucified
Christ, the martyrs, and the images of death found in Baroque
Christian iconography were also important sources for the
artist. |
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Fernando
Botero, Colombia, b. 1932
Las Frutas, 1964
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| Painted
in New York City in conscious rejection of American color-field
painting, which was then in favor, Las Frutas is
a bloated still life that reiterates Botero’s belief
in the paramount importance of volumetric, objective form.
Botero takes imagery derived from the academic tradition and
parodies the ideal through gross plasticity and massive scale.
Here, golden, swollen fruit of heroic size pays tribute to
the sensuality of shape and form. Rebuffing the post-war trend
toward the deconstruction of the object, and ignoring abstraction
and conceptualism, Botero prefers that viewers absorb the
sheer physicality of his forms rather than struggle with their
meaning. Alternately called a Surrealist and a naive realist,
Botero, has created an art that resists stylistic and cultural
classification.
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José
Bedia, United States (born Cuba), b. 1959
Nkunia, Gajo o Rama [twig, cutting or branch], 1995
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| José
Bedia, a member of Miami’s Cuban-American exile community,
references the Afro-Hispanic-Amerindian cultural identity of
his Cuban heritage, in both personal and universal terms. He
is particularly interested in the merging of African ancestral
spirits with his own. He was initiated into the African Regla
de Congo religion in Cuba, where he received his artistic training. |
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Arnaldo
Roche-Rabell, Puerto Rico, b. 1955
Untitled, 1991
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| In
Roche-Rabell’s color-rich compositions, a figure, usually
a self-portrait, is portrayed as a protagonist, but his identity
as victim or victimizer depends on one’s interpretation.
Tropical leaves native to Puerto Rico, are an essential motif
of the imagery, which, stresses the complexities of the relationship
between the United States and its Caribbean dependency. |
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