Flavio Garciandia at Ramis Barquet - New York - Brief Article

The Cuban artist Flavio Garciandia's first New York exhibition attracted notice for its brash title, "I Insulted Brice Marden in Havana," which set the tone for this eclectic assortment of oil paintings.

Claiming he has no artistic identity, Garciandia somewhat irreverently emulates the work of notable abstract painters, corrupting their styles and forcing antithetical images, ideas and gestures to coexist. The titles and techniques of the works in this show alluded not only to Marden, but to other American abstract artists such as Rothko, Newman and Still, with occasional fragments referencing paintings by Johns, Reed, Lasker and Penck.

Adding to the seemingly endless attribution list, Three Comfortable Poses (52 by 75 1/2 inches) is a distant nod to Warhol's flower paintings from the 1960s. Two large, light green ovoid shapes occupy the top corners and flank a darker green one, while a gray-green diaphanous form rests below. Dramatically cropped by the edges of the canvas, the three dominating shapes obscure almost all traces of the beige, blue and brown gestural underpainting. In Clyfford Still Picking Mangos in the Patio, the color scheme is Garciandia's own; a more or less continuous, blurred, meandering line interrupted by pentimenti is traced in white upon a ground of green, with small green impasto "flames" in the bottom corners.

Garciandia seems unwilling to paint a picture that is fully resolved and reluctant to settle for a signature style. Using unorthodox color combinations, clumsy draftsmanship and indeterminate textures, he paints over earlier passages and thereby draws our attention to his "mistakes." Perhaps he believes any suggestion of uniformity or consistency would be perceived as suspicious. Thus, all avenues remain open to this artist, who challenges elitist, presumably refined taste. No wonder, then, that the titles of three of the paintings in this exhibition refer to blindness (one of them is Conspiracy of the Blind), and another three to failure (see Negative Outcomes).

COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group