|
In his first solo
exhibition in the US, Cuban artist Angel
Delgado explores the themes of confinement,
regimentation, and oppression that have preoccupied him
with even more intensity since his imprisonment in 1990
for a performance in which he defecated on a Communist
newspaper. Titled “Límite Continuo/Continuous
Limit,” the show suggests that the restrictions and
limitations of prison are coextensive with life outside
its walls. It’s a bleak, rather hopeless outlook—life
as a penitentiary—but Delgado’s elegant draftsmanship
and restrained sense of color and materials give the works
a quiet power that evokes more nuanced concerns. In a
series of images on handkerchiefs, hand-drawn figures are
superimposed on digital prints of locks and bars. In one,
a man lies facedown on the ground with his hands tied
behind his back, his torso at the same angle as a padlock
on an industrial metal door. By juxtaposing an image from
everyday life—perhaps a bolted storefront—with one of
enforced bondage and submission, Delgado creates a
parallel between the two, gesturing toward the larger
issues of security, fear, ownership, and control that
unite commercial and penal systems.
Other works are
more psychological. A series of drawings executed in
colored pencil and cold cream on soiled bedsheets depicts
a number of surreal, highly symbolic scenes. In one, a
dark substance drips from an overhead grate, coalescing
into a gruesome mass of heads and limbs below. Another is
a scene from a carceral version of “The Princess and the
Pea,” depicting a reclining, faceless figure atop a
stack of oversize cinder blocks. Combining the stark
deprivations of prison life with a dreamlike
existentialism, the drawings present a grim vision of the
general human condition. But their crisp lines and spare,
black-and-white palette imbue this depressing state with a
muted beauty and clarity that is almost otherworldly,
providing a tiny glimpse of transcendence.
|
|
