February 14, 2007 – June 8, 2008
Maria Brito and Enrique Chagoya are both known for artwork that addresses issues of cultural hybridity, multiplicity, and hyphenated identity — although they differ greatly in method, style, and medium. Through the projects presented here, each artist affirms the imaginative influence, visual power, and ongoing resonance of Goya’s renowned Caprichos.
Cuban-born (1947) and Miami-based, Maria Brito fashions table-top sculptures that re-articulate some of Goya’s most famous scenes, and her precisely detailed, exquisitely modeled works lend unexpected dimensional life to these celebrated images. The artist was drawn to Goya’s depictions “because of the contemporary nature of his commentary on the human condition,” and chose “the stark whiteness of polymer clay” to contrast against the dark tonalities of his prints. Brito sees her pieces as “ghosts that remain witnesses to our own foibles.”
Maria Brito is represented by the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami
Mexican-born (1953) and San Francisco-based, Enrique Chagoya posits his series on “the question of how Goya’s work would have looked had he traveled in time to the present day and portrayed our world in his own classic style.” The eight etching and aquatint plates in the series abide Goya’s precedent yet express a form of social and political critique that is unmistakably the artist’s own. Chagoya writes of his project as a tribute to Goya, “as well as a distanced look into the complexities of our contemporary society. Humor is the triumph of pleasure over pain; it is a defense mechanism and not a way of trivializing atrocities.”
Enrique Chagoya is represented by Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco
Dr. Lisa Fischman, Chief Curator
Organized to complement Goya’s Mastery in Prints, the presentation of Francisco de Goya’s four major print suites, the exhibition series Correspondence: In Relation to Goya showcases contemporary artwork that in risk-taking originality, clarity of vision, and passionate quality resonates with Goya’s legacy.
Also see the related exhibition, Goya’s Mastery in Prints: Los Caprichos
