 |
|
|
|
Art Review Archives:
|
David de Castro:
Las Manos Gallery Why does anyone straighten a crooked picture? We have a sense of order. Certain colors excite and others calm. What we see is somehow linked to what we feel. A stereoscope tells us more than an image lying flat. We have a need to measure depth, a shorthand for the space in which we live. What we see, and what we feel, and, as an afterthought, the sense we make of it, are the raw materials from which we live. They are the building blocks of art. "David de Castro: CONSTRUCTIONS: Recent Work" at Las Manos Gallery from July 5 through August 5, 2002, offers a geometric, even architectural art in three-dimensional relief. The work includes one standing sculpture. Here is an art of order, color, depth. David de Castro starts with instinct, found materials, and mixed media recruited later as a work evolves. The result is a calculus of patterned sight, a silent music. Las Manos is a small gallery, but it has hosted a number of noteworthy exhibitions. "CONSTRUCTIONS: Recent Work" by David de Castro is one. De Castro's constructions rely on straight-edged, angular geometricism -- Neo-Plasticism -- an approach developed by Piet Mondrian, and furthered by artists of De Stijl. (Of these, many were directly involved in architecture: artists such as Theo van Doesburg, Robert van't Hoff, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld.) Neo-Plasticism evolved further through the work of Ilya Bolotowsky, Louise Nevelson, Charles Biederman -- all different artists, with very distinct intents, and different results. Mondrian analytically extracted geometric patterns from nature, seeking the "determined relationships" of fundamental orderings: an art free of temperament, personality, human error. Bolotowsky abandoned the figurative and tried to convey the sense of balance and harmony in such underlying forms. (The work of Mondrian, Miro, the Constructivists, had turned him from representation in art.) Biederman interpreted Mondrian in three dimensions. Nevelson, who grew up close to her father's lumber yard, subtracted color to be become an "architect of shadows." David de Castro's father, Antonio de Castro, is a Boston architect who now designs religious, and especially Catholic, buildings. The artist recalls from childhood his father's sometimes Nevelson-like maquettes.
That structure should display not only forms but dynamic harmonies of gathered forms is not surprising. Much of what we build derives from what we have evolved to feel as right, and significant. Composition mirrors instinct. And where perception errs, we compensate: whether by reflex or, as in art, by re-examination, counter-illusion, or free imagination. In this, insight has long preceded science or psychology. The ancient Greeks bulged their columns mid-way: a true straight length would otherwise seem top-heavy. The architect Palladio sought a Golden Harmony in the orderings and levels of building facades. As in music, mathematics, art, all agree there is some internal harmony. All extract differing interpretations. Several years ago, de Castro came across some printers' cases, built to hold type fonts. Since then he has sought them out. They often form a key element in many of his bas-relief constructions. Printers' cases are paired into upper and lower case (the source of our modern terms), and consist of varying pigeonholes sized according to the frequency, and thus greater quantity of certain letters or sorts needed. (To prevent being 'out of sorts.') For any given language, necessity determines distinct orders for such artifacts. For de Castro, the necessary structures of man-made 'found' items suggest aesthetic possibilities, and from this raw material he evolves a final artistic synthesis. A Neo-Plastic art needn't be thematically static. Triptych is the most prominent of de Castro's works at Las Manos Gallery. It occupies much of the South wall. De Castro points out that the three panels of Triptych form a progressive sequence. This adds a greater interest: a cryptic sense of time emerges as one scans the three panels. In Galileo's The Starry Messenger (1610), he announced his discovery of four of Jupiter's moons. Galileo had closely examined the divergent but patterned changes in their relative positions -- their parallax. They were not just stars. Even today, astronomers compare time-sequence photographs; in the Harmony of the Spheres, they earmark counterpoints. It is how we register motion we cannot directly see: visual rhythms.
In de Castro's more ambitious work, there is counterpoint; it is subtle and it satisfies. In the first panel of Triptych, the dominant focus, a large, double printers' case, is horizontal. A similar focus in panel II gathers two double cases, one above the other, in a strongly vertical architecture. Panel III recapitulates the relative sense of rest in panel I: a large case of three sub-partitions centers the image a bit lower within this third, last panel. The general scheme is one of prelude, exposition, and coda. Smaller reliefs and rectilinear cavities sustain contrast and continuities throughout the whole. Of two satellite elements in panel I, the one at lower right is dark in finish, and a relief. Its counterfoil at left is recessed and conspicuously lighter in tone. Panel II, the centerpiece, seems a climax: the lower right relief element is even more conspicuous than its forerunner. In panel III, the two smaller, recessed foci add to the sense of repose, as if some presence has spent itself. The progression in these panels is discreetly enhanced by the artist's use of background color contours. In the first panel, a painted orange mass serves as upper right cornerpiece. In the second, painted background areas gather about the image's main focus and here, the sudden, circular accent at center right draws special attention. In the third, a color corner reappears at lower left: a recapitulation, a hint of gravity. Interestingly, no single panel mirrors any companion piece in Triptych. The logic of implied relative sequence here is a cumulative harmony, not a random, variant echo. Wedding (Wedding Dress Without Veil) (2002:48"x78"), a single panel, also displays de Castro's deliberative use of surface relief and recessed element, his low-key color scheme, and a sense of ongoing sequence in its composition. A wedding dress extends through four lower niches recessed into the panel, arrayed as if a series of Morse code. The supporting background is horizontally divided into halves; steel-blue above, and a light cream below. The dress (minus its veil) retains its familiar identity: an inclusion rather than an altered art material -- a somewhat 'figurative' touch. Three major elements define the upper portion of this panel. The first affixed piece at left is a minimalist, delicately toned square, while its rightmost twin is noticeably smaller in width... something of a 'quick finale.' The central focus is a partitioned box. Its left half reveals an upright cylinder, while the right is cross-divided into nine compartments. In the center of these, a circular bowl confronts the viewer in what seems almost a schematic blueprint of geometric form. Wedding gives the impression of a successive geological history -- a clear memento, a wedding dress, rests below once-useful objects now turned to artifact and art. Throughout many of de Castro's constructions, common object is raised to uncommon sight, as when speech rises to poetry. Found objects, as a medium, often raise the question of whether they will assert their own identity, or submit to an artist's vision. (Indeed, for some artists, that tension itself is a creative intent.) In some of de Castro's earlier work, one finds more of the object and less of the artist. Two such works are in this show: Shattered Balance 1 (33"x33") and Shattered Balance 3 (33"x33"). These offer a study in development. In many Modernist movements, one has seen vital discoveries which remain exciting. They midwife further art. Equally, heirs may absorb mannerisms and whole idioms, and work them into formulae: The first impulse is lost; a vital presence dies. De Castro's art is evolving. Whatever its origins in architecture or found object, or semblance to Modernist legacies, current works such as Triptych or Wedding reveal a growing complexity, a subtlety; a presence. Several visitors at the show's opening felt that the triptych panels recalled Japanese gardens. (The artist originally thought of displaying them flat, but space dictated hanging the work.) In de Castro's new constructions, flat area and uniform contours are balanced against elements of tightly-ordered relief or recessed space. There are affinities with the carefully raked gravel beds, interrupted by arranged boulders or lone trees, which typify Zen landscape. Japanese gardens are environments for contemplation and insight; traditional gardens are there to hold flowers or vegetables. Neither are wild nature.
Among the recent work on display is a free-standing sculptural piece, de Castro's Sisyphus. In this work, tall, erect planes dwarf a smaller cube. Sisyphus conveys a sense of intransigent challenge confronting unyielding, concentrated, and ultimately futile discipline: however it may tilt, the lower form is bound to earth; its linked twin rises and dominates. A sculpture such as this relies on a viewer knowing the myth of Sisyphus, rogue and founder of the Greek city, Corinth. He revealed Zeus's rape of Aegina to her father, the river Asopus, and was punished in Hades by having to roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it fall back down after each effort. The gods still tower above the clever, but constrained. In aesthetic approach, de Castro's severe reduction of material form and yet the accompanying reference to anecdote in his title harken to sculptors such as Jacques Lipshitz or the Russian, Vladimir Tatlin. It is left to the viewer to bridge the myth and a sculptural symbolization. Several pieces in this exhibition are more closely bound to specific reference through their titles, and at times one feels that the context is vital to the physical object as a work of art. Ofrenda (24"x50") takes as its title the small votive shrine often associated with Mexico's Day of the Dead. It is not an altares, a site for worship, so much as a commemoration of one remembered or sought. In a similar manner, de Castro's Ascension (23"x23"), which offers an unexpected use of bright color, depends on cultural associations which may not be forthcoming to a general public. These smaller constructions, works like Shallow Grave: Aunt America ((23"x23") also in this show, link the artwork to a verbal catalyst. In a sense, this is the obverse of the tensions between 'found' media and the art drawn from it. The finest pieces (and there is highly successful art in this showing) negotiate beyond the actual materials and external attributes. Work such as Triptych and Wedding (Wedding Dress Without Veil) touch significant chords -- in sight, in mood, in afterthoughts -- and reward repeated viewing; much like the music of Mozart, to which the artist at times works. An architecture coalescing in free fall; a visual toccata and fugue; a landscape of geometries -- In this exhibition, order, color, depth define a fine visual, dimensional art. "David de Castro: CONSTRUCTIONS: Recent Work" will be at Las Manos Gallery from July 5 through August 5, 2002. David de Castro has a studio in Wicker Park's Flat Iron Arts Building (1579 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Studio No. 341), Chicago, and will hold an open studio there during the September "Around the Coyote Arts Festival." The artist's web site is http://www.daviddecastro.com/. --G. Jurek Polanski Jurek Polanski has previously written or art edited for American Spectator, Anonym, Artful Dodge, Nit&Wit:Chicago's Art Magazine, Strong Coffee, and numerous others. Graphic artist and designer, he's also well known and respected among the Chicago museums and galleries. Jurek Polanski is currently a Visual Arts Correspondent for ArtScope.net. Editorial Note: Books mentioned in www.artscope.net reviews may be purchased through this site's amazon.com link. Although the literature is extensive, for the general reader a brief overview of the Neo-Plasticists, De Stijl, may be found in Herbert Read's useful A Concise History of Modern Painting (Thames and Hudson:1991). |
Home | Art Reviews | Bookstore | eArtist | Galleries | RSS
Search | About ArtScope.net | Advertise on ArtScope.net | Contact
