Showing posts with label Nani Cárdenas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nani Cárdenas. Show all posts

June 12, 2011

Claudio Gallina en Galería Enlace / Madam Tusan

A Single Man (2009)
   Directed by Tom Ford

It’s your last day. What would you do? For professor George Falconer the answer is easy: retrieving important documents, closing bank accounts, writing letters to his friends as well as his last will. With unflinching actions and melancholic gestures, Colin Firth creates a most enthralling character, imbued by the sheer emotion of loss and yet adjusted to the repressed feelings he considers necessary to suppress even in his last day. After losing his partner and lover, there is no deterrence in his decision: he will kill himself at the end of the day.

How then could he spend his last 24 hours? Many would have extravagant and unordinary ideas, but the truth is that George Falconer upholds his daily routine facing this day as any other. He wakes up, takes a shower, gets dressed, drives to university, teaches his last class and decides to join his old friend Charlie (amazingly interpreted by Julianne Moore) for supper. Tom Ford’s remarkable film takes Christopher Isherwood’s novel and turns it into a tour de force in which emotions and the human condition are on full display.

Everything seems different when you realize you are watching things for the last time. And so George finally lets go, acting and speaking to people in ways he had not even considered before. Through constant flashbacks, the viewer catches a few glances of the relationship George had with Jim. They had been together for 16 years and if not for a fatal accident they would still be together. Can life lose all meaning once we lost our loved ones? It certainly would seem like it; George finds himself not only disgruntled but also devoid of any hope. He dreads tomorrow. And why should he inflict himself with the torture of existing, day after day, if existence has proven to be so painful and dire?

Some answers can be found in Slavoj Zizek and Jacques Lacan theories; more specifically in the notions of real and symbolic death. Evidently, we will suffer a biological death in which our bodies will fail and eventually disintegrate, that’s what happens with Jim. This death occurs in the Real, and it entails the obliteration of our material selves. But we can also suffer a Symbolic death that has nothing to do with the annihilation of our actual bodies, but rather the destruction of our Symbolic universe and the extermination of our subject positions. Whenever people remember our names, remember our deeds and so on we continue to exist in the Symbolic even though we have died in the Real. Therefore, Jim is not truly dead as George remembers him constantly, but here evocation does not provide the necessary narrative of closure, the grieving process remains incomplete.

There is a fissure that separates the two deaths which can be filled either by manifestations of the monstrous or the beautiful. That is why the presence of Kenny, Nicholas Hoult’s character, is of supreme importance. He is not only the embodiment of beauty but he also provides the companionship George so urgently needs. Only through Kenny and the bonding they start developing will George experience an epiphany (“A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh”). A revelation in which he will understand why is it important to let go of the past, to put the pain away and to take a real risk: to accept life and keep on living.

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El día miércoles asistí a la inauguración de “La proyección del deseo” del artista argentino Claudio Gallina en la Galería Enlace. Paralelamente también se inauguraba la nueva muestra de Nani Cárdenas (quien a principios de año expuso en Yvonne Sanguineti) y Kyle Huffman.

La pintura de Gallina es extraordinaria, exuda una energía juvenil y una mezcla entre candor y erotismo ad portas que no dejará indiferente a ningún espectador. Con pinceladas impecables e imágenes bien balanceadas, Gallina demuestra todo su talento en esta muestra. Del mismo modo, las instalaciones de Cárdenas son una evidencia de su creatividad y versatilidad como artista.

Como llegué tarde esta vez me quedé sin catálogo, pero igual me quedé conversando con Marcos Palacios. De todas maneras regreso la próxima semana para fotografiar todos los cuadros, algo tengo que hacer para sobrellevar la ausencia del catálogo.

Al día siguiente, jueves, se inauguraba la muestra Shanty Town de Rodrigo La Hoz en la nueva galería barranquina Sala 58. Como dibujante, admiro mucho los trabajos realizados a lápiz o con tinta china, en este caso, la exposición reúne diversos dibujos de La Hoz, que nos obligan a reflexionar sobre aquellas cosas que usualmente no ocupan nuestra atención, con un estilo muy particular, heredero quizá de algunos de los grandes maestros del underground norteamericano, La Hoz sabe impactar con sus imágenes.

En esta ocasión me encontré con muchos reyrrojinos como yo: José Arturo Lugón, Juan Diego Capurro, Alexis Paz Ferrand, entre otros. Aunque, claro, conversé mucho más con Juan Diego y Paz, ambos fans del cómic, y les comenté brevemente, o más bien torpemente a causa de los abundantes vasos de whisky que tomé durante la noche (no es mi culpa, les juro que hay un mozo recontra atento que prácticamente me persigue con la bandeja y siempre me pregunta si quiero otro whisky), mi labor en The Gathering. Fue muy simpático encontrarme con ellos, podría decir que este fue el mejor momento de la semana si no fuera por la divertidísima cena que tuvo lugar el día lunes en Madam Tusan. 

Fuimos solamente cinco pero pasamos una noche muy entretenida. Yo empecé con una “nalanjita”, un cóctel de pisco quebranta, aguaymanto y naranjita china, para pasar a los dim sum (algunos verdaderas innovaciones con insumos como el camote), y a los platos de fondo: pollo a lo Bruce Lee, chancho hecho en caja china, chi jau kay. Y terminé con un cheesecake de té verde, realmente sabroso, aunque también probé los wantancitos rellenos de chocolate y la copa de sychee (un granizado con níspero chino y espuma de pisco sour, realmente recomendable). El té y las galletas de la fortuna fueron cortesía de la casa. La atención fue muy buena, y la comida estuvo muy bien, aunque noté que los platos más tradicionales (el arroz chaufa, por ejemplo) eran quizá los menos logrados. Sin duda, lo recomendable es probar las especialidades de la casa. 



March 17, 2011

BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH / Nani Cárdenas- Galería Yvonne Sanguineti

I’ve never been a fan of rankings or top ten charts… but in recent times I’ve come to accept that, somehow, these lists have a certain meaning and relevance. I’ve read thousands of comic books in my life, from European publications to Japanese manga and beyond. However, for some reason, I have sort of specialized in American comic books. There are artists in the American comic book industry that can easily be identified as the best in any given decade… for example in my opinion Will Eisner would be the best artist of the 40s; now other people could probably consider Milton Caniff and Jack Kirby as the most representative artists of the 50s and 60s, respectively. Perhaps partly because of sentimental reasons, John Byrne would be the man of the 80s. In the 90s the best artist could be Geof Darrow. My favorite artist in the first decade of the 21st century would be John Cassaday.



But if I had to choose one artist for the 70s that man would be BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH. I had the chance to read some of the first Conan the Barbarian issues 20 years ago and even as a child I absolutely loved the art. In recent years I’ve been buying the Chronicles of Conan trade paperbacks and Barry Windsor-Smith’s entire Conan run is included in the first 4 volumes. It has been such a delight to admire all that amazing and extraordinary pages. And turns out that Dark Horse’s first issue of the new Savage Sword included a reprint from the 70s. It wasn’t Conan but it was another barbarian known as Bran Mak Morn. And the art is absolutely beautiful. A truly hidden gem.


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La primera inauguración del año en la Galería Yvonne Sanguineti reúne delicados e intricados trabajos en alambres de Nani Cárdenas, en un escenario que agrupa varios personajes de tamaño real. Adicionalmente, unas impecables fotos de otros trabajos de la artista complementan la muestra.


La cantidad de público fue mayor que en otras ocasiones; y como en muchas otras ocasiones, me quedé conversando hasta el final del evento con mi amigo Marcos Palacios, artista que de hecho participó en la muestra colectiva de la galería en febrero. Alternando entre copas de vino tinto y blanco, pasé un par de horas conversando con varios amigos y conocidos, hasta que finalmente acompañé a Marcos hasta el Juanito, famoso local barranquino que a medianoche andaba repleto.