Arturo Cuenca, "Aesthasy (Aesthetic+Ecstasy)" / PSCA Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art, Chelsea
D. Dominick Lombardi
Cuban-born artist Arturo Cuenca, as a person and as an artist, pulls no punches with his thoughts, intentions or expressions. Those who have been lucky enough to follow his career over the past 25 years will find this exhibition of particular interest, because these works are immensely intimate and personal. In these works, his passion for sex and sexuality comes to the fore; yet, he manages to temper his iconography by injecting an obvious reverence for love and beauty. And make no mistake, beauty is his underlying goal, a goal that is difficult to attain in contemporary art, without looking stale, weak or obvious. In addition, three works: Aesthetic 1; Lower As Sex, Aesthetic 2; Flower As Sex, and Aesthetic: Wilde As Landscape have never been shown since their completion, because the context for showing them was never right until now.
The exhibition’s title is also somewhat autobiographic, because it makes reference to a Cuban tradition of creating made-up words out of real words. This has a lot to do with much of what Cuenca does, in the way in which he combines things that at first look a little forced, but later become whole and right.
One acrylic on canvas work, Aesthetic: Sex as Fire, is the most obvious depiction of passion, and the way in which Cuenca blurs the image in wavy heat simulating blurs is quite effective without being over the top. The seminal work in this exhibition is Aesthetic: Wilde As Landscape, and older diptych, acrylic painting that is quite masterfully composed. In it, we see the extended portrait of Oscar Wilde, himself an icon of sexuality, rising like a god over a shimmering sea. On the left sits an Anthurium with a pink tipped bullet form as its stigma. This form is a metaphor for a penis and represents in its plant form, an irresistible object to insects.
The curious work Aesthetic: Flowers As Sex I shows a penis as a stigma, overlapping a shriveled red petal, which takes on the appearance of an intricate labia. As with much of Cuenca’s work, messages, thoughts, concepts or ideas crop up slowly the more you look. Encircling these two genitalia is the word "Aesthetic," written in a fiery font, a compelling effect, albeit subconscious.
My favorite work in the show is Aesthetic: Proust as Landscape. The subject, Proust, another literary icon who was homosexual, looms heavy over a jagged landscape inhabited by a lone tree. As with the representation of Oscar Wilde, Proust’s face is extended laterally, giving it a somewhat omnipotent feel. The pallet in this work differs a bit form the rest, with its deep brown tones, which brings to the fore a stabilizing sense of antiquity.
Off the main room, in an intimate hallway hang four small Kabuki portraits. These works are quite a bit different in feel from the other works, with their repetitions of eye indications and fuzzy forms. They reminded me a lot of video stills, faded traces of motion that produce something closer to a portrait of a spirit than an actual person. They, too, have a sense of ecstasy, but in this instance, it’s more like a sort of crazy nirvana, or some drug-induced state that was quite potent for such small, and relatively simple expressions.
