by the El Reportero’s
Rafael Soriano
This summer two major paintings by Cuban master Rafael Soriano were given to the Smithsonian American Art Museum for its permanent collection. These two works, Un Lugar Distante (A Distant Place) (1972) and Candor de la Alborada (Candor of Dawn) (1994), represent significant moments in Soriano’s artistic production.
“These important paintings by Rafael Soriano are excellent additions to the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection,” said Dr. E. Carmen Ramos, curator of Latino art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “While the museum’s collection includes important works by Cuban American artists—especially those that were educated in the United States like Ana Mendieta and Maria Brito—these Soriano acquisitions allow us to capture the perspective of the first generation of Cuban exiles who arrived as adults with significant careers in Cuba already under their belt.”
A founder and early director of the School of Fine Arts in his native Matanzas, Soriano was a committed member of the communal life of his city. A member of the third Cuban avant-garde, Soriano’s early work in Cuba was a manifestation of geometric abstraction. Throughout the 1950s, he exhibited and was associated with the Pintores Concretos group of artists that introduced geometric and concrete abstraction in Cuba.
Soriano’s art experienced an extraordinary transformation along with his personal life as a Cuban exile. Soriano developed rectilinear, angular compositions endowed with strong, flat colors and forms that gave way to organic ones, and color became simultaneously deep and diaphanous. Soriano transforms abstraction into a visual space where forms express metaphysical and spiritual concerns, not unlike those found in the works of his fellow Americans Mark Rothko and William Baziotes. Un Lugar Distante and Candor de la Alborada are excellent examples of these shifts and resolutions.
Un Lugar Disheretante will be featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s forthcoming exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, opening Oct. 25, 2013.
Contemporary Spanish artist, Maria González, invited to Venice Biennale Architecture 2012
Spanish artist Marisa González is one of the few artists invited to participate in the Venice Biennale Architecture.
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The famed Venice Film Festival is part of the Biennale as well and the architecture exhibition is held every seven years.
The director and curator of the Biennale is David Chipperfield and the subject is “Common Ground.”
In the Giardini Central Pavilion, one room will be dedicated to Norman Foster’s HSBC Bank building, which was built in Hong Kong in the early eighties and since then has become a center for various social activities taking place in the city. The room comprises a model and original drawings by Norman Foster, Andreas Gursky’s photograph “Hong Kong Bank” and videos by González.
That building is part of the work of González’s photograph and video project “Female Open Space Invaders” and “Ellas Flipinas”.
World artists to turn Rio de Janeiro into one large work of art
Next month, six of the world’s most famous artists will begin turning Rio de Janeiro, Brazil into a giant work of art.
In a project named OiR(Other Ideas for Rio), artists Robert Morris, Brian Eno, Juame Plensa, Andy Goldsworthy, Ryoji Ikeda, and Henrique Oliveira will create various works in their own individual styles.
The art installations will turn Rio into one big art gallery.
OiR curator Marcello Dantas recently told The Rio Times, ‘The challenge of contemporary art is to increase your audience. And how to do this? Bringing great works to public spaces.’ (Hispanically Speaking News contributed to this report).
