The pictures probably tell it better than we ever could. As you know, the Rotund bunch is a cynical, thin-lipped crowd, given to smirking at the well-intentioned, nay-saying in the face of every sunny prospect, and quejando amargamente sin fin. CIRCA 2006 seemed made for us, a train wreck of stumbling out of the gate, hootably contradictory mispronouncements, and thoroughly fuzzy-headed, palpably baseless expectations. If dank souls could ever be said to be “exuberant” at looming disaster, we were it.
Then the last weekend in May rolled around, things actually turned out well—initial stumbles notwithstanding—and what can we say? Personally, almost everyone I know had a smashing time and so did I, but I was easily bought out. First of all, I was invited to be on a panel discussion about “Artistic Practices in Puerto Rico,” and the less said about that the better. The artists in attendance, thinking the panel would be all about them, held their noses and made barfing noises throughout the question and answer period, especially the bad boys in the front row.
Moderator Paco Barragán, usually the picture of droll Spanish knowingness, repeatedly got into it with the hecklers, whom he suggested move their culos, if I understood him correctly, some distance away. My cohorts Yasmín Ramírez, Quintín Rivera-Toro, and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves for awhile; Yasmín because she got through her talk in fine form, Quintín because his dad was there and rose up and gave a beaming endorsement to his boy’s way of life, and I because I couldn’t really follow very much of the teeth-gnashing and veiled and not-so-veiled gringo-baiting directed my way.
As for my talk the following day, it was an altogether different kettle of fish, as the cliché mongers like to say, and none of us want that beloved chestnut to fall out of use, do we? First, in spite of writing a reminder in big, block letters across the first page of my talk, I forgot to thank my swanky host because when I discovered that only a handful of my closest friends had shown up, I felt a huge surge of confidence and threw away the text. Ha ha ha. Sorry, Quintín.
CIRCA 2006 may have been a good thing for the contemporary art world today in Puerto Rico, but at this time, I would like to bore you with my thoughts on the baneful, increasingly commercial drift of the art world in general: how we are all going to Hell in a hand basket; the soulless ego-maniacs who collect; their rapacious accomplices, the dealers; the poor, poor artists who are the ultimate victims in all this market-driven hugger-mugger; and so on and so forth. And one episode soon, perhaps the next one—be warned!—I’ll reproduce snippets of the jeremiads I treated fair-goers to, uncomprehending though they were. Or perhaps just bored stiff. Suffice it to say that I believe that an art fair is just another trade fair—like the boat fairs where they try to sell you insanely overpriced yachts, or dental appliance fairs, abounding in monstrous chair-like body-seizers and frightening-looking chrome appliances—where the point is money changing hands. Fairs have become the motor that runs the art world, if you ask me, and we—critics, museum professionals, freelance curators, what have you—are just the clowns and acrobats, the sideshow freaks at the circus.
Someone in the symposium audience uttered a cry of alarm which I heard several times in the course of the fair, “No one is selling! No one is selling! They’ll never come back if no one sells.” And I replied, “Not true.” I mean, I wasn’t sure whether or not people were selling—and I heard that some visitors did really well, one well-known rug-merchant-type raking in the high hundred-teen thousands—but I was fairly sure that a clutch of snooty foreign art world poobahs were sniffing about in their black outfits and cowboy boots, testing the tropical island breezes with wetted fingers to see if things were blowing their way. And, as the pictures on down the page testify, indeed they seemed to be.
I have one last snarky thing to add, and I’ll say no more for now. But I can’t resist. I noticed that someone’s stock actually fell in the course of a couple of days of the most rank, obnoxious, pufferous bum-bussing I have ever beheld in a local newspaper. And I am speaking of the canary wipe that professes to be the largest and most influential news source on la isla. No names please, but you all know who I mean.
In any event, one day in the several-week course of this avalanche of bald twaddle that lead up to the fair, I noticed an article about a well-known couple from Miami who have built an impressive collection of mostly contemporary art. They were coming to CIRCA 2006 to show and talk about some works from their collection, and the writer described them as “among the most influential and important art collectors in the world.” Well blow me down, I thought. I lived for several years amongst these folks and looked forward to my visits to their vast warehouse on many occasions. One of my very fave contemporary art works, Damien Hirst’s chilling cabinet of medical instruments, replete with skeleton, used to sit at the top of the stairs to their second floor, a nasty surprise for all ascending visitors.
But to say they are among the “most influential and important . . . in the world” struck me as somewhat odd. Is theirs a particularly encyclopedic collection? What about those stunning pre-Raphaelite holdings, say? Any good Motherwells or Agnes Martins in the lot? Oller? Campeche? Fernando de Szyszlo? Well, none to be had; at least none they’ve put on display. Is it even foremost among contemporary collections? As good as Howard Rachofsky’s in Dallas or the neighboring Margulies collection? How would you judge such a thing? Isn’t an art collection largely a mirror of personal taste, no matter the how vast the holdings or how elaborate the accoutrements? Surely each of the well-chosen ones has strengths and gaps.
No matter, though, because two days later the paper, in yet another honeyed feature about these collectors, lowered the volume to a less breathless, more reasonable level, describing the couple as “among the principal 200 art collectors in the world.” But in the end there was still no escape, for they were now, in the words of a subhead, “the principal collectors of contemporary Latin American art.” And the sidebars listed such outstanding Latin Americans in their collection as Andy Warhol, Chris Ofili, Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, and Charles Ray.
No knock on our friends in Miami, who deserve a toot of the horn every time you pass their warehouse. But as CIRCA 2006 turns to CIRCA 2007, the organizers should think about what notes they’ll blow in the future if they want to sound like they know how to play.
A little sidebar of our own to that valiant crew, Elvis, Roberto, Celina, and company: pay todos los payasos y acróbatas in your circo if you expect them to put their bulbous intellectual noses on display year after year. As for this clown, only the first one’s free.
Our ears are burning—or is it our eyeballs are itching?—because somewhere someone is looking at this page and saying, “Where is the art, for effing sake?” Like other cutting-edge art magazines, we believe that celebrity-gazing—or glomming on to what passes for celebrity in these faraway, woozy parts—is our most important product. But we would be complete clods if we didn’t mention that there was a considerable amount of very cool art at CIRCA 2006. This was, perhaps, the fair’s best quality.
Below is a random selection of things we saw and took special note of. It is sometimes hard to tell which work is whose, what the devil it’s made of, and so forth, but in coming days we’ll attempt to fill in the gaps.
Talk about bad actors. Tiny Type promises and promises, but does it deliver? While island pols were mercilessly diddling their constituents so they could later congratulate themselves on what a very fine job they’re doing, and much of the art world was whispering “CIRCA! CIRCA! Oh, CIRCA!” over and over again into its own ear, saner things were happening. Like exhibitions, for example. But we forgot to notice.
Well, here we are on bended knee, begging forgiveness. Humility doesn’t go down easy, and we don’t like it one bit. Nonetheless, we’re willing to offer you the following tidbits of not exactly breaking news about our furry little friends, the artists. Better late than never.
Way down south, the venerable —in outlook if not in years— Museo de la Historia de Ponce hosted the opening of a new project by native son Diógenes Ballester, “Confesiones ancestrales: Evidencia histórica de una ciudad.” This installation of paintings, sculptures, artifacts, and “internet transmission” has some dubious moments, notably the inclusion of actual Taíno individuals’ skulls. You might also question whether or not Ballester’s resin version of the monument to the freed slave that stands in el Parque de la Abolición is really superior to the original, as the artist maintains. But the exhibition is altogether an intricate, moving tribute to Ballester’s Ponceño roots and demonstrates how a solid and largely modernist outlook can serve a painter well in the twenty-first century.
“Confesiones ancestrales” runs until October 7th, and if you’re taken with Ballester’s work, visit Galería Trinitaria—Avenida Emilio Fagot in Ponce, phone 787-259-1034—to see some small paintings. El Museo de la Historia de Ponce is located at Calle Isabel #53, on the corner of Calle Mayor. It’s open 9 to 5 Monday and Wednesday to Friday, and 10 to 6 on Saturday and Sunday. It’s closed Tuesday. Call 787-844-7071 for further information.
Meanwhile, things took a decidedly rastier turn across the island in that cradle of urban decadence, San Juan, during CIRCA 2006. Is this the corrupting influence of mammon, the ruinous allure of fame? Do we really want the intoxicating vapors of CIRCA drifting within sniffing distance of our wives and daughters? Think about it, friends. Because we heard that Galería Comercial—not a fair participant, but certainly availing itself of the aura of mayhem—was busted for running an illegal gambling operation.
Well, as the evidence here demonstrates, this was really nothing more than a harmless work of art, merely the latest hijinks by gallery darling Jesús Bubu Negrón. At least it was not harmful unless you believe that the gallery-collector-art-fair nexus is carrying us all to Hell, and quickly. And who would swallow that hogwash? The gallery, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is located on Avenida Fernando Juncos #1412. Call Tito at 787-724-0655 to ascertain el horario.
Rigoberto Quintana is one of those rare birds who manages to combine conceptual derring-do with a fine draughtsman’s touch. I loved the series of pupitres escolares he showed at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo when I first arrived on the island. It was a revelation, the first sign that my wife had not carried us into the Land of Coconuts after all.
Quintana has an exhibition of large works at Viota Gallery which, although not as punkified in concept as the desks, still finds the artist in chaos-master mode. Go immediately to the gallery at Avenida San Patricio #793. Call 787-782-1752 for the pertinent datos.
Lastly, but not least by a long shot, I finally got up to the tagRom hidey-hole after swearing up and down to Carlos “Sesos” Reyes that I would attend this opening and that party in his place during the course of CIRCA and bring all my swell pals. Well, am I sorry now? Of course.
The new exhibition there, whose title can only be visually understood but translates as something like “Brok-en (Hearted),” is another triumph of ingenuity, wacky fun, and some pretty dark thinking. Carlos himself supplies most of the fun, a video in which our hero, a boxer with heart, takes on himself and loses round after round. Ouch! Ha ha.
The darkness comes from that other Carlos, Ruiz Valarino, whose obsession with our surveillance culture transports us deep into the high grass of la playa where the creepy things dwell. Carola Cintrón’s amazing stringed instrument provides the ingenuity.
But it’s really the spare, sweet arrangement of the entire show that makes a tagRom visit de rigueur. Call Carlos at 787-403-6003 to arrange a tour. The gallery is upstairs on the third floor above the print shop at Calle Guyama #13 in Hato Rey, near where Domenech becomes Guayama.
That’s not all folks, but it’s all for now. Good night.
Rotund World News covers Miami, la Isla, and the world.
The magazine is designed and written by Joel Weinstein, in collaboration with unnamed others. The commentary, inspired by real events, is of a satirical nature and is not to be believed.
Photos, unless otherwise credited, are by none other than J Weinstein.
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