Bizzare, primitive and still going after 500 years

Story by Reagan Duplisea
Photos by Yvette Herrera

Almost 500 years ago, a new style of art was developing in Western Europe. A style which its contemporaries criticized as bizarre, primitive and unadherent to the established “rules” of what art was expected to be. Today, the art of the Baroque period is revered for its contributions to the art world, from St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican to Caravaggio’s “The Cardsharps” at Fort Worth’s very own Kimbell Art Museum.

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth’s exhibit “Ultrabaroque: Aspects of Post-Latin American Art” is again challenging contemporaries with its range of works that may be considered by some to be bizarre and primitive.

Judging by the raised eyebrows and exclamations of befuddlement of museum visitors who breezed through the exhibit, it seems artists have pushed the envelope again.

However, more can be gained from this exhibit if time is spent with each object. Art historian Erich Hubala once wrote, “(Baroque art) must be seen with internal as well as external eyes if it is to be comprehended in its full sense.”

Study the pieces with eye and mind. Read the plaques. Only then do the 16 artists’ complex statements of crossing geographical and cultural borders come to light.

The term “Ultrabaroque” was coined for this exhibit, which originated at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego. It suggests ties to historical periods, as Baroque has connotations of a flourishing European culture.

Yet for Latin Americans, the baroque period was that of the colonization of the Americas, a time of violence, of social and cultural upheaval. While a time of destruction of peoples and customs, it was also a time of blending the old with the new, a fusion of the local traditions with those of the European colonists.

The term “Baroque” is derived from the French baroquer, a word used by cabinet makers for turning and curving. This is exactly what visitors must do with their heads, taking care not to run into the poles and pipes jutting out into space, to see the many aspects of Nuno Ramos’ “Untitled.”

Ramos’ intricate sculpture turns and curves against the stark white wall, screaming violence. Broken mirror shards and thick splatters of orange and red paint provide its backdrop.

It seems Ramos tried to soften his sharp edges with fabric, but the rips and jagged edges and large, child-like stitches in the rough corduroy and shiny foil counter that notion. Crude wire and rough rope connect the objects, which together show the artist’s desire to demonstrate the creative process.

The Baroque art of the 16th and 17th centuries is known for going beyond conventional boundaries. The artists of the Ultrabaroque also do this, such as Yishai Jusidman’s “J.A.,” a painting of a clown whose head seems pressed up against the canvas of the painting, straining viewers’ gazes.

Visitors who had a traumatic childhood trip to the circus that still gives them nightmares may want to avoid this room with Jusidman’s clown. His tongue, larger than a human head, protrudes from his wide mouth as if he laughs at, or wants to devour, the viewer.

What seem to be large suspended bowling balls with swirls of color gradually come into focus as more clowns stare out. Like images in a fun-house mirror, the faces are distorted and can only be seen from one angle. This technique, called anamorphosis, was also used during the Baroque period.

Even if averting their eyes from the clowns, visitors should not miss Jusidman’s “R.H.” and “J.N.” from his En-treat-ment series. The oil and egg tempera paintings feature patients at a psychiatric hospital posing with their favorite picture from an art book, reminiscent of Caravaggio’s and Velazquez’s portraits of outcasts in the 1600s, which put their subjects on a pedestal rarely given to them by society.

The Baroque art of Europe is also characterized by artists who blurred the distinctions between materials. Ultrabaroque artist Arturo Duclos is a master at this, as he demonstrated with his pieces in the exhibit.

With “Sulfur,” Duclos has arranged circles of material like subatomic particles on a drawing of a sulfur atom. But upon closer look, these are not different materials — the artist has painted over the pattern of the beige brocade background. Just by using different shades and hues, the designs look like completely different materials.

Duclos’ work also shows the mestizaje, the “impure” mixture of races and cultures that permeates Latin American art. It began with European colonization, but has greatly extended today, especially with the modern movement toward globalization.

With “Take My Trip,” he has painted splotches of royal blue on a green canvas, like a reversed map of the earth. He includes painted seashells and a black and white ship that seems to “tear through” the “map.”

But this work is accompanied by two beige canvases, marred by what appears to be bullet holes and a large bloodstain. With this work, Duclos seems to remind would-be travelers of the dangers of trips to “exotic” locations and that the inhabitants of those locations sometimes have a less-than-ideal existence.

While many of the artists simply bring the mestizaje to light, Adriana Varejão makes a bold statement about Western influence over the Latin American culture. She has attacked images of the West — a French painting, Portuguese tile — and ripped out their centers, symbolizing the violent underbelly of the colonists who sought to “bring culture” to the natives.

A large rectangle of blue and white tile graces one wall, but the middle has been savagely ripped open, revealing a sordid sculpted mess of flesh and organs. Next to a painting also displaying its war wounds is a piece of bloody canvas lying on a gurney — the victim of the artist destroying outwardly pretenses.

Strains of mariachi music and the tinny trills of a trumpet meet visitors’ ears. Rather than “mood music” piped in, their origin lies in a video of five mariachis shown in one room.

“Anarchy in the UK, Sex Pistols 1977” flashes across the screen, and the musicians jump up and down and stick their faces up to the camera, as if emulatin¼g a heavy metal band, adding humor to an exhibit that otherwise takes itself fairly seriously.

“Ultrabaroque: Aspects of Post-Latin American Art” runs through May 6 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Reagan Duplisea
r.l.duplisea@student.tcu.edu