Elizam Escobar
“L’exactitude n’est pas la vérité,” Henri Matisse
“Exactitude is not the truth”
A
During a banquet in honor of the “naïve” painter Henri Rousseau, organized by the artists of the Bateau-Lavoir at Picasso’s instigation, the honored guest—delighted by the reception—whispered into Picasso’s ear, “After all, you and I are both great painters: I in the Modern style, and you in the Egyptian.”
This whisper—emerging “unexpectedly” in the context of a celebration that was half sincere/solemn, half jocular/cruel—said it all: the ironic and indeterminate nature of perception and self-interpretation, as well as the interpretation of others; the lucid naïveté—”arrogant” and “benevolent”—of the Douanier Rousseau; and how seriously he took himself as an artist. But it also marked a symbolic and pivotal moment of alliance between modern art (which was not yet “official” nor sanctioned by dominant institutions) and “naïve” art (which saw itself as “modern,” and in Rousseau’s case, perceived the “modern” as “Egyptian”—or in other words, as “anachronistic”). This alliance against academia and “realism” would later be adjusted and restructured (meaning that naïve art and various forms of realism—socialist realism, that of the Mexican muralists, that of Hopper, Balthus, etc.—would be devalued and placed outside the history of modern art) by the new authorities and institutions of “modernism.”
Later, as we entered the “Electronic Age” and the crisis of “modernism,” art foreign to the recognized art world—whether from academia or the avant-garde—began to gain ground due to various interests and through simulacra spaces. This included the art of the excluded/marginalized from the periphery, the “third world,” the “second sex,” mental and penal institutions, etc. Then, much like the banquet dedicated to the good Rousseau, some guests (and uninvited ones) at this new “opening” took advantage of it, whispering to each other, arrogantly and mischievously, with a clownish seriousness, that despite the mass of simulations and concealments, every crack, every drop, matters on the long and challenging road to liberation and freedom.
B
This anecdote and the subsequent analysis help us, as guests, to approach and confront the work of Puerto Rican weaver Ramón López.
The connection between the customs officer-painter Rousseau and the anthropologist-weaver López lies in the fact that their position relative to the order established by ideological/cultural institutions or spheres is marked both by the difference that keeps them separate from “high art” and by the momentary demands of the modern/postmodern cultural market, which has the power to turn them into rare and valuable exceptions to the rule when convenient or inevitable. This difference, established by the mechanical division of labor, and their market value are determined by the logic, politics, and metaphysics of political economy, which stamps everything it touches. Everything becomes a commodity (use value, exchange value). And at the level of the ideological sign, everything becomes status. Institutions and the rest of us demand credentials: diplomas, résumés, awards, exhibitions, etc. If, for example, the subject in question is a housewife or married to Diego Rivera and decides to paint and paint well, she is considered a painter “in her own right” or “self-styled.” Merit is attached to the code; if it is outside of it, it will always be designated as an “exception” confirming the code.
The problem is that every artist is, in some way, an artist “in her/his own right,” regardless of credentials or the lack thereof, even if they are viewed with suspicion, resentment, or paternalism. After all, what truly matters to us is the actual work: its creative force, meaning, historicity, and relevance. Its ties or association with categories and genres, styles, schools or movements, aesthetic ideologies, or the material used (threads, pigments, photos, metal, etc.) are essential but remain secondary.
C
Unlike Rousseau, López does not like Picasso. He looks instead at and reads Van Gogh. Nor does he like classical European tapestries. Ramón “whispers” to us:
“I love pre-Columbian South American textiles and 20th-century Huichol textiles. I enjoy Aboriginal Australian art and artistic street graffiti. In Puerto Rican art, I prefer Denis Mario Rivera over Rodón.”
“However,” he continues, “what visually nurtures me most is walking alone through the neighborhoods and streets.”
“I weave so intensely that I greatly strain my body. I live with constant back pain and total joy in colors and words.”
In this brief “confession,” the aesthetics and ethics of a creator who has chosen tapestry as an artistic form are encapsulated.
CH
His work is street-based, often woven in the streets before an audience. It has been used as banners in marches and parades and exhibited in museums and galleries.
In its popular aspect, a López tapestry can be understood as a “visual plena.” Its narrative can be appreciated as a discourse parallel to the Puerto Rican musical genre of plena, whose themes respond to tragic and comic events of the moment that affect public life or the collective psyche. Consider, for example, El tiburón de la policía (1993), whose title also recalls the plena Tintorera del mar. Plena, with its Afro-Caribbean rhythm and Spanish copla form, functions as the people’s musical newspaper. López’s tapestries, in their “journalistic” function, include tragic tales (like Mexican retablos), critical/satirical tones, and humor akin to comic strips (El gato volando en la calle—1995).
Once these aspects of popular culture are recognized and their social role understood within the national agenda, including in Puerto Rican diaspora communities, we wonder if they are merely that: “pop” illustrations or narrative texts using a visual language built with threads. Or whether, simultaneously, they are “independent” works of art: relatively autonomous from instrumental, proselytizing, pedagogical, or supplementary activities.
D
Like Rousseau’s work, Ramón López’s seems “naïve.” Certain characteristics make it “anachronistic” when compared to contemporary communication techniques (e.g., the effectiveness of a plena vs. television) and the hyperrealist seduction of electronic imagery (e.g., a stuffed rag doll vs. a dazzling, full-color face on a fashion magazine or MTV). We are faced with a work that is the opposite of an electronic image reproduction machine (and yet—paradoxically, or perhaps logically—it reaches us in prison through xerographic images).
E
López is, above all, a colorist—not in the Fauvist sense, but in the combined sense of Seurat’s post-impressionist pointillism/divisionism and Van Gogh’s expressionism. Like Seurat with pigments, López constructs his images with solid-colored threads, whose mixture occurs in the viewer’s retina.
The world projected through his colors is primarily flat, creating an illusion of perspective only when viewed from afar. But this world does not rest on aerial or linear perspective; instead, it exists in the relationship between the formal solidity of the images and the combination of the urban/street every day with its “magical” modality, presenting the hardships of barrio life in a “light” manner—like a fairy tale for a child trying to understand reality.
This poetic strangeness—this mythical spectrum—transcends the message, the preaching, and any appeal to the viewer’s conscience or sympathy. It grants his work artistic value, surpassing mere craftsmanship or sociopolitical instrumentalization.
Through the magical narrative of his images, Ramón López transforms the barrio’s harsh reality into a pink-hued existentialist theater, bridging realism and allegory uniquely and profoundly.
