Raul Conti: Antes de Ayer - Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Raul Conti
Antes de Ayer - Ayer - Hoy
Una mirada retrospectiva de mis obras
The Day before Yesterday - Yesterday - Today
A retrospective look at my works
sponsored by
The George D. and Frieda B. Abraham Foundation
The Davis Gallery at Houghton House
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
“Antes de Ayer”- “Ayer”- “Hoy”
Una mirada retrospectiva de mis obras
Estas tres palabras reflejan el lento, sinuoso y ondulante sendero de
la vida.
En el transcurso de mi vida fui descubriendo el mundo de las formas
y los colores y a través del tiempo mi visión inevitablemente fue sufriendo cambios a veces sutiles, otras evidentes como el realismo, la
abstracción o lo simbólico, en representaciones de la figura humana,
las plantas y los animales.
Sin proponérmelo percibo en mis obras ya transcurrido muchos
años, la persistencia de una clave esencial en mí temática: la presencia de las raíces indo-americanas.
En transformaciones de manos y pájaros, de plantas, soles y ríos
imaginarios, recorro un mágico sendero buscando la semilla del fecundo corazón de América.
“The Day before Yesterday”-“Yesterday”-“Today”
A retrospective look at my works
These three words reflect the slow, sinuous, and undulating path of
life.
During the course of my life, I kept discovering the world of shapes
and colors, and inevitably through time, my vision went through
changes, sometimes subtle, other times as evident as realism, abstraction or symbolism, in the representation of the human figure,
plants and animals.
I perceive in my works, now after many years, the persistence of an
essential key in my style: the presence of Indo-American roots (even
though it was not my initial intent).
In transforming hands and birds, plants, suns and imaginary rivers,
I travel through a magic path searching for the seed of the fertile
heart of the Americas.
Raul Conti
The Magic of Raul Conti
“I have lived many years in the South, in the North, in Buenos Aires, in New York, weaving dreams and hopes, imaginary worlds and
present realities, knowing the dryness of the pavement, the grey of
the walls, and the outbreak of cities without refuge, security and no
salvation. In the biting cold and the hot savageness of the climate
and its people, in spite of all this, Edith, with her quiet gaze, discovered the enchantment of a flower; she made me feel the slow and
deep rhythm of the soil’s crop. She helped me think, leaving aside,
momentarily, the reality, and with aesthetic judgment, she immersed
herself in the pictorial world and she surrendered to the exercise of
giving titles to my works as if they were born for her. I would choose
some and we would celebrate the finding, she was my friend. I believe that is Art: to live and transform, transform and live.”1
This quote expresses the importance of life to art and art to life found
in every work Conti creates. A celebration of life glows within each
painting and drawing in this exhibition. This love of art and life
comes from his childhood in Argentina and its past, both European
and indigenous, and continues into the present and the future. Conti’s artwork echoes the words of Octavio Paz: “life as art, a return to
the mythic lost unity of thought and body, man and nature, I and the
other.”2 Conti does not limit life to his own image, but extends it to
his world, both natural and constructed. We see life as art in the still
lifes, the landscapes and the figures, and the abstractions, especially
in works such as La Garza de tus Suenos 2013.
Argentina is a strong presence in Conti’s work – a blend of tradition
and modernity, European and indigenous, language and culture.
This amalgamation creates his identity and voice. Argentina has
seen itself as a nation of European descent with Buenos Aires as the
Paris of South America.3 Recent political and social transformations
have heralded a celebration of their non-European heritage. As Conti says “The more I accumulated works, the clearer the idea became
that prompted me to try to find the origin of my identity, the essence
of the soil where I was born, and to arrive at the source, the fountain
of the Indo-American spirit.”4 The inspiration of Huaca and Paracas
textiles seems particularly strong in Conti’s work. The abstraction
of hands and hair, the use of steps and checkerboards is startlingly
effective in line, color and composition.5 By claiming Pre-Columbian
heritage, a very few Argentines have constructed a new identity incorporating indigenous elements, freeing them from the dominance
of the West and European Modernism.6
“In a very particular manner of seeing things and according to the
time or place, infinite images arose, shapes that were almost always
inscribed inside a rectangle and trapezoid, in serial and alternated,
frontal forms, producing rhythm; frequently, the spaces between
forms become another form. Straight and curve lines extend synthetically creating enclosed surfaces, and when the curves undulate
and the straight lines zigzag, this creates ornamented levels. These
ancestors of the Pre Columbian era knew about the significance implied in each form, and about its geometrizing representations of the
human figure, animals, vegetal, and from the soil, they expressed, in
symbolic images, feelings that belonged to their inner rhythm and
collective memory.”7
The introduction of Pre-Columbian elements brings another note to
the work of Raul Conti – the magic realism of Latin America. The
alchemy of nature, myth and the past melds the intimacy of private
life with origins and history creating allegories of interpretive experience. Meanings evolve from visible and hidden spheres. Elements
are blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to access a deeper
understanding of reality. Rather than explaining reality using natural or physical laws, magical realism creates another reality. The
transformation and transcendence of magic realism is revealed in
Conti’s works through anthropomorphism, zoomorphism, the refusal to be specific, illusions of similarity and difference and a projection of utopia. For instance, in Un Tema, 2013, we see a mythic scene
evidently depicting an artist’s studio in the woods along a stream.
Clearly more is happening here than the surface reality and it is our
pleasure to investigate the figures and objects and interpret the story.
New York has also influenced his art in significant ways. The artwork
of Raul Conti manages to be figurative, abstract and symbolic all at
once. It is a visual poetry in repose and silence. Its classical compositional principles make it philosophical and universal. He is a clear
thinking, conceptual painter with a material feel for the surface of
the work. The presence of the material is never forgotten – the large
color fields enlivened and varied by his meticulous brushwork. He is
a splendid scion of European modernism and the New York School.
Conti’s power of invention is exemplified in his shifting and juxtaposition of styles. He is always adventurous and never complacent. For
precedents, we might look at the playful Cubism of Pablo Picasso,
Georges Braque and Paul Klee.8 Conti’s simplified forms combine
with the shimmering color to layer intellectual mystery and visual
pleasure.
Part of this universality is the prominence of woman as in the poetry
of Pablo Neruda. “Traditionally, love poetry has equated woman
with nature. Neruda took this established mode of comparison and
raised it to a cosmic level, making woman into a veritable force of
the universe.”9 Conti gives us heroic women, as in Serenidad, 2012,
infused with femininity and strength. They are surrounded by symbolic flowers and the apparatus of art creation – the essence of creation is all its aspects. The combination of the Pre-Columbian goddess image of earth, motherhood, fertility and love with Conti’s own
great romance with his wife Edith, mentioned in the quote above,
surrounds the viewer with creation, healing, compassion and life.
“I took my brushes and sculptures straight on without a predetermined plan, and I felt that the light of that submerged past was
spreading over my works blending in the labyrinth of the times we
lived.”10
Kathryn Vaughn
Visual Arts Curator
Department of Art of Architecture
Endnotes
1
Raul Conti, 2014. This essay was kindly lent to me by Mirian Conti.
2
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1990/paz-bio.html
3
Schneider, Arnd. Appropriation as Practice: Art and Identity in Argentina. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
4
Raul Conti, 2014.
5
Conversation with Michael Bogin, Professor of Art, Hobart & William Smith Colleges
6
Masiello, Francine. Art of Transition: Latin American Culture and Neoliberal Crisis. Durham, Duke University Press, 2001.
7
Raul Conti, 2014.
8
Conversation with Michael Bogin, Professor of Art, Hobart & William Smith Colleges
9
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/pablo-neruda
10
Raul Conti, 2014.
Catalog
Dias iluminados por el sol
(Days illuminated by the sun)
Oil on canvas, 20 x 30 inches
2013
Lugar en la tierra
(A place on the soil)
Oil on canvas, 20 x 30 inches
2013
A traves del viento y las piedras
(Across the wind and the stones)
Oil on canvas, 20 x 30 inches
2013
Luz de antiguas ciudades
(Light of ancient cities)
Oil on canvas, 36 x 20 inches
2013
Continuan en la memoria
(Continue in the memory)
Oil on canvas, 36 x 20 inches
2013
Aquellas soledades
(Those solitudes)
Oil on canvas, 36 x 20 inches
2013
Silencio
(Silence)
Oil on canvas, 36 x 24 inches
2012
La paleta verde
(The green palette)
Oil on canvas, 24 x 16 inches
2011
El oficio
(The craft)
Oil on canvas, 36 x 24 inches
2012
Fashion Ave
Oil on canvas, 36 x 40 inches
undated
NY, NY
Oil on canvas, 24 inches diameter
1981
El saxo
(The sax)
Oil on canvas, 28 x 40 inches
2000
Jazz in the corner
Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches
2007
Fire Hydrant
Oil on canvas, 24 x 20 cm inches
1981
Caminantes de New York
(Walkers of NY)
Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches
1981
Modelo con flor amarilla
(Model with yellow flower)
Oil on canvas, 52 x 32 inches
2012
Pintando
(Painting)
Oil on canvas, 32 x 52 inches
2012
Serenidad
(Serenity)
Oil on canvas, 52 x 32 inches
2012
Un tema
(A theme)
Oil on canvas, 30 x 44 inches
2012
La Garza de tus sueños
(The white heron of your dreams)
Oil on canvas, 36 x 18 inches
2013
Blusa blanca de algodon, cabello negro y ... escribe poemas
(White cotton blouse, black hair and ... write poems)
Oil on canvas, 36 x 20 inches
2013
Tu mirada silenciosa
(Your quiet gaze)
Oil on canvas, 36 x 18 inches
2013
Las hierbas
(The herbs)
Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 inches
2004
Figura y paisaje
(Figure and landscape)
Oil on canvas, 32 x 24 inches
2008
Blusa rayada
(Striped blouse)
Oil on canvas, 32 x 24 inches
2008
Juego del mimbrero
(The wicker artisan’s play)
Oil on canvas, 32 x 28 inches
2007
Gallinas bajo la lluvia
(Chickens under the rain)
Oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches
2002
Bajo la lluvia
(Under the rain)
Oil on canvas, 32 x 24 inches
2014
Raul Conti
Argentine-American Painter and Sculptor
Raul Conti’s works, both paintings and sculptures speak volumes
through symbols universal to man. Although he often employs Pre
Columbian elements, these works have a proto-historical perspective common to the whole race. Raul Conti was born in Morteros,
Province of Cordoba in Argentina, in 1931 and became a USA citizen
in 1997. Beginning in his adolescence, under the tutelage of Alfredo
Lazzari and Juan Grela, Conti studied throughout Latin America
and Europe. His interests have long been centered on the resolution
of plastic compositions through the austerity of a palette based on
earth tones. Later, he sought the luminosity of forms through the
contrast of complementary colors using saturated dyes. He blends
the saturated dyes with their complementary producing grays of
colors that have evolved in his works. He is committed to the seemingly contradictory worlds of meaning and emotion, expressing basic impulses that appeal to a distant faculty.
Raul Conti’s travels and many exhibitions through Latin America,
allowed him to explore the symbolic subject matter of Pre Columbian Art. As Hector Cartier pointed out “going beyond that, Conti
perceives that modern art after centuries of illusionary visualization
, has penetrated (allowing an opportunity for a more significant encounter with those vital roots) into the core of archaic imagery: Images generally born of an image- conjuring world impregnated by
mythical and sacred impulses”.
His life and work have been divided between his studios in Hells’
Kitchen Manhattan (where more than 100 works are available) since
1977 and Buenos Aires, Argentina where more than 600 works can
be viewed by appointment. A prolific artist at 83, he is now in the
process of completing his second retrospective book which will
be available this year.
For more information visit the website: www.raulconti.com
Acknowledgments
Nothing in life exists within a vacuum and neither does this exhibition or catalogue.
I would like to begin by thanking Raul and Mirian Conti. For their generosity in
allowing us to show Raul Conti’s work at the Davis Gallery and their continuing
support during its realization, we owe you so much.
We would like to give special thanks to Dr. George N. Abraham ‘59 who has
been a constant support in more ways than we can mention to The Collections of The Colleges.
As always, our heartfelt gratitude is owed to Clarence A. (Dave) Davis,
Jr. ‘48 for his continuing support of the programming and facilities of The
Davis Gallery at Houghton House.
I would like to point out my gratitude to The Provost, Dr. Titlayo Ufomata, for her
faith in us.
Thanks then must also be given to Hobart and William Smith Colleges for their
support of the Gallery thus providing us with the opportunity to share art with
our community.
The Davis Gallery at Houghton House
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Named in recognition of the generosity of Clarence A. (Dave) Davis, Jr. ‘48, the
Davis Gallery is an academic resource of Hobart and William Smith Colleges. The
Davis Gallery at Houghton House is the exhibition space of the Department of Art
and Architecture. The Gallery has six or seven shows each year beginning with
a faculty exhibition and ending the year with a student exhibition. In between, a
variety of artists and architects are invited to show their work and an exhibition
from the Collections of Hobart and William Smith Colleges is staged. The mission
of the Gallery is to exhibit, and make accessible works of art in support of the educational goals of the Colleges and for the benefit of the community at large. The
Davis Gallery is primarily a space to immerse Hobart and William Smith College
students in visual culture by providing an environment for studying the role of art
and architecture in shaping, embodying and interpreting cultures.
Exhibition dates:
October 3 through October 31, 2014
Opening reception:
Friday, October 3, 2014, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.