Manuel López Oliva: Unrepeatable Stage Productions in Detroit

September 25, 2018

In the work of painter Manuel López Oliva, for more than two decades, multiple signs of theatricality, of masks, rituality and life metaphorized by the disguises of culture have appeared. Besides his pieces being full of color, they are meticulous in their elaboration that combines textures and loose features with factures that recall artisanal forms.

In each of his works all the plastic signs of his craft are implicit, which provides him with such a level of unity above stylistic mixtures and variations. That is, that which still connects with Pop and New Figuration assumed in his beginnings (nineteen sixties), and merges with later stages of his evolution, where the abstract, expressionism, free assimilation of medieval codes and postmodernity have had undoubted presence.

Now, that personal substance that integrates the different modes of expression of this creator, is in view of all in the exhibition Open scene (A teatro abierto), inaugurated a few days ago at the Centro N`Namdi de Arte Contemporáneo in Detroit, United States. A total of 24 works (paintings on canvas) of large format, compose this exhibition of the also Cuban critic and essayist, gestated during the past Havana Biennial, by invitation of the owner of said institution, and will remain open to the American public until early January 2019, in one of the two galleries of the multicultural center, located in the most populated city of the state of Michigan.

MASKS, THEATER, CARNIVAL...

One of the most authentic popular celebrations of Cuban life, as occurs throughout the entire Caribbean geographic complex, is carnival, with its overflowing, sensualism, rituals and disguises. Through his own childhood experiences, in some way marked by his relationship with the carnivals of his native Manzanillo, López Oliva felt compelled to give form in his creations to carnival characters and sayings. This function of the traditional celebration in his plastic language, is likewise an indicator of the influence that certain artisanal factures, characteristic of popular ornamentation in style, have had on his works. This perhaps explains the accentuated originality of his style, which while it has been nourished by highly varied currents of classic and modern plastic art, is also indebted to the art of weaving, embroidery, mosaic and the same production of ornaments, dolls and other elements typical of carnival.

The painter has frequently said that, for him, Theater is a metaphor of life. That is why there is an indirect presence of the events and problems of today's man within the theatrical allusions located in the paintings of this creator. Although the titles themselves refer us to works, parts and projections of theatricality of all eras, and the viewer can notice similarities with daily happenings, with the psychology of people, and even with situations and archetypes of Cubanness. Art within another art, theater transformed into painting, fusion of vast cultural information in the poetic fabric of the works, is that which characterizes the universalist dimension of López Oliva as part of Cuban painters of open and advanced spirit. He does not paint theater, nor does he have actors or dancers act in a specific stage, but rather "I see all reality through the prism of an imaginary theatrical structure." It is that theater is for him a metaphor of life. That is why there is an indirect presence of the events and problems of today's man within the theatrical allusions located in the paintings of this creator.

From a brief dialogue held in his mansion in Santos Suárez, the renowned artist spoke of his work and his concerns in art in general. The words focused on theater. With that characteristic ease of expression, he said that really his second vocation is not art criticism, it is THEATER (and he "underlined" it in the dialogue). The other was a need for philosophical or social communication with people. But theater, apart from the plastic arts, was what I felt very deeply since childhood.

"For me, theatricality is the existence of all society that lives in a perpetual staging, a work of theater—with dance, mime—, uninterrupted. And I managed to understand that it was the system of expression most coherent with my interests, both pictorial and visual, in general". And in his pictorial work, each work functions as an autonomous staging, each one is an aesthetic problem, a visual image conceived with the independence of a piece that at a moment is related to theater, to life and to a human problem. The set of those works functions for me as a great theater company that is displaying its creations theater company, opera, ballet".

LÓPEZ OLIVA, NOT PRECISELY CLASSICAL

It may seem unusual that a painter deeply Cuban and Caribbean transmits in his works the flavor of the medieval and Renaissance painter, and quite often also of classicism and expressionist evocation. This is the case of López Oliva, where the vigor of colors attenuated by dense atmospheres or the drawing that sometimes moves like a linear arabesque, constructs images that identify with the historical styles mentioned, without losing thereby its tremendous contemporaneity, which due to the plurality of meaning, has been catalogued by some as post-modern creation.

Among these elements, light appears in his work as another character, it is also protagonist of those pictorial stories. The phenomenon of light has always interested me, he commented, both in physical life as in landscape. "But mainly, the light of baroque and the specific light of theater, both classical and traditional. That which is generated by the footlights and by the lights placed above the stage space".

Among the artists that have been of great interest to him for the work of light he pointed out the impressionist Degas, especially that which appears in his dance lessons, as well as Toulouse Lautrec in whom one observes a creative play with artificial light. From Cuba he pointed out Carlos Enríquez, who achieved luminous vibrations characteristic of the intense sun that bathes us, which causes a slight haze that envelops his landscapes and figures. Hence the phenomenon of transparencies, which is a result of his chromatic handling of light. The study of all this, of baroque chiaroscuro, of the effects of white, which many mannerist and baroque painters used, served López Oliva to understand that in those pieces he has been creating since 1992, he had to produce, in the painting or in the performance, a special type, imaginary and deceptive general effect of illumination.

"In my paintings, he comments, there is no natural illumination, but theater illumination, which can be that of an everyday or romantic theater, as well as that of hell understood as theatrical space. What he does is mask, "it is tattoo, professional or power gesticulation, it is like the stage that exists in the body itself. Because man also carries in his physiognomy a theater. It can be a theater-stage, a theater-tribune, a theater-desk, a theater-dance, an ethical theater..., and at the same time, a type of theater in which man ceases to be man to become an object of his interests".

Now collectors, art lovers, students, professors and American public in general have the opportunity to establish an imaginative conversation with the works of this creator in that important exhibition center, as Manuel Mendive had already done before.

The artist, as he expressed, could not be at the opening, but will soon travel to the United States to participate in workshops, lectures and guided visits, which will not only be timely occasions to reveal keys to his style, but also to bring to light essential truths of Cuban culture.

Source: Cubarte