Jose Angel Vincench’s first solo show in the United States is a contradiction in terms-literally. Beneath a surface concern with the semantics of dissent, the paintings and sculptures installed at ArtSpace Virginia Miller Galleries defy simple definitions. Outlining charged epithets atop abstract compositions, he creates canvases that are at once bold and ethereal, direct and elusive.

Jose Angel Vincench, Dissident (Serbia): Compromise or Fiction of the Painting Series, 2009-2010, acrylic on canvas, 48” x 48” All images are courtesy of ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries, Coral Gables (Miami), Florida.
A series of large square paintings, executed between 2009 and 2010 but never before exhibited, is subtitled Compromiso o Ficcion de la Pintura-which translates as “Commitment or Fiction of the Painting”-questioning the intentions and perceptions of an intermittently offensive and defensive posture. By transcribing the dictionary entries for “dissident” in 15 different dialects, the Havana-based artist raises doubts about whether any culture truly comprehends what that classification signifies or labels transgressors fairly. Whether the word is wielded as a weapon or a curse, ascribed or claimed with fear or with pride, its ramifications can be all too real.

With this multilingual approach, Vincench, who has been exhibiting his work throughout the Caribbean, South America and Europe for two decades, expands the debate about dissent from its damning implications in his home country to encompass the latest wave of protests sweeping the globe. From the ongoing agitation of the Occupy movement to the transformative violence of the Arab Spring, the political permutations span a continuum, from peaceful resistance to deadly confrontation.

Militant connotations coexist with more benign meanings, such as the secondary English synonym of “nonconformist,” which could apply to a wider range of misfits who rebel against expectations and skirt societal norms, including some who find acceptance in the art world. Expressions of individuality aren’t often well-received, not just by Communist regimes that demand uniformity, but even in a country like the United States that, at least nominally, elevates personal determinism to a national ideal.

6 “Vincench vs Vincench: A Dissident Dialogue from Cuba”, Installation view: Exile, 2011, Kraft Paper and Twine, 17” x 60” / Destierro, 2011, Kraft Paper and Twine, 19 ½” x 100” x 5 ½” / Reconciliation Tree, 2011, Incised Cedar and Steel, 50 ½” x 38 3/8” x 38 5/8”
While challenging authority takes courage, defining one’s identity by what one denounces can be just another constraint. Vincench limns this negative space by placing letters upon a base of abstraction, applying a white wash, and then removing the capitals so that only their contours remain uncovered. A sort of stencil in reverse, this process of imposing linear order on chaotic foundations, yet exposing an irrepressible interior, becomes itself a revealing metaphor. Tantalizing traces of the original colors often peer through the pure topcoat, rendering the terminology transparent and encouraging viewers to visually and conceptually see through such stereotypes. The ghostly echoes could evoke a lingering resilience, an inherited heroism or a tentative détente.

This precarious balance also applies to formal considerations. Although tethered to a denotative context, the arrangements of letters take on the quality of concrete poetry. The partially obscured preliminary paintings are exquisitely executed in an impressive range of abstract expressionist styles that include: vigorous, broad swaths of bright hues in the Serbian tongue; vibrant rivulets running through the smaller Swedish type; and dreamy marbling of the paler Polish pattern. Jackson Pollock-esque delicate trails appear appropriately calligraphic for the Chinese characters, while a denser spattering of splotchy droplets somehow seems better suited to the French flair. The Cyrillic alphabet is a stark exception in the trademark Russian solid red, a shade that also stands out among the crosshatched brushstrokes of a complementary canvas in Spanish hanging alongside.

Destierro, 2011, Cuban flag as canvas shopping bags shaped into letters of D. E. S. T. I. E. R. R. O., 19 ½” x 100” x 5 ½”, Ed. 5, and a painting of the installation.
The same Spanish message is shrunk to diminutive dimensions and draped in black paint, befitting the series title Cuba y La Noche. The name is inspired by a line from revolutionary poet José Martí, the quintessential dissident and iconic exile of 19th-century Cuba: “Two fatherlands I have, Cuba and the night.” The dark overtones impart a mysterious aura to 100 unique variations arranged in a tight grid.

That constellation of disidentes contrasts with another grouping of 20 slightly larger explorations of “exilio” stamped out of white paint. A neutral English definition-”somebody living outside own country”-alternates with a Spanish list that references expatriation, deportation and banishment. The latter, which takes the form of “destierro,” raises the harshest associations with enforced removal to a distant, solitary place-a reminder that donning the mantle of the exile can signal acceptance of an eternal curse.

Both exile and destierro are spelled out in petite paper shopping bags custom-fabricated to form block letters. The fragile capitals hang below harsh spotlights that cast long shadows like haunting memories. These are among several editions, molded last year in different materials, which allude to the rule that restricted emigrants to taking only one bag with them when leaving Cuba. In an ironic gesture toward exporting patriotism, Vincench had a set of canvas tote bags printed with blue-and-white stripes extending from the white star set in a red triangle on the initials E and D to bear allegiance to the Cuban flag.

Dissident (English): Compromise or Fiction of the Painting Series, 2009-2010, acrylic on canvas, 48” x 48”
Black Cordura nylon, most commonly used in luggage, is stitched into five carry-ons that, together, dispatch “exile,” but separately, cease to make sense. The tough fabric is also tailored into a duffel shaped like Cuba’s natural borders, complete with cylindrical companion case to represent the offshore territory Isle of Youth. Another clever version in clear plastic is packed with Cuban soil, a wistful memento of lost ground. This earthy token is but a futile attempt to stay connected to one’s origins after release into the Cuban diaspora.

Despite the sardonic tone that dominates Vincench’s internal dialogue, he does sound a hopeful note with a submission to Florida International University’s 25th-annual Festival of the Trees in Coral Gables. Displayed in the gallery, the artist’s seasonal Reconciliation Tree comprises a star-tipped pyramid of cedar bars inscribed on either side with the Spanish and English definitions of reconciliation. Fanning out from a central spoke like directional arrows on a signpost, this tree is a testament to the holiday spirit of fraternal forgiveness, suggesting the possibility of forging new pathways toward future unity.

Writing in ARTslant Miami, the online magazine, critic Eduardo Alexander Rabel calls “Vincench vs Vincench: A Dissident Dialogue from Cuba,” an “outstanding solo exhibition,” noting that “to be an artist in Cuba and to make work that focuses directly on the themes of dissidence and exile…takes courage, as well as creativity.”

Rabel also notes the universality of the exhibition’s themes: “the variety of languages that are represented reminds us that dissenters play an important role in all societies.”

Political implications of the paintings are apparent to the writer, who states that “An even stronger statement is made by the series Cuba y la Noche, consisting of 100 small canvases, each 8” square…” whose negative space “is an obliterating black, reminiscent of sensitive documents that have been redacted or censored by an oppressive government.”

The self-described son of a Cuban exile, Rabel concludes his review with the observation that the artist’s “Reconciliation Tree” installation is topped by “a single, unvarnished star, recalling the single white star in the Cuban flag—the national flag that is beloved by all Cubans, no matter where they live and no matter what their ideology.”

According to Vincench, the current exhibition–”Vincench vs Vincench, A Dissident Dialogue from Cuba”–is his self-examination of the concepts of dissidence and exile, universal issues that have affected not only Cubans but many others throughout history.

ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries of Coral Gables, which has introduced historically significant artists and art movements to this region and the nation since 1974, made art history again on Friday, Nov. 4th with the first solo exhibition in the United States of Cuban artist José Angel Vincench.

The Havana-based artist, who has held one-person exhibitions in Canada, Ecuador, the Republic of Cameroon, Switzerland, and leading galleries in Cuba, along with participating in five dozen group shows in leading galleries in North and South America and Europe, will exhibit more than 150 new paintings and wall-mounted installations of canvas and paper “shopping bags” shaped into letters from his two new series, Dissident and Exile.

Fourteen of the four-foot Dissident paintings, each in a different language, will be in “Vincench vs Vincench: A Dissident Dialogue from Cuba.” Vincench superimposes a stencil of the definition of dissent in each language over an abstract painting, obscuring parts of the words with a white overlay that allows a faint suggestion of the original painting to be seen.

In her El Nuevo Herald review on Sept. 4th curator and art critic Janet Batet noted that “With a highly rigorous conceptual proposal, Vincench bases his work in art history-specifically the Cuban tradition of abstract art-deconstructing the Cuban reality and encouraging a critical reading. Relying, as central subject, in the social and religious entity that embodies the Cuban, the artist undertakes research areas, typical of sociology, integrating popular beliefs, personal life experiences and current sociopolitical events of recent history of the island.”

In this instance, the artist is targeting the sociopolitical phenomena of dissent. “In Cuba, a dissident is the very worst thing you can be,” Vincench explains. “No one wants to be associated with a dissident. Because I am an artist, an intellectual, I see things differently. I want to show people that dissidence is just another way of looking at something.”

His other way of looking at something turns out to be spectacular, according to gallery owner-director Virginia Miller. “Although these are paintings of words, Vincench’s extraordinary technique transforms them into gorgeous semi-abstractions,” she said.

Rounding out the “Exile” portion of the show are smaller canvases with partially obliterated definitions of dissent and exile, along with five paintings of brick “houses” whose exterior walls can be grouped together to spell out the letters E X I L E. A companion work, planned for the Havana Biennial, is a series of small white houses mounted on trailers. A preview of that project will be displayed on a gallery laptop.

Another element in the exhibition is a one-meter tall Christmas tree created by Vincench in conjunction with the annual “Festival of the Trees” being held at the Coral Gables Museum to benefit the interior architecture department of Florida International University. Vincench’s “Reconciliation” tree is crafted of deeply incised cedar slats, each bearing a part of the definition of reconciliation in Spanish on one side and English on the other, elaborating on his themes of dissidence and exile.

Born in Holguin, Cuba, in 1973, Vincench attended the school of plastic arts and high school there before being accepted at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. He began exhibiting at the Holguin Center of Art in 1992.

Works by Vincench are included in such collections as the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana and have been exhibited in major art fairs and at the Barbican Centre in London.

Greater Miami’s longest-established contemporary fine art gallery, ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries is located in downtown Coral Gables at 169 Madeira Avenue. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and by appointment on Saturday. For more information, call 305-444-4493.

Una isla tomada estará siempre contenida y definida en su a(isla)miento, como un quiste en medio de la geografía mental, una Numancia amurallada por la retórica de turno. Esa “resistencia” ya ha sido documentada por José Angel Vincench (Cuba, 1973) en una obra temprana, De la resistencia al Folklore, parte de La huella simbólica (1995); una serie en la que se define la estética del artista, entre el arte matérico e instalativo tradicional y una exploración bidimensional que podría llamarse abstraccionismo figurativo -desarrollada extensamente en collages y lienzos de No creas en la mitad de lo que oyes sino en la mitad de lo que vez (2006), Abstracto parece pero no es (2006-2007), o Paisaje Cubano. Homenaje a Jiri Kolar (2009). En esa obra finisecular, la resistencia -una palabra clave del discurso político cubano- era convertida en una espiral de hornilla eléctrica que la inventiva cubana bautizó como “resistencia”. De forma tal que lo político transformado en símbolo doméstico desmitificaba el concepto dándole otras connotaciones. La gravedad era descolocada por el choteo.

A partir de entonces, Vincench se convirtió quizás en el heredero más legítimo del arte irreverente, cáustico y contestatario de los años 80, con todo el riesgo político y estético que implica. Ese pulseo simbólico entre un discurso falologocéntrico -la lógica fálica del poder, impuesta como metalenguaje- y las narrativas sometidas, late soterrado también en la extensa muestra personal del artista cubano en la galería Virginia Miller, de Coral Gables. Pero Vincench vs. Vincench: A Disident Dialog from Cuba (Un diálogo disidente de Cuba), va un paso más allá. Más que desgastarse en el pugilismo ideológico, el artista nivela discursos, les otorga la misma importancia dentro de un cerrado universo de hegemonías, asumiendo la condición siempre subversiva y revolucionaria del arte-idea.
A la manera de Joseph Kosuth, en las piezas de arte textual que componen esta exhibición, lo vemos acorralando el significado del arte desde el lenguaje más que la apariencia -aún cuando la composición y el diseño tipográfico tengan gran importancia en su propuesta, puesto que su revelación es también un sutil juego de encubrimientos-, y manteniendo una relación crítica con la cultura y la política. La subserie Disidente (2009-2010) gira en torno a la desmitificación del término disidente -la más peligrosa de las palabras dentro de la retórica política cubana actual- y su impacto en la aldea global. Este work-in-progress incluye 14 acrílicos sobre lienzo con la definición de la palabra en diferentes idiomas, como si intentara crear una gran torre de Babel, en la que la precisión conlleva a la confusión y al caos de la glosolalia, al cosificar la palabra en mantra o laberíntico mandala tipográfico desde la imagen. Cuba y la noche (2011) es un mosaico de 100 lienzos en pequeño formato (20 x 20 pulgadas), en el que cada pieza se acopla y disiente, se aparta en su individualidad pictórica sin dejar de pertenecer a un bloque identitario.

Exile/Destierro (2011) recoge la evolución social de un concepto al que se ha despojado de su connotación política para transformarlo en emigración que esconda la violencia simbólica -y física- del desterrado. La palabra exilio es convertida en bolsas vacías de papel Craft -en la independencia de cada letra vuelve a recalcar la independencia personal imprescindible para lograr la unidad de una palabra, un concepto y hasta una nación- o la isla es transformada en “gusano”, esa pintoresca y ridícula bolsa comunitaria elaborada con tafetán negro o nailon transparente, metáfora de las pertenencias personales, la familia, la memoria, que se escapan en cada etnorragia o regresan llenas de nostalgia para alumbrar la vida económica de los que no han querido/podido partir. En esta obra matérica e instalativa, Vincench desarrolla la poética del material (nylon, papel Craft), en una cita o diálogo con Alejandro Aguilera, importante artista de los 80, ahora exiliado; recuperando su concepto de que “el tiempo histórico del símbolo es el tiempo histórico de su soporte material”. Cuba es entonces la deforme y extraña isla de tafetán y su exilio un estado de desgarramiento y vacío precario como una bolsa de papel Craft, o viceversa. Los cubanos (de adentro y de afuera) viven más que en la Era de las Tecnoutopías detenidos simbólicamente en la Edad del Tafetán y el Papel Craft.

Todas las obras expuestas forman parte de una extensa serie o línea estética que el artista ha bautizado Compromiso o ficción de la pintura, donde Vincench -que a menudo es considerado un pintor abstracto, lo que en los absurdos debates estéticos cubanos significa enajenado o descomprometido- emplaza al arte a asumir una responsabilidad intelectual, ética y artística. A asumir un compromiso social y crítico desde el arte.

Vincench trabaja y vive en Cuba. Y esto en otro contexto sería un dato prescindible, totalmente marginal. Esperemos que este excelente diálogo de disidencia no le sirva en bandeja a algún obtuso comisario intelectual la excusa para obligarlo a desertar.

Vincench vs. Vincench: A Disident Dialog from Cuba, de Jose Angel Vincench, en ArtSpace/ Virginia Miller, 169 Madeira Avenue, Coral Gables, (305) 444-4493. Hasta el 30 de enero del 2012.
Joaquín Badajoz es escritor, curador y crítico de arte. Escribe de arte para diferentes publicaciones y galerías.

Gunther Gerzso, Verde-Azul-Blanco, 36 3.8 x 28 3.4 inches, 1978, Oil on Canvas

Christie’s Latin American Art Sale scheduled for Nov. 15th and 16th,, 2011 includes two paintings previously exhibited at ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries.

Gunther Gerzso’s “Verde-azul-blanco,” a 36 1/2 inch by 28 7/8-inch oil on canvas shown on page 79 of the auction house’s sale catalog, was featured in “Gunther Gerzso: Defining Mexican Abstractionism,” from February to May 2004. The gallery’s exhibition included 86 paintings, including this geometric abstraction, along with drawings, including many from the artist’s 1935-41 period being shown for the first time.

Considered a pioneer in Latin American abstraction, Gerzso’s notation in the auction catalog states that he is “considered one of the ‘Nuevos Tres Grandes,’ along with Carlos Merida and Rufino Tamayo.” The essay goes on to note the artist’s younger years in Europe, six years at the Cleveland Playhouse, his career as a highly successful set designer for popular Mexican films, and his association with Mexican Surrealists Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Wilfgang Paalen and Benjamin Peret.

Claudio Bravo’s spectacular “Red Carpet,” a 1980 oil on canvas of a shirtless, sprawling man on a scarlet rug, was included in “Master Works 1969-1984” at ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries from October to November 2002. The 51 1/2 by 64 1/8-inch painting is shown on pages 100 and 101 of the Christie’s catalog.

The Chilean artist, who moved to Tangier in 1972, was a master of hyperrealism. His works, which often feature exquisitely detailed young men, Moroccan carpets and pottery, are included in such collections as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and El Museo del Barrio in New York, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile.

“It’s always interesting to track what happens to art that has crossed our path,” said Virginia Miller, who has been dealing in fine art since 1969. As Hippocrates noted long ago, ‘ars longa, vita brevis’—our lives are short, but art endures.”

ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries, which has regularly scheduled exhibitions of master and mid-career Latin American artists since it opened in 1974, has combined the two in a show titled “Latin American Masters of Today and Tomorrow.”

Included are original works by masters Roberto Matta, Amelia Pelaez, Elmar Rojas and Francisco Zuñiga. Mid-career artists represented include the well-known Cuban artists José Bedia, Roberto Fabelo, Manuel Mendive, and José Angel Vincench.

Dominating one gallery wall is “Zintkála Chanupa, Pájaro Pipa,” a 10-foot painting by the internationally renowned Bedia, who took first place in painting at the IV Beijing International Art Biennale last October.

Fabelo is represented by a four-by-five foot watercolor of a mature nude woman wearing a bronze bird-beak war helmet, red high-heeled pumps, and strap-on wings astride a rooster with prominent spurs, a characteristically surreal example of his work.

In his first exhibition at this gallery, Vincench has two four- foot square canvases from his new series on dissidents in his homeland, which will be presented in a solo exhibition starting in November. According to author Darys J. Vázquez Aguiar, “Vincench teaches us the power of words, of the ordinary phrase or the written commentary, of ethical sentences that separate good from evil. Letters are sacred messages, voices repeated through time to remind us that there are such things as eternal truths.”

Included in this show are canvases by Antonio Amaral of Brazil; a collage painting by Victor Chab and two mixed media works by Mateo Arguello Pitt, both from Argentina; oils on linen by Gustavo Schmidt of Chile and Marco Tulio of Colombia; and an important large canvas by Sergio Garval of Mexico.

Schmidt, also making his premiere appearance in an ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries exhibition, is showing a crystal sphere that floats in front of a draping fabric above an arrangement of eggs, a work of magic realism in dreamy tones of mauve.

José Benito of Argentina is represented by a wood construction and two mixed-media assemblage works. One of the latter, the eight-by-five-foot “Obsesiones Privadas,” includes a figure surrounded by slate-gray elements such as an easel, palette and book.

A tabletop sculpture in mahogany, oak, teak and cedar is by Melquiades Rosario Sastre, professionally known as Melquiades. In his article in Arte al Día online, critic Ricardo Pau Llosa calls him “not only Puerto Rico’s most important contemporary sculptor (but also) one of the finest contemporary artists anywhere.”

Paul-Llosa goes on to note that Melquiades has not simply rejected the current theoretical underpinnings of most contemporary art, but “is a thinking man who bases his creativity on reflection and not simply on enacting the dicta of this or that current trend. He is a sculptor of ideas, not an illustrator of passing notions.”

Zhang is best known for his series called “Big Family” portraits, inspired by old family photos and European surrealism. Their staring, expressionless poses comment on Chinese collectivism while small differences offer a glimpse of their individuality.

Feng Zhengjie, another of the best-known Chinese artists, will be represented by three of his “Chinese Portrait Series” silkscreens. Their exaggerated makeup and flamboyant hairdos reflect the artist’s view that “the influence of the Western culture makes our women appear as hybrids sometimes.”

The multimedia artist Huang Yan superimposes traditional Chinese landscape scenes upon photos of faces and the human body. His fusion of ancient art forms with contemporary views of the body creates a new concept that every Chinese can relate to.

Sui Jianguo, referred to as “a leading figure of China’s New Sculpture movement” in the “China Onward” catalog of the renowned Estella Collection, draws attention “to the political and economic system behind the toy industry” through his “Made in China” series and toy dinosaurs. He views his dinosaurs as parallels to much of the world’s manufacturing: designed in the West, made in China, and then exported globally—not unlike Chinese contemporary art, inspired by Western traditions.

Works by Zhang, Feng and Yan are in the Sigg Collection, widely considered the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of contemporary Chinese art. All three artists were included in “Mahjong,” an important exhibition held in 2009 at the University of California’s Berkeley Art Museum, as well as the current “101 Artworks-A Stroll through the Sigg Collection” at 88MOCCA, the Museum of Chinese Contemporary Art on the Web. Both shows were compiled from SIGG Collection artworks.

Along with sculpture by Sui, artworks by Feng, Guo, Huang, and Zhang also are represented in the Estella Collection of Chinese Contemporary Art, first exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark in 2007.

The works by Yang Qian are from his “Bathroom” series, images viewed through a mist of water drops, suggesting the overlapping of reality and illusion, sometimes categorized as “dual paintings.”

Works by Guo Wei focus on everyday life, often with relationships between adolescents, emphasizing the development of individualism in China since the homogenization of the Cultural Revolution.

Leading print and online publications, such as “The Economist,” “The London Times,” and Artprice.com have reported the soaring prices of contemporary Chinese art. Although virtually all art prices recently dropped somewhat as the worldwide economy sagged, the media have reported that contemporary Chinese art prices are leading their resurgence.

“Some of the artists in this show are stellar,” said gallery owner and curator Virginia Miller. “For example, in October 2007 Charles Saatchi, one of the world’s great collectors, paid $1,570,800 for a painting by Zhang Xiaogang. In 2006 one of his paintings sold for $2.3 million.”

“This will be our fourth exhibition of contemporary Chinese art,” Miller noted. “These works offer an exceptional opportunity to acquire original works by some of China’s leading artists.”

Included in “Portal” will be paintings by artists who were represented in earlier Chinese shows at the gallery, including Wang Niandong and Cao Xiaodong. Wang is well known in China and abroad for hyper-realistic images of women as commercialized products. Cao, one of the many artists forced to become graphic artists during the Cultural Revolution, contrasts that era’s uniforms with Playboy bunnies and Mao Zedong with Hugh Hefner. His paintings are rendered in Ben Day dots reminiscent of the screens for printing old newspaper photos.

A number of works in the exhibition will be serigraphs. Serigraphs, the art of printing multiple images through screens originally made of silk, originated in China more than a thousand years ago. The technique became popular with artists throughout history due to its versatility. In recent years the market for limited-edition serigraphs by contemporary artists soared; in 2010 a serigraph by Andy Warhol sold for $63,362,500.