It is enough to walk long enough through the arteries of any major city for the iconic eyebrows of Frida Kahlo to emerge from some unexpected corner. Alongside the Virgin of Guadalupe and the poblano chili, they constitute Mexico’s leading exports and a confused symbol for millions of women worldwide. In her homeland her image circulates on banknotes, perfumes, and the most unimaginable supports. To give you an idea, I once found her on the shelf of a grimy pastry shop in Baku, Azerbaijan.
I have long sensed that the most refined renderings of the human—beginning with the exaltation of the body—are found in fashion photography. Its formal indulgences usually conceal symbolic intentions, more or less explicit. Face and hands alike retain evidence of what has been lived. They are extraordinarily narrative. They speak of the work we have done—and the work we have left undone. They also speak of gesture, both public and private. We shake gentlemen’s hands and kiss ladies’ hands. Acts of recognition and peace.
The universe is a concert of patterns. Galaxies, solar systems, and planets share elements in common and others that set them apart. The same holds true for nations, cities, and communities. Cincinnati possesses a remarkable artistic community. As I gradually come to know its members, patterns begin to reveal themselves—those that identify them as part of a universal order, and those that distinguish them from others operating in different ecosystems, whether within the metropolitan circuits of Europe or in what is often called the Third World.
The art market revolves around monumental sums. What captures the spotlight is usually the excessive sale, the broken record, the news that one artist or another has climbed the rankings. The tip of the iceberg. Behind these dazzling transactions lies the effort, talent, and dedication of one of its key figures: the advisor. A specialist who assumes he will never shine before the public, though he is the one who prepares the ground for a mechanism sustained by fascinating yet essentially deceptive flashes....
Creative anxieties: “Anxiety limits my ability to travel, but don’t tell my mom” is the subtitle Juan-Sí González gives to his recent American Playgrounds series, from which a selection of 21 images is included in this catalog from his recent exhibition at the Cleveland Print Room in Cleveland, Ohio. For an immigrant, the alternative—moving with relative spontaneity around an unknown territory, at the mercy of an alien geography and culture...
In mid-August, in Louisville, Kentucky, I attended a conversation with Cuban artists presenting their work at Louisville Visual Art. My compatriots, the familiar. In a country where everything seems to flow through rigid channels, surprise is rare. I speak of migrant artists, many of them newly arrived. Some pieces were more compelling than others, and the stories carried nuances best considered one by one. As in cooking, the flavor of each ingredient, tasted alone, can prove more intense and memorable than the mixture in which it dissolves.
I have spoken at length with Juan-Sí. Twice in person, once by phone. About a month ago we shared a coffee, standing in my kitchen—the first guest to step into my still chairless apartment. Each time our dialogue drew to a close, after the inevitable farewell, I was left with the impression that I had merely touched the widening circle of water at the surface of a well whose depths few have known. That expanding ripple produced by such a fleeting contact is what I now attempt to turn into memory.
Contemporary war is no longer only a matter of territory and arms; it is also a visual phenomenon that penetrates homes and consciences through screens and social media. Many young people cannot, or do not know how to, shield themselves from that emotional tempest. Yet some have discovered ways of conjuring it. The photographic camera can become an extension of body and consciousness.
For some time now, fashion—and particularly the advertising that shadows it—has put forth powerful images of Black women. Not the average African American—an archetype we might briefly allow ourselves to treat as stereotype—nor the women born in Europe, but those who come from, dwell in, or have only just arrived from the deepest heart of Africa.
