Istoria
ISTORIA implies that painting should exhibit multiple layers of the human condition. For example, a painting could allude to the abuses of state or institutional powers; it could expose a person’s character frailties manifested in man’s proneness to corruption, lies, deception, or treason; or it could reveal higher states of consciousness like courage, compassion, and humility.
One day, while at the library, I stumbled upon a book that captivated me. It was Della Pittura, by Leon Battista Alberti. The book mentioned Greek artist Apelles as one of the greatest artists in antiquity because he could paint envy, calumny, greed, and all that which was invisible. Alberti named this quality in painting: ISTORIA.
New Pictorial Language
I was intrigued by the concept and thought, why not apply it now? Only, not through the recourse of pictorial narrative as Apelles did, but instead, by juxtaposing visual images in such a way as to bring to light the hidden contradictions rooted in our present-day life. But I realized I needed to add new elements to my pictorial vocabulary to achieve this. I started incorporating string, videotape, acetate sheets, plastic bags, and water into my paintings. To each of these, I assigned a meaning:
Acetate sheet with text = ideology
Videotape = information
String = an information channel
Plastic bag = isolation
Water = tranquility
I intended my paintings to be read like books.
The Altruists
1998
Each head had a proclamation written on its forehead. In front of the declaration was an acetate sheet with text that ran the length of the wall on which the paintings hung.
The proclamations written on the foreheads
I gave my eyes to someone who couldn’t see
I gave my ears to someone who couldn’t hear
I gave my mouth to someone who couldn’t talk
I gave my skin to someone who couldn’t feel
I gave my hands to someone who couldn’t work
I gave my feet to someone who couldn’t walk
I gave my heart to someone who had lost hope
The text on the acetate sheet on top of the proclamations
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The Inquisitor
1998
Small portrait hanging in front of a larger painting covered with burnt matches.
The Fly
1998
Painting of a face with a fly on it against a background covered with numbers.
The face = suffering
The fly = poverty
The numbers = the passing of time
No
1998
Painting hanging between two sheets of acetate covered with text
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Pause
1998
Painting of a large head with videotape attached to the forehead.
The Believer
1998
Painting of a large head with videotape boxes glued to the forehead.
The Ears
1998
Painting of a large head with newspaper clippings covering the ears. The newspaper clippings contain the lists of the stock exchange.
Do Not Disturb
1998
Small oil painting inside a plastic bag full of water. The bag hangs in front of a backdrop made of videotapes with transparencies of portraits. Each has a cross painted on it with a date of birth and a date of death. The dates of birth vary, but the dates of death are all the same: 1973, the year of the Chilean coup, which has haunted me to this day.
Interactive Painting
Usually, a painting shows something for the viewer to look at. Some viewers go a little further and see something in it. I wanted to create an image where the viewer had the opportunity to respond. In other words, a two-way relationship between the work of art and the viewer.
Vatican
Painting on a 2-layered canvas with a door that can be opened and closed.
On the wall beside the painting hangs a glass box with a golden key inside.
Under the box, an inscription reads:
“IN CASE OF DOUBT, BREAK GLASS AND UNLOCK THE DOOR”
The painting was exhibited with the door closed. During the opening reception, I was curious to see who would dare to break the glass. In the end, nobody did. Maybe because nobody was given a chance to do that because someone showed up early to buy the piece; I will never know.
Some years later, I was told that the collector was delighted with the painting because although she was a non-believer, she had many friends that were, thus whenever she hosted dinner parties at her home, she never had to worry about her guests being offended by the content because there was always the option to lock the painting’s door.
Painting made of Paintings
The way a painting is hung is of utmost importance to me. It is an integral part of my compositions and contributes to conveying my messages. Usually, paintings might be made up of two, three, or more paintings, like diptychs or triptychs, and so on. But it can go further: one of the paintings might be exhibited flat on the floor or have others hanging in midair to form circles and other shapes.
At the Table
An installation of seven paintings. Six were portraits that hung around a seventh painting placed in the center of the room, depicting a table.
The Table
The table represents humanity. A mass of human bodies swirls like a galaxy, flooding the table and falling to the abyss (the floor). But at the same time, being a great spaghetti plate about to be devoured by the portraits hanging on the walls.
The Portraits
From the roof, held by a thread, and suspended one millimeter above the Centre of this whirlpool of human bodies, hangs a pendulum that represents the instrument of the people in power to measure, calculate, divide, control, or possibly “eat” humanity.
The Disappeared
1999
Crucifixion
1999
I wrote 85 letters and suspended them with string over a large canvas. The entire canvas exhibited these letters except for the lower center section, where I painted a group of 116 portraits. Through the use of texture, I made the lower half of the painting appear as if it had once been entirely covered with pictures of individuals, but that, through time, had disappeared and been replaced by personal letters.
I hand-wrote each letter almost unintelligibly, but that, if examined closely, could be deciphered. They all shared a common theme: a victim’s family member or friend writing to someone else about the last time they saw their loved one. Each letter represented a single person, a single death. While the number was not equivalent to the more than 3000 people murdered during the Chilean dictatorship, the sheer fact that they occupied almost the entire canvas represents this amount.
Being a triptych (as in Trinity) and containing a portrait of Christ with his arms extended, placed at the top center of the canvas, the painting alluded to the similarities between the persecution of Christians some 1600 years ago and the persecution of the communists in contemporary times.
Nineteen Seventy-Three
1998
Free-standing structure made of 216 portraits painted on canvases attached to individual cardboard boxes glued together to form a wall. Suspended from the ceiling by string were numerous other tiny portraits. On the backside, each box was labeled CLASSIFIED. Even though most of the boxes were sealed, some were half-open, exposing concealed shredded documents.
Nineteen Seventy-Three was first exhibited in 1998 in a solo exhibition titled ISTORIA at the Brewster Arts Gallery in New York. Then, in 2000, it was exhibited at The Artists Museum, in Washington DC, in an exhibition of Chilean Artists living and working in the United States. A prominent Chilean newspaper wrote a review. Despite the large size of the piece, there was no mention of it. After the exhibition, the work was on loan to the Chilean Embassy in Washington. In October 2014, I thought of donating the installation piece to the Museum of Fine Arts in Chile. I called the Embassy to ensure the work's status but found out that it had disappeared, and no one at the Embassy knew anything about it or its whereabouts.
Abandoned External Materials
I decided to abandon all the non-pictorial exterior materials, such as video tape, acetate sheets, string, plastic bags, and water, that I had incorporated in 1997. The paintings were taking up too much space in my studio, they were difficult to store and transport, and besides – this being the most important reason – Once the works were out of my studio, people would often disregard the order in which the elements were to be placed, which in turn destroyed the meaning of the piece, entirely. I returned to putting all my ideas onto the canvases without the use of any external materials attached to them to keep the pieces' meaning intact. This would prevent my paintings from running the risk of being stripped of their Istoria.
