Wifredo Lam + Agustín Cárdenas 9 September – 5 November 2021
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Bill Hodges Gallery is honored to present Wifredo Lam + Agustín Cárdenas, an exhibition celebrating two exceptional Afro-Cuban artists. This exhibition focuses on latter artistic periods of both Lam and Cárdenas in order to illuminate the ethos of each artist at a time when they were making works marked by a profound sense of self-exploration.
Wifredo Lam, Untitled, 1975, Oil on Canvas 9 ½ x 13 ¾ in. (24.1 x 35.9 cm)
As Cubans of African descent and as artists, Lam (Sagua La Grande, Cuba; 1902 - Paris, France; 1982) and Cárdenas (Matanzas, Cuba; 1927 – Havana, Cuba; 2001) uplifted and transformed the histories of Africa, Cuba and beyond towards a universal future that did not seek to extricate itself from the present or past. Comparable to the rhizome of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (further developed by Édouard Glissant) – both artists employed the ancestral, terrestrial and the divine to establish and elevate infinite truths in a one-sided world.
Born in 1902, Lam was the eighth and youngest child to Ana Serafina Lam and Lam Yam. The artist was of Chinese descent on his father’s side and of African and Spanish descent on his mother’s side. His ancestry is a stark reflection of Cuba’s history of servitude and slavery – a practice that was abolished less than twenty years before the artist’s birth. Because of the country’s enmeshed histories, especially that between Africa and Cuba, many Afro-Cubans were forced to duplicitously retain and remodel aspects of their indigenous cultures and religion through oral tradition. This is seen, distinctly, in the spiritual practice of Santería. Lam’s godmother, Mantonica Wilson, was a locally revered santera (Santería priestess) who exposed him to this sacred tradition from an early age. Though Lam did not feel he was chosen to become a babalao (priest) in his youth, he eventually reconnected with the religion later in his career by using Santería imagery, as evidenced in many works in this exhibition. Wifredo Lam’s earlier styles were influenced by his time living and traveling throughout Spain and France and also by the artists he was able to form relationships with, such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. However, after World War II and frequent trips back to Cuba – Lam, forced to reckon with the relentless state of racism in his homeland and beyond, chose to dedicate his craft to portraying the beauty and spirit of Black people and culture. The exhibition Wifredo Lam + Agustín Cárdenas features many works by Lam that reference his connection to Santería and Afro-Cuba, namely his caricature of the “horse-headed woman” or femme cheval. Femme cheval is a motif taken directly from Santería meant to represent a santera/babalao who has been possessed, or in other words “ridden”, by an orisha (deity or spirit). Though many of these works were created while the artist was living in France or Italy, his reference to Santería serves as a linkage to his motherland and heritage and, more adroitly, as an opposition to European culture. Examples of femme cheval in this exhibition can be seen in his intimate sketch for a friend titled Horse Woman on the Chair, 1951 and in the oil on canvas work from 1975 featured above.
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