Once Removed
September 12 - October 17 2009
Anthony Goicolea has in this exhibition left his fabricated and sexualized images behind, but keeps many of the same photographic tricks up his sleeve. He uses these stagings now with a subtler hand to create beautiful photos of Cuba. At first look they are simply striking images, but at a second glance their unreality reveals itself. Take for example “Jettisoned”, which at first looks like Anthony Goicolea has been incredibly lucky to snap a picture of such a beautiful scene, but the photo slowly reveals it’s artificiality, the cinderblocks that float, and if you look closely the hands that hold them up. The cinderblock becomes a theme for Once Removed, popping up over and over, representing the home that his family left behind just after the revolution. His family’s past and a sense of nostalgia for that past permeate the work. The exhibit being the result of his travels to Cuba, a life that he never experienced.
Once Removed mixes photography, painting, video, and installation. Anthony Goicolea blurs the boundries between the mediums, and has the same theme running through all of them. Many of the painted portraits have a photonegative quality, while the photographs insist on their being created rather than captured. The painting “Self-Contained Pedestal” has tromp l’oeil characteristics and Escher-like qualities. The video installation really gets to the heart of what he is expressing in this exhibit, on a boat he throws cinderblocks overboard before drifting away. The sense of things left behind for better or worse is unmistakable.
I don't know if I agree with how well he blurred the boundaries between the different mediums but I do think it was an ambitous effort. I think some mediums such as painting and video were more successful than the manipulated photographs. At the same time I did like how many different ways he was trying to express similar themes and feelings. I felt the sense of nostaglia an things left behind as well. Especially when seeing the plants in the center of the room and looking at the paintings. The plants made me think of a garden a really warm comforting home would have. The photos of dading faces made me think of people who were gone. Overall I felt that is was a powerful show. If it were even just the first painting in the room I think I would have had a strong impression.
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