Category: reviews

by Lorien Suarez-Kanerva

The Tijuana International Triennial, which opened in July 2024 and runs through February 2025, offers a compelling exploration of contemporary themes like corporeality, identity, and land. Curated by the renowned Brazilian professor Leonor Amarant, this year’s edition brings together a diverse range of international artists, including Miami-based Venezuelan artist Rafael Montilla. A returning participant, Montilla, previously exhibited Big Bang Mirror, a thought-provoking installation that challenged notions of time and space, in 2021. This year, he presents Door to the Universe, a sculpture that deepens his exploration of conceptual and spatial relationships.

Montilla’s work spans photography, sculpture, and performance, with his iconic Kube Man persona receiving particular acclaim. Having performed at prestigious venues such as the Venezuelan, German, and French pavilions at the Venice Biennale, Montilla’s work delves into the interplay of identity, perception, and public engagement.

At the heart of Montilla’s practice is the cube, a recurring motif throughout his work. Whether it appears as a hollow geometric form or a mirrored object, the cube becomes a tool for exploring identity. In performances like Kube Man, Montilla dons a cube-shaped mirrored helmet, erasing his face and replacing it with the reflections of his environment. This act invites the viewer to see themselves in his place, transforming their role from passive observer to active participant.

Montilla’s performances align with Nicolas Bourriaud’s theory of “relational aesthetics,” a concept in contemporary art where meaning in art arises from social interactions. Rather than presenting a fixed narrative, Kube Man creates spaces of spontaneous engagement, encouraging collective meaning-making and dissolving the boundaries between artist, artwork, and audience. This approach is central to Montilla’s artistic philosophy.

This interactive dynamic mirrors the democratic ideals outlined in the Declaration of Independence, an essential inspiration for Montilla’s Kube Man, We Are One performance. As Montilla reflects:

“Kube Man, We Are One draws inspiration from the phrase ‘All men are created equal,’ penned by Thomas Jefferson in 1776. The work uses the figure of Kube Man to symbolize the transcendence of individual differences and our deep connection as human beings. When they see me, the viewer sees themselves, recognizing that we are all part of a collective experience. In a world fragmented by divisions, this performance seeks to create a space of unity, reminding us that we all share the same essence and rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

In addition to his performances, Montilla’s sculptural works also challenge perception and spatial expectations. His Golden Cube sculpture at Florida International University’s North Campus presents a striking interplay of gravity and balance. The cube positioned precariously in one corner defies expectations of stability, creating a visual tension that draws attention to the relationship between form and space. Montilla destabilizes the viewer’s perception through this precarious balance, making the impossible seem possible.

In his latest work, Door to the Universe, Montilla slices a cube with five horizontal bands, creating a compelling visual interplay between exterior form and interior void. The cobalt blue exterior world contrasts with the yellow interior introspective sphere, while a suspended mirror invites contemplation of the void within. Montilla’s use of negative space evokes the minimalist tradition of Donald Judd, yet the work carries symbolic meaning beyond its formal properties.

Montilla draws inspiration from Venezuelan artist Jesús Rafael Soto, whose work with geometry and abstraction has been a significant influence:

“Soto used geometry and abstraction to create a dynamic visual language. His pursuit of order and harmony through form and color has deeply influenced my work. Like Soto, I use geometric shapes, such as the cube, to represent ideas of unity, interconnectedness, and balance.”

For Montilla, the void is not simply an absence but a space of positive potential. Influenced by his decade-long stay in India and meditation practice, Montilla sees the void as a state of heightened consciousness—an openness that transcends thought and perception. This philosophical approach informs much of his sculptural work, where empty space symbolizes possibility and transformation.

His interest in spatial harmony and integration also aligns with the work of Venezuelan sculptor Alejandro Otero. Montilla describes Otero’s influence on his approach to art and environment:

“Otero conceived his sculptures as elements that engage in dialogue with their environment. He sought a harmonious integration between artwork and landscape, creating an aesthetic experience that involves both the viewer and public space. This vision has deeply influenced my interventions in urban spaces, such as in the Big Bang Mirror series, where mirrors transform the surrounding reality.”

Montilla’s connection to iconic Venezuelan artists of the 20th Century and their broader artistic tradition situates his work amongst his art contemporaries, focusing new investigations into the meaning and relevance of art today.

Through geometric explorations and spiritual influences, Montilla’s works invite viewers to reflect on more profound metaphysical questions concerning reality, consciousness, and the universe. He encapsulates this philosophical inquiry in his reflections on Big Bang Mirror:

“My work challenges notions of time, space, and truth, fragmenting and recomposing the viewer’s image in a play of reflections. Big Bang Mirror calls for introspection, encouraging us to explore our origins and embrace our interconnectedness with the cosmos.”

In Door to the Universe and throughout his broader artistic practice, Rafael Montilla transforms emptiness into a potent metaphor for potentiality, urging viewers to move beyond the material realm and into metaphysical contemplation. His works evoke a sense of enlightenment and transformation, drawing on the mystic and philosophical reflections of thinkers like George Gurdjieff and Sri Aurobindo. Their explorations of consciousness, the divine, and spiritual evolution have influenced Montilla’s vision, motivating him to create art beyond aesthetics. His pieces encourage a reflexive journey for the viewer, where the moment of self-recognition before the mirror invites a deeper exploration of self-knowledge, shared humanity, and the complex interplay between our internal experiences and external realities. Through this profound interaction, Montilla’s work becomes a catalyst for personal and collective insight, offering a space where art and spiritual inquiry converge.

by Steve Rockwell

From the outset, by titling their exhibition “At Face Value,” the curators Robert Curcio and Leah Oates put into play a dynamic tension between appearance and subtext, the spoken message and the unsaid meaning of what is presented. Amy Hill evokes the ghost of a 500 year-old porcelain complexioned Ginerva de Benci, a Florentine painted by a youthful Leonardo da Vinci. Her own treatment of it might be of a museum-attending New Yorker with political views who is into Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. 

Hill’s work contrasts the Andrew Owen AO1 hybrid portrait of model Winnie Harlow. Its digitally-generated spokes of eight images funnel to the singularity of a kaleidoscope of sex, gender, and ethnicity. As an artificially-generated construct transcribed from real life, it hints at the trans and post-human, but is a beauty in its own right, nevertheless.

The digital “Twins” photo of Arlene Rush commemorates a turn in the genetic transit of boy, girl, and parent as eerie cloning from a single egg into identical parts. The articulation of sexual distinction is achieved through the tailoring of clothing to shape anatomy. Hand-holding siblings raise their free hands in a kind of benediction to a possible new birth, the bannister before them suggestive of a crib. The fingers of the hand of the sister overlays the image of the mother bride on the wall behind them as a confirming gesture of attribution. The expressed moment is at once, intimate, lovely, and touching.

Chambliss Giobbi places the viewer on their back looking up, as if waking from a film noir delirium. The ceiling fixture behind the shoulder of the besuited man serves a hypnotic eye in the sky probe to signal the continuation of an interrogation or treatment. Where it lands is unclear. Giobbi’s melted Crayola technique captures an aura of Lucien Freud psychological disquiet. As a “votive” artist homage to the real thing, it tucks nicely under your pillow.

In her own words, Claudine Anrather inhabits “an unsteady world, figures freed from time and space,” a Jungian netherworld where  the animus and anima, the masculine and feminine sides of the personal psyche play out their dialectics. Since her subjects here have since given up their ghosts, her portraits of black trans women achieve a rebirth through a channeling of their archetype. Anrather’s painted effigies waft into a visible present from the immaterial timeless.

The intimate self-portraits of Dana Nehdaran transcend mechanically-transcribed visual journals, these being just one of several series that adhere to themes consistent with “At Face Value.” The tension between past, present and future against concealment and revelation play out in the multi-layered play of impasto brush stroke, color, canvas texture, and frames within frames.

D. Dominick Lombardi “self-portraits” at ages 17, 35, and a future 95 echo Oscar Wilde’s “Portrait of Dorian Gray.” Since drawings and paintings are time stamps, his portrait at age 95 should keep the artist younger than his “portrait” for years to come. In the mean time, all three works are at liberty to display tumors and mutations at will. A connection might be made between Lombardi’s drawings and the work of Ivan Albright, which served as inspiration for the portrait in the Dorian Gray film.  

The link between abstract expressionism and the cartoon is energy. Marcy Brafman effectively harnesses the latent force of the animated character without its explicit imagery. In the process, her painted strokes effectively charge her open-ended narratives with wit and vigor. This play between presence and absence sets in motion a game of multi-layered readings. Mere suggestions of eye and mouth are sufficient to drive a story line.

For Shantel Miller, the oil medium has opened up formal creative possibilities to the black experience. The figure on their back on a bed with raised arms displays a complex combination of vulnerability, resignation, rest, and revery. The frame of the room, its bed, and of course the painting itself projected as four floating representations on the wall create a sense of the dreamy meditative with “eyes wide shut.” 

The three characters that Noah Becker introduces in his “Three Figures” (2023) painting cannot be ignored. That they are unsmiling, is not the issue. Like insistent strangers on a doorstep, they will not go away until their “demands” are satisfied. Each subject in a Becker painting tend to be locked within its edges, figures sealed against their ground. We look, negotiate, and contemplate the hats, beards, and suits from a culture out of time.

Painted elements floating across the white of the Pierre St. Jacques paper work spin in space from the “big bang” of its creation. Three male characters seem to be residual burns from an old black and white photo. The viewer is tasked with repeated playback possibilities to solve the cause of the explosion. It seems that someone had absent-mindedly pressed the UP elevator button before all hell broke loose.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel tracks the aesthetic impulse in the corners and creases of culture. One such fleeting event was captured at a table in Crotona Park in the Bronx, where Jennifer had casually stopped for her “Beauty Make Up Check.” As such, it’s a collaboration and celebration of one of life’s unguarded moments out of which any community is necessarily comprised.

By overlaying classic art of the past with tropes of tagging, graffiti and tattoo, Sam Jackson manages to blend various aesthetic disciplines. Fragmented text fuses personal and societal motifs with a collective sensibility, bringing to life the “dead” art of the past. It’s a trope not different in kind to Amy Hill and her “Woman in Orange Denim Jacket.” 

At Face Value: Curated by Robert Curcio and Leah Oates. Saturday, July 5 –27, 2024 @ Station Independent Projects , 220 Geary Avenue, Suite #2B, Toronto, Ontario, Canada http://www.curcioprojects.com/home.html http://www.stationindependent.com

 

by D. Dominick Lombardi

Martin Weinstein’s art is time sensitive. No, not the anxiety producing, stressful, or expiring type. His art is more in the realm of the poetics of time – what we experience most often subconsciously, when connecting with the time/space undercurrent encountered during times of heightened awareness.

Time, a human construct, was designed to give us organization, to put forth the concept of the past, present and future which some see as virtually nonexistent. Weinstein takes a very close look at that last part, dividing his paintings into separate, physical overlapping transvisual layers. The resulting effect of his nontraditional approach precipitously changes the way we perceive two standard genres in painting: the landscape and the portrait, bringing renewed wonder and appreciation to these most familiar types.

Within his paintings, there is this shuffle between near and far, time of day and the changes throughout the seasons or years. Going beyond the preconceived, Weinstein changes the way we process visual information by breaking it down to selective details that jostle and float in space – real time triggers that occur when one is immersed in the experience of life. And despite the fact that Weinstein works with acrylic paints and panels, his art puts forth a very organic and fluid vision well beyond the fixed and familiar. In the orchestration or the illustration of time, the artist pushes beyond the limits within the realm of the painted surface – a challenge that Weinstein solves by angling and overlapping the painted clear acrylic sheets.

Overall, Weinstein’s numerous works are Installed to hint at the sequential process of a graphic novel, moving the viewer through various vignettes that begin with an introduction to the lead characters in the form of portraits. From there, the installation moves us through individual, variously connected vistas where a windy and weightless thread begins in Italy with Venice, Stormy Evenings (2019) and Venice, Stormy Mornings (2021), soaring to a peak of intensity in mid-exhibition with Dogwoods and River, One afternoon Over another (2021), May Evening, One Over Another (2021) and Snowy Evenings, One Year Over another (2021).

Weinstein’s loving embrace of seasonal change is most profound in the spring and summer when the fireworks of exploding blooms reach their various peaks in warmer weather. In these instances, the artist gives that distinctive airiness in his painting technique and places it in the petals of the flowers. Often painted at close range, this series of floral delights is a continuous celebration, clearly recorded in the stunningly alluring Roses and River, Late Evening over Early Evening (2020), Irises and River, Evening Under Afternoon (2021) and Peonies, Three afternoons (2021). In these works and others like it, we experience the endless cycle of the earth through its most brilliant and colorful stars.

Weinstein’s portraits have that similar mix of persistence versus impermanence as we see more than one view of the subject. One immediately gets the feeling that these paintings, whether it is Syd (2015-2015), Katie (2022), John (2022) or the artist’s partner Tereza, April (2020), are individuals that are close in heart, mind and spirit to the artist. And as subjects, they also become integral but less overbearing elements than your standard portrait type, as they are absorbed directly into the artist’s fluid process. As a result, these portraits maintain the aura of each person, the spirit of the individual, placing them in an altogether different realm than the usual portrait type, just like the artist has done in his interpretation of a landscape.

Lastly, there is the Inside Over Outside series that consists of a number of captivating works that move the viewer right through solid spatial boundaries. Walls dissolve, near and far intermingle, and what we understand as here and there blend together in a dance of visual delights. Add to the mix timeless cities like Rome and Venice and the outside under inside takes on even more import, giving the entire materialization of the narrative a chilling vulnerability.

Take for instance, Rome, Stormy Afternoon, Outside Under Inside (2023). Here we see the heavens intermingling seamlessly with the ceiling structure, while landmarks encroach and interior furnishings hang in the balance. In Rome, Stormy Afternoon, Outside Under Inside, and the many works that take on that same challenge of traveling through tangible barriers that demarcate space, there is Weinstein’s unique take on the plotting of time, a vision with far more layers of meaning than the ones recorded in paint. What remains is a very tangible substance well beyond mere representation. Landscape and portrait painting has been thoroughly resuscitated, revived and brought back to its once compelling place in the works of Martin Weinstein.