Alexander Apóstol
02 Jun - 29 Jul 2010
ALEXANDER APÓSTOL
"Ensayando la Postura Nacional"
June 2nd - July 29th 2010
Caracas experienced a strong urban construction growth after the death of the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez in 1936 until the 70 ́s. Important political changes: European and Latin-American migrations, and especially petroleum costs variations made Venezuelan mentality change at a speeding race to new perspectives that were demonstrated in different areas, architecture being the main element of change towards a modern city. Besides the big social differences, from then on, the Venezuelans have conceived to an extreme this modern period of time as the dream of a better future.
In that time, important plastic artist irrupted during the 40 ́s, 50 ́s and 60 ́s; Escuela de caracas (landscaping), Los Disidentes (abstraction), and the Techo de La Ballena (informalism) were some of the most important avant-garde movements. Curiously enough, the Venezuelan artist Pedro Centeno Vallenilla, formed under the fascist Italian regime and exhibitor of a peculiar nationalist theme with a characterized mannerist and exaggerated aesthetic, worked independently from the avant-garde movements, he was even considered as a minor artist by them. Due to Vallenilla ́s profound political views at the time, he was able to establish himself as the official painter during the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez in the 50 ́s, where buildings like the National Capitol, the National Military or collections and private homes were decorated with his Works. Nowadays his works are still hung in these official buildings, where the nation’s history and the autochthonous elements together with the exaggerated and idealized aesthetic of the body and race, are the main characters in his work.
What interests me is how his fertile visual language feeds the creation myths of the birth of the nation and establishes it like a part of the Venezuelan culture, in the political, social, military and even economic grounds of the country; where his work exemplifies, maybe fortunately, the prejudice, contradictions and acceptations on how Venezuelans want to see ourselves and how we wanted to be seen (and still want to be), contrasting with the exacerbated and vulnerable narcissism that fundaments itself on the starting resentments that we drag on form the colonial times.
Finally I would like to focus Centeno Vallenilla ́s work, independently from his pictorial quality, like the heir of a confused Venezuelan modernity in conception and ideology, confronted in the same way with the confused and complex political and social times that we are now living. Where the frontier between liberal ideologies and economic pragmatism associated with the conservatives, are faded together with the political ways of the country.
In the film and photos, works of Centeno Vallenilla dedicated to the nation’s history, race and traditions, are converted into a tableaux vivant by people that come from the marginated areas of Caracas, but that are situated in the natural context of this artist, these spaces are modern but at the same time unused buildings, like a mansion turned into an office building; Nevertheless, these models try again and again, without achieving the goal, of recreating work by work The forced postures of the personalities represented in Vallenilla ́s Works, demonstrating that there is a possibility that the idiosyncrasy of Venezuela comes from the eternal intent, with form but without meaning, of imagining improvised utopias that result in mere rehearsals of the country.
Alexander Apóstol
"Ensayando la Postura Nacional"
June 2nd - July 29th 2010
Caracas experienced a strong urban construction growth after the death of the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez in 1936 until the 70 ́s. Important political changes: European and Latin-American migrations, and especially petroleum costs variations made Venezuelan mentality change at a speeding race to new perspectives that were demonstrated in different areas, architecture being the main element of change towards a modern city. Besides the big social differences, from then on, the Venezuelans have conceived to an extreme this modern period of time as the dream of a better future.
In that time, important plastic artist irrupted during the 40 ́s, 50 ́s and 60 ́s; Escuela de caracas (landscaping), Los Disidentes (abstraction), and the Techo de La Ballena (informalism) were some of the most important avant-garde movements. Curiously enough, the Venezuelan artist Pedro Centeno Vallenilla, formed under the fascist Italian regime and exhibitor of a peculiar nationalist theme with a characterized mannerist and exaggerated aesthetic, worked independently from the avant-garde movements, he was even considered as a minor artist by them. Due to Vallenilla ́s profound political views at the time, he was able to establish himself as the official painter during the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez in the 50 ́s, where buildings like the National Capitol, the National Military or collections and private homes were decorated with his Works. Nowadays his works are still hung in these official buildings, where the nation’s history and the autochthonous elements together with the exaggerated and idealized aesthetic of the body and race, are the main characters in his work.
What interests me is how his fertile visual language feeds the creation myths of the birth of the nation and establishes it like a part of the Venezuelan culture, in the political, social, military and even economic grounds of the country; where his work exemplifies, maybe fortunately, the prejudice, contradictions and acceptations on how Venezuelans want to see ourselves and how we wanted to be seen (and still want to be), contrasting with the exacerbated and vulnerable narcissism that fundaments itself on the starting resentments that we drag on form the colonial times.
Finally I would like to focus Centeno Vallenilla ́s work, independently from his pictorial quality, like the heir of a confused Venezuelan modernity in conception and ideology, confronted in the same way with the confused and complex political and social times that we are now living. Where the frontier between liberal ideologies and economic pragmatism associated with the conservatives, are faded together with the political ways of the country.
In the film and photos, works of Centeno Vallenilla dedicated to the nation’s history, race and traditions, are converted into a tableaux vivant by people that come from the marginated areas of Caracas, but that are situated in the natural context of this artist, these spaces are modern but at the same time unused buildings, like a mansion turned into an office building; Nevertheless, these models try again and again, without achieving the goal, of recreating work by work The forced postures of the personalities represented in Vallenilla ́s Works, demonstrating that there is a possibility that the idiosyncrasy of Venezuela comes from the eternal intent, with form but without meaning, of imagining improvised utopias that result in mere rehearsals of the country.
Alexander Apóstol