Cat\u00e1logo exposici\u00f3n Fundaci\u00f3n Carlos Amberes, Madrid. Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM), Santo Domingo. National Gallery, Kingston. Museo del Canal Interoce\u00e1nico, Panam\u00e1. Museo de Arte (MARTE) San Salvador. Museo Antropo\u00f3logico y Arte Contempor\u00e1neo (MAAC), Guayaquil. Museo de Arte Contempor\u00e1neo (MAC), Santiago de Chile. Museo de Arte Moderno de Medell\u00edn (MAMM), Medell\u00edn. Abril 2008.<\/p>\n
Carlos Delgado<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Crises and (re)definitions of Painting after Modernity<\/p>\n Man has declared the end of painting for much longer than we usually think. When, in 1622, the Dutch astronomer and physicist Christian Huygens was able to gain access to a camera oscura he unhesitatingly and with great enthusiasm remarked, \u00abIt’s impossible to express its beauty with words. The art of painting has died, as this is life itself, or even something more elevated. If only it were possible to find a word to describe it!\u00bb<\/p>\n Of all the mediums of art, painting has surely been the most disputed and questioned. The arguments, made since the 1970’s, announcing its death ended up activating a continuous crisis in painting, even at the times when its recovery seemed immanent(1). The foreseeable outcome of certain pictorial conventions determined by the norms established by modernism, as well as the accusation of having become \u00aban overused language\u201d(2), radically altered painting’s position as a privileged medium, as a sounding box for the diversity of possibilities which constituted Western Visual Culture. Painting came to play, certain exceptions aside, an apparently marginal role in the development of the creative possibilities which would define the liminal space of postmodernism.<\/p>\n But the possible death of painting acted as a synecdoche of the totality (the concept of art itself) which appeared to impose a sense of urgency on an end that never came about. In this respect, those historians\u2019 taste for death and murder metaphors when talking about the continuity of processes is striking, as those kinds of statements never proposed a literal end to traditional creative mediums. As Hal Foster has indicated in this respect, \u00abIt was about formal innovation and the historical meaning of those mediums\u201d(3). The question, with its Duchampian roots, \u00abWhat is Art?\u00bb is thus taken up again not so much to find a socially accepted answer as to evaluate the deviations of the interrogating subject itself.<\/p>\n That evaluation brought with it a redefinition of the concept of \u00abArt\u00bb that would not be, in any case, homogeneous. Institutional, media and market valuations coexisted with the ones developed by the artists themselves, the viewers, critics and by various kinds of marginal groups, even if they were all part of the same panorama. That of an art swallowed up by the classifying linearity of history, apparently exhausted by the constant search for the new, stripped of its original Techne (\u03c4\u03ad\u03c7\u03bd\u03b7), debased as an object, reconsidered as a concept, and with its aesthetic reception conditioned by a spectrum of \u00abexceptional visual density\u00bb(4). That sort of semantic fragmentation of art would favor the emergence of a new way of thinking and naming Contemporary Art, at precisely the moment when \u201cit no longer seems contemporary\u201d(5). In the field of painting, repeated questioning of the medium would emerge in response to the complex investigations about its limits carried out during the high modernist era. The shift towards modernism’s loss of validity was exemplified by a notable geographic movement (from Europe to the United States(6)) which precisely coincides with what some consider to be the high point or the epitome of the modernist concept of painting, while the modernist old masters, such as Matisse, Braque and Leger, were in the last phase of their careers, in New York Abstract Expressionism by artists such as Pollock, de Kooning, Still, Motherwell, Newman, Rothko and others was illustrating a new direction which, ultimately, would become the penultimate attempt to anchor the medium in its specificity. Autonomy, purity, abstraction and visuality are recurrent codes articulated through the theoretical writings of Clement Greenberg. Being late and partial observations upon the constituents of Modernism, they are nonetheless frequently analyzed as a paradigm of that same concept. In any case, Greenberg’s ideas form part of the structure of culture, and its posterior critical revisions, that affirm a kind of art distanced from day to day reality and focus on what is specific to painting. A purity which finds its last bastion in Post-Painterly Abstraction, a term coined by Greenberg to denominate an approach to abstraction different from Abstract Expressionism. It was based on cool rationalism and would produce its most notable exemplars in the generation that burst forth on the scene in the early 1970’s represented by figures such as Reinhardt, Louis, Stella or Noland. The cooling down of art in the 1960’s after the formalist ardor would, additionally, be expressed through Op-Art, Kinetic-Art, and in its figurative mode, Pop Art.<\/p>\n According to Arthur C. Danto, it was the latter movement which was the true arbiter of the end of Modernism and the origin of \u00abthe new direction in the visual arts\u201d(7). Such a profound turning point would consequently have a specific date. One day in April 1964, Danto went to a show at the Stabler Gallery where Warhol’s work was being shown. Once there, he experienced the contemplation of the artists work with great agitation, as what he was seeing posed a profound challenge to Art Criticism as well as Aesthetics. Brillo, Heinz Ketchup and Del Monte peach boxes were stacked up in the gallery. They weren’t real cardboard boxes but rather plywood copies that had the completely convincing appearance of being the same products bought at the supermarket. It was the end of the pure, and of Art History as a grand scheme of causal relationships, Pop Art began a post-historical period with a highly pluralistic aesthetic in which one can no longer find a mainstream to come up against. What movement could now take up a historical mission for its own sake and impose a determined hierarchy?<\/p>\n While Dante’s observations opened the line of enquiry several artists established in New York began exhibiting three dimensional work which seemed to possess the sufficient formal characteristics (the use of stable and primary geometric structures and executed using industrial colors and materials) to be included in a movement. It would be in the essay, \u201cMinimal Art\u201d, published in 1965, by Richard Wollheim, where the work of Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt and Robert Morris, would be christened with that name. They were artists who exemplified a new sensibility that is still today read from very diverse points of view, being presented by some critics as the apotheosis of modernist idealism, and analyzed by others as a subversive dramatization of the same position(8) Greenberg himself sustained that this art was directly antithetical to the highest modernist achievements, fundamentally because it shifted the interest in production towards process(9). It is certain, however, that we can consider Minimalism to be the end of formalism and, at the same time, as a \u00abdetonator of the influences of formalism and the beginning of so called Post-Minimalism or Late Minimalism that led to the process of the dematerialization of the work of Art.\u201d(10).<\/p>\n Alongside this shift towards process, one of the other principal lines of argument opened up by Minimalism was the reconsideration of the terms painting and sculpture. In \u00abSpecific Objects\u201d, a 1965 essay which became a sort of Minimalist manifesto, despite never having intended to be, Donald Judd remarked, \u00abHalf or more of the best new work in the last few years has been neither painting nor sculpture.\u201d(11), a wide range of work being encompassed by the terms, \u00abthree dimensional work\u00bb or \u00abobject\u00bb. The same year as the publication of that text, Sol LeWitt denominated his open modular cubes \u00abstructures\u00bb and Dan Flavin began referring to his work with neon lights as \u00abproposals\u00bb. Robert Morris retained the term \u00absculpture\u00bb for just a short while, only Carl Andre would continue using that term to refer to his work.<\/p>\n Considered to be antiquated concepts for referring to new developments in Art, painting and sculpture would quickly see their traditional formal and semantic position suppressed. In 1977, Rosalind Krauss carried out a well known analysis(12) of contemporary sculpture that made evident the appearance of a number of three dimensional artworks on the Western art scene characterized by practices unknown until then, and that lacking the precise terminology for naming them, ended up being called sculpture. In this way, echoing and adapting for their own use the critical practices that, accompanying post-war American Art, had been developed as a kind of manipulation with the result that, \u00abIn the hands of this criticism categories like sculpture and painting have been kneaded and stretched and twisted in an extraordinary demonstration of elasticity, a display of the way a cultural term can be extended to include just about anything.\u201d(13). Out of the consciousness that sculpture, and by extension painting, are historically delimited categories and not universals, Rosalind Krauss presented a new turn that breaks with modernist concepts and practices and that, as a result, cannot be formulated with historicist precepts. And given that in pictorial mediums, the transformation of the discipline as such did not assume the same degree of radicalism as in the case of sculpture, or at least not as evidently, it is, nonetheless, true that many of the later practices directly linked to Post Modernism seek to locate pictorial mediums in an expanded artistic field.<\/p>\n Rosalind Krauss’s text finds its genesis in the complex art of the end of the sixties, where a striking number of names can be found (Minimal, Conceptual, Land Art, Body Art, Arte Povera, the Happening, Kinetic-art, Neo-Concretism, etc.) for which finding any common denominator would be quite difficult. Faced with the absence of a style, or of a \u00abtypical\u00bb aesthetic of the moment, perhaps the crisis of the traditional art object was that everyone made an argument for themselves being the closest such thing. On the other hand, if the formalism Greenberg put forward excluded the cognitive and ethical aspects of the artistic experience, the recent conceptual art and performative experiences appearing at this time would not take long to convert those codes, respectively, into central themes of their considerations. Faced with this situation, painting would be denigrated as being the accomplice of the failed Modernist project whose validity was being directly questioned, shedding doubt as much on the purity of traditional mediums as on the singularity of any form of artistic insularity.<\/p>\n The experiences of the Support-Surface group in France, dissolved in 1971 after barely three years of activity, or of various developments in North American painting in the seventies such as Hyperrealism, Pattern Painting, New Image Painting or Bad Painting kept alive the possibilities of rethinking painting from heterogeneous perspectives. On the other hand, the kinds of alternatives based on the existence of a physical support began to invigorate \u00aba market suffocated by the ephemeral modalities of particular (kinds of) Art, Land Art, Process Art and Conceptual Art\u00bb(14).<\/p>\n Nevertheless, on the threshold of the seventies and continuing through the eighties, the arrival of an atmosphere receptive to painting in a large part of the international Art world could not avoid a debt to the legacy of Conceptual and Performance Art. Painting, which had been the primary exponent of Modernism, had now become the vehicle for its criticism on several fronts. The apropriationist strategies of artists such as Sherry Levine or Robert Longo as much as the attacks of various forms of neo-expressionism presented a renewal that would bypass, at least apparently, innovation in artistic practices themselves.<\/p>\n As opposed to Modernism, which excludes repetition, the new wave of neo-expressionism seemed to detach itself from the burdens of influence in order to; conversely, opt for a peculiar return to the history of painting through quotation. The wave of neo-expressionism which came from Italy (Chia, Clemente, Cucchi, de Maria and Paladino, among others) and Germany (Baselitz, Immendorf, Kiefer, L\u00fcpertz, Polke\u2026), which dominated a large part of the artistic spectrum during the eighties and which spread throughout important European and North American museums, obtained wide support from galleries and collectors, even if it did not find unanimous acceptance from critics. The subjective and emotional tone of those tendencies found a parallel in New York in the early eighties through artists, like Julian Schnabel and David Salle, who participated in the postmodern project with a kind of painting that was also neo-expressionist. Similar criteria were also used to characterize a good part of Spanish figurative Art from the same years, (Luis Gordillo, Guillermo P\u00e9rez Villalta, Carlos Alcolea, Juan Antonio Aguirre among others).<\/p>\n But the fortune of these movements was fleeting, and promptly the expressive bravura of that painting began to cool down into geometry (Neo-Geo) and relinquish its centrality to new media, the sculptural-object, installation, environments, video art and photography. Within this context, since the beginning of the eighties(15), a paradoxical annexation between previously distant territories of creative practice was beginning, based on the mutual influences between visual ends and results. The so called \u00abphoto paintings\u00bb or \u00abpictorial-photographs\u00bb produced by artists such as Jeff Wall, Canadian, was a response to such criteria as; \u00abthe clear delimitation of a plane, frontality and the composition of an autonomous object\u00bb(16) which would be used to find ways to incorporate photographic practices into the field of visual arts.<\/p>\n Out of this dialogue between different mediums, the way was being cleared for one of the most significant possibilities presented by Postmodernism: the hybridization of mediums. This was an idea that would come to codify, \u00abthose artistic phenomena that don’t seek the specificity of a genre, nor be categorized as belonging to any specific stylistic current\u00bb(17). The incorporation of painting into such a strategy would be an assault on its own specificity and autonomy as a medium, or rather, what defines its place, \u00abfrom there it can be assured that nothing remains of painting in the hybrid, nothing which could lead you to think of a strong combination ; that is, based on the idea of impurity as an ontological alternative, of the different meanings implicit in the \u00abrigid boundaries\u00bb of each one of the disciplines put into dialogue with each other.\u00bb(18).<\/p>\n Alongside the progressive dissolution of the pictorial along various lines with no real direction(19), the following decade would show that the renewed faith in painting was transitory. The 1991 exhibition, of the photographic work of Suzanne Lafont in the Galer\u00eda del Jeu de Paume, a place reserved until then for showing painting and sculpture, might serve as a starting point for a new context in which other mediums (photography, video, film or television) seem to express the ambiguous spirit of the contemporary with greater clarity. And even if many artists remained faithful to the established conventions of the medium, its traditional supports and techniques, having crossed the threshold of the eighties painting would have to be characterized by its new elasticity. Installation would become a new territory for pictorial experimentation, \u00abby superimposing onto the idea of space and environments a degree of chromatic tension in objects, materials, walls or constructions, which are perceived like painting\u201d(20). This strategy, developed by such diverse artists as Jason Rhoades or Jessica Stockholder, (the latter heiress to the aesthetic possibilities opened up by Robert Rauschenberg) accentuates the idea of the crisis of the concept of \u201cmaking paintings\u00bb and at the same time attempted to provide a wider and more complex perception of what painting is.<\/p>\n The worn out repertoire of the modern pictorial tradition put new strategies into practice which intended to undermine the imperative of purity and to embody and exemplify \u00aban intoxicating feeling of being free at last\u201d(21). The abstract art of the nineties defined itself following unequivocally flexible criteria, in an attempt to escape from the constraining territory located \u00abbetween the reductionism of monochromatic painting and the venomous legacy of High Modernism\u201d(22). And even if there were attempts at classifying the position of painting within this particular context the consciousness of a marked heterogeneity would emerge. If Arthur C. Danto had mentioned impure abstraction to indicate those tendencies that appeared in the nineties with total freedom and in margins of formalist abstraction, Demetrio Paparoni proposed the term redefined abstraction, alluding not to any determined style but to certain practices that, far from attempting to invent, were based on re-defining what already existed through new systems of relations, \u00abBy redefined abstraction one should understand fin-de-si\u00e8cle abstraction. As opposed to post-war abstraction (from Abstract Expressionism to Minimalism) it does not intend to reinvent a style or affirm one position against another. Its goal is to be a dialectical instrument between varied forms and theories once considered to be incompatible and diametrically opposed\u201d(23). Particularly, the opposition between abstraction and figuration that characterized the Art of the fifties trickled down through the work of artists such as Sean Scully, Peter Halley, Jonathan Lasker, Domenico Bianchi, Juan Usl\u00e9 or G\u00fcnther F\u00f6rg, (among others) who would frequently introduce the idea of referentiality into their work.<\/p>\n The new millennium opened up with various exhibitions that would keep the debate about the pictorial alive, such as Urgent Painting, held at the Mus\u00e9e d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Par\u00eds in 2001 or the triptych Painting on the Move (24) presented at the Basel art fair in 2002. Without intending to establishing a new centrality for painting(25) these large shows ended up pointing out the absence of normative currents in the new practices offered by painting as well as delineating multiple points of entry to its possible advancement.<\/p>\n Now then, the sequential reading set out above should not preclude the discontinuous nature of processes, movements and currents that frequently overlapped. Furthermore, this narrative approach gets complicated when it comes to weaving it into the present. Nonetheless, attempts at premature categorizations aside, it is worthwhile to observe how more and more these days numerous artists are focusing their interest on making paintings and establishing an analysis of present art from this perspective.<\/p>\n The undeniable support that institutions such as museums and galleries are suddenly giving painting, or the shift initiated by international collectors and, in turn, by specialized Art critics, is creating some undeniably interesting alternatives that seem to be opening up to a new consideration of painting. The center of attention in art seems to be changing once again to make way for an approach that keeps demonstrating a rich capacity for innovation. Many assertions of the postmodern paradigm having been questioned and the majority of its normative possibilities having been eliminated, the pictorial is re-defining multiple perspectives today. \u00abFigurative painting with an abstract construction by Neo Rausch, dragging figurative elements into abstract compositions as Tal R does, the neutralization of Pop in a whimsical mixture with Abstract Expressionism by Michael Majerus, the combination of tradition and comics by various Japanese artists. Complete mixture, intentional contamination, constant mutation, disregard for form, initiating each piece and each series like a new battle in search of a surprise, the idealization of being stranded, conceptual fragmentation, the intentional and accentuated banality…are, without being all-inclusive, some of the principal lines of force in the here and now of painting\u201d(26).<\/p>\n The thirty-eighth Art Basel (2007) was host to a surprising amount of pictorial work. Even if art fairs are not reliable indicators of the vicissitudes of art, one could appreciate the preeminence of figurative painting, \u00abFundamentally narrative, with a naive and childlike, ironic and fresh tone\u201d(27). An indicator like this, in certain accord with what viewers saw at the fairs in Venice and Kassel the same year, seems to suggest (although perhaps only provisionally) that the form\/formless or figurative\/abstract dialectic specific to the fin-de-si\u00e8cle re-defined abstraction from the last century now shows multiple levels of counterbalance in favor of the first term in the pairs. An inclination that brings with it a recovery, however distant, of formal rhetoric as an element inherent in pictorial praxis. New graphic resonances for a figuration dispossessed of its literal meanings and with its systemization vaporized.<\/p>\n A deconstructive automatic model of abstraction.<\/p>\n Within this new setting, which allows for multiple points of entry, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria has developed into one of the most solid artists painting today. The quality of his work and the insightfulness of his theoretical program have been the tools used to build his enormous prestige in Spain, and what have set into motion his unstoppable international career.<\/p>\n Around the end of 2005, the artist decided to move to New York in order to rethink his painting, which would lead him to modify the values which had served him so successfully during the previous decade and introduce definitive changes of direction that would prevent, once again, a definitive classification his work. It must be noted, however, that this artist\u2019s commitment to risk has been a constant throughout his career. As he is always in permanent tension with his own work, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria has consistently shattered the possibility of defining a linear thread through his career. It’s as if his work puts forth a cyclical recasting of certain concepts, in such a way that factors subordinated in a previous visual system later become dominant and vice versa. The stain, geometry, the support and iconography, in variable arrangements determined by combinatorics, had functioned as an exemplary formal and theoretical basis for his Deconstructive Automatic Abstraction (D.A.A.) conceptual strategy that supported a vigorous abstraction which he developed through the nineties and which would be interrupted by his period in New York.<\/p>\n Within the diverse panorama of abstract painting of those times, the most apt description of the model developed by Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria is the one presented by Mercedes Replinger and Antonio Garc\u00eda Berrio in their excellent book-length critical study \u201cD.A.A. A rhetoric of contemporary abstraction: Radical automatism with a psychological Surrealist basis and a deconstructive model of the image\u201d (A.D.A. Una ret\u00f3rica de la abstracci\u00f3n contempor\u00e1nea: \u201cautomatismo radical con base sicol\u00f3gica surrealista y modelo deconstructivo de la imagen\u201d) (28). The specificity of that definition intended, on one hand, to highlight the painter\u2019s detachment from trends in contemporary abstraction, and on the other hand to show with clarity the armature of the key conceptual points of such a complex creative practice.<\/p>\n Those key points originated in 1990, the year Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria began working out on paper the foundations of his thinking, which tie together the various interests that drove his painting during a time of profound creative crisis for the artist. After an early period with neo-expressionist foundations, the artist began a shift towards the plasticity of the sign. And some of the paintings that made up the series \u201cMen, Hands, Organic Forms and Signs\u201d (\u00abHombres, manos, formas org\u00e1nicas y signos\u201d) of 1989-1990, and in particular, the ones associated with its two last sub-groups, meant the beginning of a movement that would soon be accompanied by, as Ciria himself put it,(29) a theoretical foundation that would be developed through the Notebook (Cuaderno de notas)(30).<\/p>\n These remarks, notes and sketches made evident the artist’s desire to precisely define the fundamental characteristics of the visual system that he began constructing at that time with great momentum. It is no coincidence that it was during this time period that the artist discovered the theoretical writings of Kandinsky, Clement Greenberg and Walter Benjamin as well as the philosophy of language and semantic theory from Wittgenstein to Chomsky, and he also processed in a very personal way the artistic contributions of artists as diverse as Malevich or Beuys. It was a period in which he took in different points of view in order to lay the foundations for a new period in his work.<\/p>\n Through the notebook Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria reflected upon the predominant theoretical-experimental questions the he wanted to pursue and whose first breakthrough would be through geometric compartmentalizing, considered to be the emblematic structure of modernism by Rosalind Krauss. Ciria would dissect the grid and find different ways of resolving it, with multiple variations and levels of pictorial presence. Through this process the rigid inflexibility of the formalist grid would disintegrate and lead the way to the search for new articulations. The limit imposed by the geometric grid,(31) inherent in its construction, was to be altered by the artist during his relentless search for new lines of flight. In this way, \u00bb With the lessons taken from the received discourse and the demolition of geometric logic, during the early nineties, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria was outlining for the future his steadfast resistance to the hysterical compulsive repetition of the Avant-Garde legacy, as well as developing his capacity for working out forms of abstraction which would go beyond being an empty repertoire of forms and form a fleshed out whole.\u00bb(32)<\/p>\n Through his exhaustive analyses, the artist stabilized multiple variables in the possibilities of geometric organization and their resolution as devices. Faced with the certainty that, structurally, the grid could only be repeated,(33) Ciria chose to take that principle on as the starting point for invention. Order, self-similarity and regularized construction for creating a polymorphic situation? It may be possible to confront this paradox from the unexpected territory of the detour that brings about the interrelation, dialogue or contentiousness -depending on the composition- of pure geometric structures, with the notions of \u00aberror\u00bb and, later, \u00abinjury\u201d(34) and with the multiplicity and instability of the stain as well.<\/p>\n The artist himself has set forth his theory of compartmentalizing in great detail(35) to establish a relationship between different families of work that engender his formal and material compartmentalization.<\/p>\n Compartmentalized compartmentalization (CA1); color supported by drawn geometric structures or compartmentalizations. variation of color and theme (CDvct2); color supported by constructed structures or compartmentalizations, variation of color and theme (CCvct3); color superimposed on constructed geometric structures or compartmentalizations supported by drawn compartmentalizations, variation of color and motif (CCDvct4); manipulated compartmentalized composition with color supported by constructed compartmentalizations or structures, variation of color and motif (CACCvct5); or color superimposed on constructed compartmentalizations or structures (CCcA6).(36)<\/p>\n The desire to catalog and possess every possible scenario, demonstrates the lucidity of the artist as he organizes his conceptual thought. On the contrary, far from the rigidity that might be imposed by any kind of classification, the artist specified visual codes as a point of departure for changing their material condition through the interrelation of the following four bases of his concept\/practice theorization: In the beginning, the rational geometric compartmentalizations appeared to be conditioned by unpredictable (irrational) modulation that gave rise to the use of techniques of controlled chance inherited from the Surrealist tradition.<\/p>\n This crossing of temperaments would be modulated through the use of various strategies throughout the course of his production during the nineties as a tool for dismantling geometry and discovering vulnerability within the normative.<\/p>\n The search for the accidental was one of the principle lines of exploration developed by Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria based on his D.A.A working method. The use of techniques such as decalcomania, frottage, grattage, runs, drips, spattering and grinding would allow him to create unexpected textural fields. The incompatible mixtures of oil, acid and water, as well as the incorporation of varied chemical ingredients would trigger the spontaneous character of a stain which, on occasion, would end up painting itself, that is, developing on the surface by itself and generating its own space and time as a result. The artist’s hand is no longer metonymically reflected in the stain, all that now remains in it is an echo. It is filtered through the actions of automatic processes, as the material undulates over the surface, twists and folds, opens pathways and at times even defines the limits of its own expansion.<\/p>\n But art is always, to a greater or lesser extent, a controlled act. For this reason, in Ciria’s painting the flow of chance is guided by the impulse, though not the limitation, of a strategy of control that aids the painter in achieving his intended result. In this way, Ciria is setting forth \u00aba revision of the concept of Automatism, that encompasses not only the canonical definitions established by inter-war Surrealism but also by his new requirements, that must consider fluidity as much as its constraint, a directly rhetorical working method and its residue, process and construction(37).<\/p>\n The application of different modes of automatism would also be determined by the artist’s intervening as mediator, determining the critical turning point in the process. And even if this strategy of correction would never intend to hide the centrality of automatism as a fundamental tool in the construction of a painting (the stain in Ciria’s work is accidental and self-referential), it did in fact intend to create an unsteady and deceptive area in the definition of the terms ‘chance’ and ‘control’. Through this dialectic, the techniques of controlled chance would allow him to \u2018paralyze\u2019 for an instant a potentially infinite process, never specifying exactly beforehand what its essential nature ought to be. Arbitrary automatic constraint of forms as they were encountered in the midst of covering or stripping away was therefore necessary. Perhaps order and chance, all things considered, are nothing more than points of view, interpretations of one and the same reality whose free play erases their differences\u201d(38).<\/p>\n Using material in free expansion alongside the restrictive grid denotes the critical re-definition of two fundamental tools of modernist aesthetic practice. They were the two principal veins followed in the abstract movements in heroic modernism. Nonetheless, he did not seek their union through reflecting on this legacy, but rather their immanence as two visual concepts (grid like arrangement versus the accidental eruption of the stain), bound together by the conclusions of the combinatoric mechanism.<\/p>\n In this brief look into the conceptual bases of Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria’s production between 1991 and 2005 we cannot address all of the variables that emerge to define the rich substance of his work. However, we think it is necessary to mention, because of the outcome it would produce in his work, one of the major transformations of the rational order between stain and grid that the artist began in 1994 through his extensive series \u201cMasks of the Gaze\u201d (\u00abM\u00e1scaras de la mirada\u00bb). At this time the stain, which until then had been on an inferior level, culminates its rise, to rest on the same geometric structure that had previously been conceived of as a strategically located domain between the gesture and the viewer. A new synthesis between emotion and reason emerged which would begin to define the artist’s endeavor at this time. There were, however, notable exceptions, such as the \u201cNooks and Crannies\u201d (\u00abIntersticios\u00bb) series, from 2002, in which the stain was subjugated to the accentuated geometric segmentation of the support, which would in the end consolidate a liberating formulation of the gesture.<\/p>\n Rationality and liberty would be the two parameters that found their working space on the support. The latter would become the third stop in his theoretical-conceptual program under the epigraph of pictorial levels, that the painter would then subdivide into three groups; the traditional untouched canvas, the found support, and the midway point between the two, the found support that already contained a temporal memory, through stains, footprints or the residue produced by a natural or artificial aging process. But going beyond this possible reading, those kinds of literal marks always suggest symbolic ones, invoking what remains like an ambiguous memory, whose strata can be identified but whose ultimate meaning or purpose can never be attained.<\/p>\n 1992 could be considered to be a breakthrough year in the early development of these investigations with the discovery that, from that point on, the preferred support for his work would be the tarpaulin. The use of the tarpaulin was born, as Fernando Huici has noted, \u00about of being the optimal response to the aleatory factors that determine a substantial part of the working methods Ciria has developed (\u2026). The impermeability and slickness of its surface gives continuous total liberty to the pictorial material the painter puts down to flow over the horizontally tarpaulin.\u201d(39).<\/p>\n Essentially, the unpredictable nature of oil paint, its accidental runs and subsequent corrections, was taken advantage of by exploiting the impermeability of a support that incorporates its own temporal memory in the traces left by the actions of an anonymous user, conserved by the artist like a relic. Until the mid nineties, Ciria left a lot of residue on the original tarpaulin, such as hardened spots of oil, which would even come to configure a geometric order that the artist would then incorporate into the pictorial process. Conserving and working with the passage of time in the support, activating the gaze of the spectator and bringing out its own history from previous stages of the creative process revealing a fundamental strategy developed by the artist; which was to assimilate part of the support\u2019s previous life before being taken up as such. Through the creative re-use of the found object this kind of spontaneity and discovery refutes the convention of the artist as the sole creator of the artwork. Which is a concept inherited from a line of investigation that comes out of the early avant-garde period and that this artist directly links with the principal thematic lines of his work; time and memory.<\/p>\n The play between the controlled and the fugitive finds new latitudes in the articulation of representation in the pictorial field, irregardless of any referential attitude (40). This is what the artist refers to as iconographic registers, which were first classified based on three models of devices; the classical iconographic form (painting-stain), the incorporation of a pre-existing image (photographs or drawings) and the annexation of the found object in the pictorial field. From the flexibility with which Ciria presented these three variations and the particular inter-relations that arose between them some of the most relevant characteristics of his work appeared to be dependent on the problematic of the signifier. But for Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria the aspect of meaning, on one hand, is located outside of the terrain of the iconographic, and conversely, it never exists unanimously; \u00abThere is nothing even like a literal meaning, if by meaning one understands a clear, transparent concept regardless of the context or what’s in the mind of the artist or the viewer; a meaning which could act as a limit to interpretation by being previous to it, a meaning outside of meaning. Interpretation doesn’t exist without the work and never produces results, except purely analytical ones\u201d(41). More than meaning, the pursuit of which he considers valid, Ciria is interested in the concept that unites with the signifier and \u00abproduces a linguistic sign or a complex sign associated with various combinations of linguistic signifiers\u201d(42). The artist invokes the various operational aspects presented by the three basic models of iconographic registers as actors in a pictorial event, where narrative collapses and a polysemic representation is put forth.<\/p>\n Of the five main lines of investigation we have mentioned up to now, the latter seems to arise as being simply a hinge upon which the ordering and annexation of the other four pivot, even if the ultimate development of the action of abstract image depends on the combinatoric. All these elements are integrated into a visual system not intended to be seen and understood by the viewer as a system, but rather as a template based on conceptual units, divisible again into other units, and susceptible to being combined into a method for visual construction. For Chomsky, the finitude of language is only found in the combination of its elements, and Ciria intends to get as much as possible out of the combination of the five fundamental axes of his painting that we have been defining here.<\/p>\n The progressive (re)configuration of this line of visual construction indicates a search for constant evolution and a desire to coherently develop a defense for the permanence and relevance of the pictorial. His dedication to reflexivity and analysis is also what guides this lucid artist\u2019s progressive maturation in his unremitting attempts to present multiple registers in his work. The edges of his discourse are broken down through any attempt at reductionism we may try to impose on it in order to privilege a more closed analysis of such an intense career, not excluding even the periods with the highest stylistic uniformity.<\/p>\n Throughout his investigations of the abstract image Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria has usually worked in series, where he has consolidated different lines of thought based on the synthesis of his conceptual concerns. We mention synthesis because his work, as Guillermo Solana suggested in 1997, is never shown as an attempt at something, but as \u00abmarvelous discoveries\u201d(43). This is due to the fact that in his studio Ciria explores the various facets generated by concepts, consolidating theorems and hypotheses in order to ultimately show their successful resolution in the work.<\/p>\n Rare paintings<\/p>\n The new period that Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria began in New York towards the end of 2005 implied a dramatic turning point in his work, with a strong tendency towards a recovery of line. At first glance, the most striking result coming out of his investigations seems to be that he took up once again the referential subject matter that he had discarded as he began developing his abstract work.<\/p>\n His earliest experiences in this respect pertain to the series referred to as \u201cPost-Suprematist\u201d (\u201cPost-Suprem\u00e1tica\u201d) a personal homage to Malevich\u2019s personal return to figuration starting in the second half of the twenties. From this reference point Ciria would go deeper into the iconography of the hieratic body, faceless and constrained by a regulating armature. But before the series took shape, the artist embarked on an intense investigation of this period of the Russian artist\u2019s work, devouring texts, compiling images, putting forth the possibility of reconstructing the complex fullness of that work using elements from his own artistic vocabulary. At any rate, as we will have the occasion to analyze, it was nothing more than a historic springboard taken from the avant-garde from which Ciria propelled himself to order to create his own re-definition(44). The first generation of androgynous Malevichian automats was thus born.<\/p>\n The assimilation of Malevich’s style of composition had been a recurrent object of reflection in Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria’s abstract work. His interest in geometric compartmentalization had found in Suprematism a plastic language based on non-objectivity and the supremacy of pure feeling in art. But at this time Ciria\u2019s gaze turned towards the new social subject matter and figurative style of the late work. In those paintings Malevich represented the landscape with a scarcely indicated horizon line, in front of which the presence of a figure with schematized features emerged, truly dehumanized automatons whose disturbing morphology reveals a harsh vision of Stalinist terror. \u00abThe intention underlying this work cannot be considered \u00abnaive\u00bb in any way, just the opposite, it implies an enormous criticism of the collectivism imposed by the state on the Russian peasantry, whose land had been expropriated and who had been forced to work for \u2018the people\u2019. He paints peasants, of course, but his criticism is also personal and executed with great subtlety. He is the \u2018peasant\u2019 expelled from university, forced to abandon a large part of his work in Germany, and faced with the uncertainty of how he would fare in the then dictatorial Russia\u201d(45).<\/p>\n Carlos Delgado. Fundaci\u00f3n Carlos de Amberes. Madrid. I<\/p>\n Cat\u00e1logo exposici\u00f3n Fundaci\u00f3n Carlos Amberes, Madrid. Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM), Santo Domingo. National Gallery, Kingston. Museo del Canal Interoce\u00e1nico, Panam\u00e1. Museo de Arte (MARTE) San Salvador. Museo Antropo\u00f3logico y Arte Contempor\u00e1neo (MAAC), Guayaquil. Museo de Arte Contempor\u00e1neo (MAC), Santiago de Chile. Museo de Arte Moderno de Medell\u00edn (MAMM), Medell\u00edn. Abril 2008.<\/p>\n CIRIA<\/p>\n RARE PAINTINGS, POST-GENEROS AND DR. ZAIUS<\/p>\n Carlos Delgado<\/p>\n Crisis y (re)definiciones de la pintura tras la Modernidad<\/p>\n El hombre se ha pronunciado acerca del final de la pintura desde mucho antes de lo que habitualmente pensamos. Cuando en 1622, el astr\u00f3nomo y f\u00edsico holand\u00e9s Christian Hygens pudo tener acceso a una c\u00e1mara oscura no dud\u00f3 en referirse a ella con entusiasmo: \u00abEs imposible expresar su belleza con palabras. El arte de la pintura ha muerto pues esto es la propia vida, o algo a\u00fan m\u00e1s elevado, si pudi\u00e9ramos encontrar una palabra para describirlo\u00bb.<\/p>\n De todos los medios art\u00edsticos la pintura ha sido seguramente el m\u00e1s discutido y cuestionado. Las tesis que, a partir de los a\u00f1os setenta del siglo XX, anunciaban su muerte terminaron por activar una constante crisis del medio pict\u00f3rico a\u00fan en los momentos de aparente recuperaci\u00f3n positiva(1). Lo predecible de determinadas convenciones de lo pict\u00f3rico se\u00f1aladas a trav\u00e9s de las pautas otorgadas por la modernidad, as\u00ed como la acusaci\u00f3n de haberse convertido en un \u201cidioma sobreutilizado\u201d(2) cambiaron radicalmente su posici\u00f3n como medio privilegiado: de caja de resonancias de las diversas opciones que dibujaron la cultura visual occidental, la pintura pas\u00f3 a ocupar \u2013salvo contadas excepciones\u2013 un lugar aparentemente perif\u00e9rico en el desarrollo de las opciones creativas que definir\u00e1n el territorio l\u00e1bil de la posmodernidad.<\/p>\n Pero la posible muerte de la pintura funcion\u00f3 como sin\u00e9cdoque de una totalidad (el propio concepto de arte) que parec\u00eda imponer la urgencia de un final que nunca lleg\u00f3 a acontecer. A este respecto resulta llamativo el gusto de los historiadores por las met\u00e1foras de la muerte y el asesinato para hablar de la (dis)continuidad de procesos, pues tales anuncios nunca propusieron una detenci\u00f3n literal de los medios creativos tradicionales; como ha se\u00f1alado Hal Foster a este respecto, \u201cde lo que se trataba era de la innovaci\u00f3n formal y de la significaci\u00f3n hist\u00f3rica de estos medios\u201d(3) La pregunta de raigambre duchampiana \u201c\u00bfqu\u00e9 es el arte?\u201d se retomar\u00e1 entonces no tanto para encontrar una respuesta socialmente consensuada como para evaluar las derivas del propio sujeto de la interrogaci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n Tal evaluaci\u00f3n traer\u00e1 consigo una redefinici\u00f3n del concepto \u201carte\u201d que no ser\u00e1, en ning\u00fan caso, homog\u00e9nea; valoraciones institucionales, medi\u00e1ticas y de mercado convivir\u00e1n con las desarrolladas por los propios artistas, espectadores, cr\u00edticos y grupos disidentes de diversa \u00edndole, si bien todos partir\u00e1n de un panorama com\u00fan: un arte engullido por la linealidad clasificatoria de la Historia, aparentemente agotado en la b\u00fasqueda constante de lo nuevo, anulado en su concepci\u00f3n primigenia (\u03c4\u03ad\u03c7\u03bd\u03b7), desbancado como objeto, revalorizado como concepto y condicionado en su recepci\u00f3n est\u00e9tica por un panorama de \u201cinusitada densidad visual\u201d(4) Tal fragmentaci\u00f3n sem\u00e1ntica de lo art\u00edstico favorecer\u00e1 la emergencia de una nueva manera de pensar y nombrar el arte contempor\u00e1neo en un momento en el que, precisamente, \u201cya no parece contempor\u00e1neo\u201d(5).<\/p>\n En el \u00e1mbito de la pintura el reiterado cuestionamiento del medio surgir\u00e1 como una respuesta a la compleja indagaci\u00f3n acerca de sus l\u00edmites llevada a cabo durante la \u00e9poca de las vanguardias hist\u00f3ricas. El tr\u00e1nsito hacia la p\u00e9rdida de vigencia de lo moderno vendr\u00e1 impulsado por un notable cambio geogr\u00e1fico (de Europa a Estados Unidos(6)) que coincidir\u00e1, precisamente, con el punto \u00e1lgido \u2013considerado casi como resumen y final\u2013 de la concepci\u00f3n modernista de la pintura: mientras los viejos maestros del movimiento, como Matisse, Braque y L\u00e9ger, elaboraban en Europa el \u00faltimo cap\u00edtulo de sus carreras, en Nueva York el expresionismo abstracto americano de Pollock, de Kooning, Still, Motherwell, Newman, Rothko y otros ilustrar\u00e1 una nueva v\u00eda que, a la postre, se convertir\u00e1 en un pen\u00faltimo intento de anclar el medio en su especificidad. Autonom\u00eda, pureza, abstracci\u00f3n y visualidad, ser\u00e1n c\u00f3digos recurrentes enunciados a trav\u00e9s de los escritos te\u00f3ricos de Clement Greenberg, reflexiones tard\u00edas y parciales en la definici\u00f3n de los componentes de la modernidad pero analizadas habitualmente como paradigma de tal concepto. En cualquier caso, las ideas de Greenberg formar\u00e1n parte de la estructura cultural \u2013y su posterior revisi\u00f3n cr\u00edtica\u2013 que potencie un arte alejado de la realidad cotidiana y concentrado en lo que es propio de la pintura. Una pureza que encontrar\u00e1 su \u00faltimo reducto en la abstracci\u00f3n post-pict\u00f3rica, t\u00e9rmino creado por Greenberg para describir un modelo de abstracci\u00f3n diferente al del expresionismo abstracto, basado en un racionalismo fr\u00edo y que dar\u00e1 sus mejores frutos en esta generaci\u00f3n que se manifiesta con fuerza en los primeros a\u00f1os de la d\u00e9cada de los sesenta a trav\u00e9s de figuras como Reinhardt, Louis, Stella o Noland. El enfriamiento de la obra de arte en los a\u00f1os sesenta, tras el calor informalista, tendr\u00e1 adem\u00e1s otras manifestaciones a trav\u00e9s del Op Art, el arte cin\u00e9tico y, en su versi\u00f3n figurativa, el Pop Art.<\/p>\n Seg\u00fan Arthur C. Danto, fue \u00e9ste \u00faltimo movimiento el verdadero art\u00edfice del fin del modernismo y el origen de \u201cel nuevo curso de las artes visuales\u201d(7). Tan profundo punto de inflexi\u00f3n llegar\u00e1 a tener una fecha concreta: un d\u00eda de abril de 1964 el profesor acudir\u00e1 a la galer\u00eda Stabler de Manhattan donde se expon\u00edan obras de Andy Warhol. All\u00ed, Danto vivi\u00f3 la contemplaci\u00f3n del trabajo del artista con gran conmoci\u00f3n, pues lo que estaba viendo planteaba un profundo desaf\u00edo a la cr\u00edtica de arte y a la est\u00e9tica. En la galer\u00eda se apilaban las cajas de detergente Brillo, de ketchup Heinz y de conservas de melocot\u00f3n Del Monte. Pero no eran los embalajes de cart\u00f3n aut\u00e9nticos, sino unos facs\u00edmiles en contrachapado que ten\u00edan el aspecto completamente convincente de los productos del supermercado. Final de lo puro y tambi\u00e9n final de la Historia del Arte en tanto Gran Relato de relaciones causales, el Pop Art inaugurar\u00eda una etapa pos-hist\u00f3rica de alto pluralismo est\u00e9tico y donde ya no podremos enfrentarnos a una corriente principal. \u00bfQu\u00e9 tendencia podr\u00eda ahora tomar para s\u00ed una misi\u00f3n hist\u00f3rica e imponer una determinada jerarqu\u00eda?<\/p>\n Mientras las reflexiones de Danto abr\u00edan esta interrogaci\u00f3n, diversos artistas establecidos en Nueva York comenzaron a exhibir obras tridimensionales, las cuales parec\u00edan poseer suficientes rasgos formales (uso de estructuras geom\u00e9tricas, estables y primarias, resueltas con materiales y colores industriales) como para ser involucradas en un movimiento. Ser\u00e1 el ensayo \u201cArte Minimal\u201d, publicado en 1965 por Richard Wollheim, el que bautice el trabajo de Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt y Robert Morris, artistas que ejemplificar\u00e1n una nueva sensibilidad que a\u00fan hoy es le\u00edda desde \u00f3pticas muy diversas; presentado por algunos cr\u00edticos como la apoteosis del idealismo moderno, analizado por otros como una dramatizaci\u00f3n subversiva de tales postulados(8), el propio Greenberg sostuvo que este arte estaba directamente re\u00f1ido con los logros de la mejor modernidad, fundamentalmente porque desplazaba el inter\u00e9s en la realizaci\u00f3n hacia el proceso(9). Lo cierto es que podemos valorar el minimalismo como l\u00edmite del formalismo y, a un tiempo, como \u201cdetonante de las manifestaciones antiformalistas y origen del llamado posminimalismo o minimalismo tard\u00edo que desemboc\u00f3 en el proceso de desmaterializaci\u00f3n de la obra de arte\u201d(10).<\/p>\n Junto a este deslizamiento hacia lo procesual, otra de las principales v\u00edas de reflexi\u00f3n que abri\u00f3 el minimalismo fue la reconceptualizaci\u00f3n de los t\u00e9rminos pintura y escultura. En \u201cObjetos Espec\u00edficos\u201d, un ensayo 1965 que se convirti\u00f3 en una especie de manifiesto del minimalismo, si bien nunca tuvo esa finalidad, Donald Judd se\u00f1alaba: \u201cm\u00e1s de la mitad de la mejor nueva obra de los \u00faltimos a\u00f1os no ha sido ni pintura ni escultura\u201d(11) registrando una amplia serie de obras con los t\u00e9rminos \u201cobra tridimensional\u201d u \u201cobjeto\u201d. El mismo a\u00f1o de la publicaci\u00f3n de este texto, Sol LeWitt bautiz\u00f3 sus cubos modulares abiertos como \u201cestructuras\u201d; Dan Flavin se referir\u00e1 a su obra de luz como \u201cpropuesta\u201d; Robert Morris conservar\u00e1 durante poco tiempo el t\u00e9rmino \u201cescultura\u201d, y s\u00f3lo Carl Andre continuar\u00e1 usando tal t\u00e9rmino al referirse a su producci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n Valorados como conceptos anticuados para referirse a los nuevos desarrollos del arte, pintura y escultura ver\u00e1n pronto sojuzgada su tradicional consideraci\u00f3n formal y sem\u00e1ntica. En el a\u00f1o 1977, Rosalind Krauss realiz\u00f3 un conocido an\u00e1lisis(12) sobre la escultura contempor\u00e1nea que pon\u00eda en evidencia la aparici\u00f3n en la escena art\u00edstica occidental de una serie de obras tridimensionales enmarcadas en pr\u00e1cticas hasta entonces in\u00e9ditas que, por carecer de terminolog\u00eda precisa para nombrarlas, se acababan denominando sencillamente esculturas. De esta manera, se hac\u00eda eco de las operaciones cr\u00edticas que, acompa\u00f1ando al arte americano de posguerra, hab\u00edan desarrollado a su servicio tal manipulaci\u00f3n: \u201cEn manos de esa cr\u00edtica, categor\u00edas como la escultura o la pintura han sido amasadas, estiradas y retorcidas en una extraordinaria demostraci\u00f3n de elasticidad, revelando la forma en que un t\u00e9rmino cultural puede expandirse para hacer referencia a cualquier cosa\u201d (13). Desde la conciencia de que la escultura, y por extensi\u00f3n la pintura, son categor\u00edas hist\u00f3ricamente delimitadas y no universales, Rosalind Krauss plantea un nuevo devenir que rompe con la pr\u00e1ctica y conceptualizaci\u00f3n moderna y que, por tanto, no puede ser concebido de modo historicista. Y si bien en el medio pict\u00f3rico, la transformaci\u00f3n de la disciplina como tal no se dio con la misma radicalidad que en el caso de la escultura, o al menos no de manera tan evidente, s\u00ed es cierto que muchas de las posteriores pr\u00e1cticas vinculadas ya directamente a la posmodernidad buscar\u00e1n ubicar el medio pict\u00f3rico en un campo art\u00edstico expandido.<\/p>\n El texto de Rosalind Krauss encuentra la g\u00e9nesis de su planteamiento en el complejo arte de finales de los a\u00f1os sesenta, donde se encontrar\u00e1 una llamativa cantidad de nombres (minimal, conceptual, land art, body art, povera, happening, cientismo, neoconcreto, etc.) a los que ser\u00eda dif\u00edcil aplicar un denominador com\u00fan. Ante la ausencia de un estilo, de una est\u00e9tica \u201ct\u00edpica\u201d del momento, tal vez sea la crisis del objeto art\u00edstico tradicional, que casi todos ellos plantearon, el argumento m\u00e1s pr\u00f3ximo a posicionarse como tal. Por otro lado, si el formalismo propuesto por Greenberg hab\u00eda excluido los aspectos cognitivos y \u00e9ticos de la experiencia art\u00edstica, el nuevo arte conceptual y las experiencias performativas que surgir\u00e1n en este momento no dudar\u00e1n en convertir tales c\u00f3digos, respectivamente, en motivos centrales de sus reflexiones. Ante esta situaci\u00f3n, la pintura ser\u00e1 vilipendiada como c\u00f3mplice del fallido proyecto moderno, cuya validez cuestionaban directamente, poni\u00e9ndose en entredicho tanto la pureza de los medios tradicionales como la singularidad de cada forma de ensimismamiento art\u00edstico.<\/p>\n Las experiencias del grupo Support-Surface en Francia, disuelto en 1971 tras apenas tres a\u00f1os de actividad, o las distintas manifestaciones de la pintura norteamericana de los a\u00f1os setenta como el hiperrealismo, la Pattern Painting, la New Image Painting o la Bad Painting, mantuvieron activas las posibilidades de repensar la pintura desde postulados heterog\u00e9neos. Por otro lado, tales opciones, concretadas en la existencia de un soporte f\u00edsico, vinieron a vigorizar \u201cun mercado asfixiado por los modos ef\u00edmeros del arte espec\u00edfico \u2013arte de la tierra\u2013 procesual y conceptual\u201d(14).<\/p>\n Sin embargo, la llegada de una atm\u00f3sfera receptiva a la pintura en gran parte de la escena art\u00edstica internacional, acontecida ya al filo de esta d\u00e9cada y continuada durante los a\u00f1os ochenta, no pudo obviar la herencia del arte conceptual y del performance. La pintura, que hab\u00eda sido herramienta clave de la Modernidad, ahora era veh\u00edculo para su cr\u00edtica desde diversos frentes: tanto las estrategias apropiacionistas de artistas como Sherrie Levine o Robert Longo, como el asalto de los diversos neoexpresionismos plantear\u00e1n una renovaci\u00f3n que no pasar\u00e1, al menos aparentemente, por la innovaci\u00f3n en la pr\u00e1ctica art\u00edstica.<\/p>\n Frente a lo moderno, que excluye la repetici\u00f3n, la nueva ola del neoexpresionismo parecer\u00e1 desprenderse de la angustia de las influencias para, en contra, optar por un particular regreso a la historia de la pintura a trav\u00e9s de la cita. La ola neoexpresionista que parti\u00f3 desde Italia (Chia, Clemente, Cucchi, de Maria y Paladino, entre otros) y Alemania (Baselitz, Immendorf, Kiefer, L\u00fcpertz, Polke\u2026) dominando gran parte del panorama art\u00edstico de los ochenta y extendi\u00e9ndose a trav\u00e9s de importantes muestras europeas y norteamericanas, obtuvo un amplio respaldo por parte de galeristas y coleccionistas, si bien no encontr\u00f3 unanimidad por parte de la cr\u00edtica. El acento subjetivo y emocional de tales tendencias encontr\u00f3 un paralelo en el Nueva York de principios de los ochenta a trav\u00e9s de artistas que, como Julian Schnabel y David Salle, participaron del proyecto posmoderno a trav\u00e9s de una pintura de car\u00e1cter tambi\u00e9n neoexpresionista. Con criterios similares se ha calificado buena parte de la figuraci\u00f3n espa\u00f1ola de esos mismo a\u00f1os (Luis Gordillo, Guillermo P\u00e9rez Villalta, Carlos Alcolea, Juan Antonio Aguirre, Barcel\u00f3 y otros).<\/p>\n Pero la suerte de estos movimientos fue ef\u00edmera, y pronto la pintura empezar\u00e1 a enfriar los alardes expresivos en clave geom\u00e9trica (neo-geo) y a ceder protagonismo a los nuevos medios: la escultura-objeto, la instalaci\u00f3n, el environment, el videoarte y la fotograf\u00eda. En este mismo contexto surgir\u00e1, ya desde los inicios de los a\u00f1os ochenta(15), una parad\u00f3jica anexi\u00f3n entre parcelas creativas anteriormente distantes tomando como base la influencia mutua de fines y resultados visuales. Los denominados \u201ccuadros fotogr\u00e1ficos\u201d o \u201cfoto-cuadros\u201d llevados a cabo por artistas como el canadiense Jeff Wall, responder\u00e1n a criterios como \u201cdelimitaci\u00f3n clara de un plano, frontalidad y constituci\u00f3n en clave de objeto aut\u00f3nomo\u201d(16), a trav\u00e9s de los cuales se buscar\u00e1 inscribir la pr\u00e1ctica fotogr\u00e1fica en el campo de las artes visuales.<\/p>\n A partir de este di\u00e1logo entre diversas fuentes se estaba abriendo paso una de las opciones m\u00e1s determinantes de la posmodernidad: la hibridaci\u00f3n de medios, idea que viene a codificar \u201caquellos fen\u00f3menos art\u00edsticos que no buscan la especificidad de un g\u00e9nero, ni se pueden enmarcar dentro de una corriente estil\u00edstica concreta\u201d(17). La incorporaci\u00f3n de la pintura en tal estrategia arremeter\u00e1 contra su propia especificidad y autonom\u00eda como medio, esto es, lo que define su lugar, \u201cde ah\u00ed que se pueda asegurar que nada queda de la pintura en el h\u00edbrido; nada que pudiera llevar a pensar en una combinaci\u00f3n fuerte \u2013es decir, basada en la idea de impureza como alternativa ontol\u00f3gica\u2013 de los diferentes significados impl\u00edcitos en los \u00abl\u00edmites tensados\u00bb de cada una de las disciplinas puestas en di\u00e1logo\u201d(18).<\/p>\n Junto a la progresiva disoluci\u00f3n de lo pict\u00f3rico en un trayecto sin direcci\u00f3n(19), la siguiente d\u00e9cada demostrar\u00e1 que la fe renovada en el medio fue ef\u00edmera. La exposici\u00f3n, en 1991, de la obra fotogr\u00e1fica de Suzanne Lafont en la Galer\u00eda del Jeu de Paume, lugar reservado hasta entonces a las exposiciones de pintores y escultores, puede servirnos como punto de partida para un nuevo contexto donde otros medios (fotograf\u00eda, video, cine o televisi\u00f3n) parecen proyectar con mayor claridad el ambiguo esp\u00edritu de lo contempor\u00e1neo. Y si bien muchos artistas mantendr\u00e1n su fidelidad a las convenciones establecidas del medio, a los soportes y a las t\u00e9cnicas consabidas, traspasado el umbral de los ochenta la pintura tendr\u00e1 que ser adjetivada a partir de su nueva elasticidad. La instalaci\u00f3n se convertir\u00e1 en un nuevo \u00e1mbito para la experimentaci\u00f3n de lo pict\u00f3rico \u201cal superponerse sobre la idea de espacio y ambiente un nivel de tensi\u00f3n crom\u00e1tica de los objetos, los materiales, paredes o construcciones que se perciben como pintura\u201d(20), Esta estrategia, desarrollada por artistas tan diversos como Jason Roades o Jessica Stockholder \u2013heredera, esta \u00faltima, de las intenciones est\u00e9ticas abiertas por Robert Rauschenberg\u2013 acentuar\u00e1 la idea de crisis del concepto de \u201ccuadro\u201d a la vez que buscar\u00e1 proporcionar una valoraci\u00f3n m\u00e1s amplia y compleja de la pintura.<\/p>\n Los gastados repertorios de la tradici\u00f3n pict\u00f3rica moderna pondr\u00e1n en funcionamiento nuevas estrategias que buscar\u00e1n socavar el imperativo de pureza para encarnar y ejemplificar \u201cuna sensaci\u00f3n embriagadora de ser por fin libre\u201d(21). Las tendencias abstractas de los a\u00f1os noventa se definir\u00e1n desde par\u00e1metros sumamente flexibles para intentar escapar de un territorio constre\u00f1ido, situado \u201centre el reduccionismo de la pintura monocrom\u00e1tica y la herencia envenenada de las vanguardias hist\u00f3ricas\u201d(22). Y si bien hubo intentos de clasificar la posici\u00f3n de la pintura en este contexto determinado estos surgir\u00e1n desde la conciencia de una acusada heterogeneidad; si Arthur C. Danto hab\u00eda hablado de abstracci\u00f3n impura para se\u00f1alar aquellas tendencias que actuaban en los noventa con plena libertad y al margen de los principios del formalismo abstracto, Demetrio Paparoni propuso el t\u00e9rmino abstracci\u00f3n redefinida para aludir, sin concreciones estil\u00edsticas, a unas propuestas que, lejos de querer inventar ven\u00edan a re-definir lo que ya exist\u00eda a trav\u00e9s de un nuevo sistema de relaciones: \u201cPor abstracci\u00f3n redefinida se entiende la abstracci\u00f3n finisecular. A diferencia de la postb\u00e9lica \u2013desde el expresionismo abstracto hasta el minimalismo\u2013, \u00e9sta no se propone reinventar un estilo ni afirmar una tendencia en contraposici\u00f3n a otra. Su objetivo es servir de instrumento dial\u00e9ctico entre formas y teor\u00edas diversas tenidas en un momento por incompatibles y diametralmente opuestas\u201d(23). En concreto, la oposici\u00f3n entre abstracci\u00f3n y figuraci\u00f3n que caracteriz\u00f3 el arte de los a\u00f1os cincuenta se ir\u00e1 diluyendo en el trabajo de artistas como Sean Scully, Peter Halley, Jonathan Lasker, Domenico Bianchi, Juan Usl\u00e9 o G\u00fcnther F\u00f6rg, entre otros, quienes introducir\u00e1n habitualmente la idea de referencialidad en su trabajo pl\u00e1stico abstracto.<\/p>\n El nuevo milenio se abrir\u00e1 con diversas exposiciones que mantendr\u00e1n activo el debate sobre lo pict\u00f3rico y sus derivas, como Urgent Painting, celebrada en el Museo de Arte Moderno de la Villa de Par\u00eds en 2001 o el tr\u00edptico Painting on the Move (24)que se present\u00f3 en la Feria de Basilea 2002. Sin la pretensi\u00f3n de restablecer una nueva centralidad para la pintura(25), estas grandes muestras ven\u00edan a destacar la ausencia de corrientes normativas en los nuevos comportamientos otorgados al medio e inscrib\u00edan m\u00faltiples accesos en las posibilidades de su desarrollo.<\/p>\n Ahora bien, la lectura evolutiva que proponemos en las l\u00edneas anteriores no debe obviar el car\u00e1cter discontinuo de unos procesos, movimientos y corrientes que a menudo se superponen. Y este car\u00e1cter narrativo se complica a la hora de enlazar esta evoluci\u00f3n con lo m\u00e1s pr\u00f3ximo. Pero al margen de un intento demasiado temprano de categorizaci\u00f3n, no es cuesti\u00f3n balad\u00ed observar hoy d\u00eda el progresivo inter\u00e9s que numerosos artistas est\u00e1n enfocando hacia la pintura-cuadro y establecer un an\u00e1lisis del presente art\u00edstico bajo esta perspectiva.<\/p>\n El indudable apoyo que las instituciones muse\u00edsticas y las galer\u00edas de arte brindan repentinamente a la pintura, o el viraje emprendido por coleccionistas internacionales y, a su vez, por parte de la cr\u00edtica especializada, nos ofrece un paisaje de indudable inter\u00e9s que parece abrir una nueva valoraci\u00f3n del medio. El centro de atenci\u00f3n del arte parece cambiar nuevamente para ceder terreno a un modo que sigue mostrando una f\u00e9rtil capacidad de innovaci\u00f3n; de hecho, cuestionados muchos de las planteamientos enunciados desde el paradigma posmoderno y eliminada la mayor\u00eda de las posibilidades normativas, lo pict\u00f3rico se redefine hoy d\u00eda desde m\u00faltiples perspectivas: \u201cLa pintura figurativa de construcci\u00f3n abstracta de Neo Rausch, el arrastre de elementos figurativos dentro de composiciones abstractas por parte de Tal R, la neutralizaci\u00f3n del Pop en una mezcla caprichosa con el expresionismo abstracto en Michael Majerus, la mezcla de la tradici\u00f3n y el comic por parte de diferentes artistas japoneses, el total mestizaje, la contaminaci\u00f3n premeditada, la constante mutaci\u00f3n, la despreocupaci\u00f3n por la factura, el abordaje de cada obra o cada serie como de una nueva batalla en la b\u00fasqueda de la sorpresa, la idealizaci\u00f3n del naufragio, la fragmentaci\u00f3n conceptual, la intencionada y subrayada banalizaci\u00f3n\u2026 son, sin ser exhaustivos, algunas de las principales l\u00edneas de fuerza del aqu\u00ed y ahora de la pintura\u201d.(26).<\/p>\n La trig\u00e9simo octava edici\u00f3n de Art Basel (2007) acogi\u00f3 una sorprendente cantidad de obras pict\u00f3ricas; y si bien las ferias de arte no son firmes indicadoras de las derivas del arte, s\u00ed se pudo apreciar la preeminencia de la pintura figurativa, \u201cfundamentalmente narrativa, de trazo ingenuo e infantil, ir\u00f3nica y fresca\u201d(27). Tal manifestaci\u00f3n, en cierta consonancia con lo que el p\u00fablico pudo contemplar en las citas de Venecia y Kassel de ese mismo a\u00f1o, parece sugerir \u2013aunque tal vez sea de manera provisional\u2013 que la dial\u00e9ctica forma\/informe o figuraci\u00f3n\/abstracci\u00f3n propia de la abstracci\u00f3n redefinida del fin de siglo anterior muestra ahora m\u00faltiples niveles de contrapeso a favor de los primeros t\u00e9rminos del binomio. Una inclinaci\u00f3n que conlleva una recuperaci\u00f3n de la l\u00ednea, si bien alejada de la ret\u00f3rica formal como elemento constitutivo de la praxis pict\u00f3rica. Nuevas resonancias gr\u00e1ficas para una figuraci\u00f3n despose\u00edda de significaciones literales y atomizada en su sistematizaci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n Un modelo abstracto, deconstructivo y autom\u00e1tico<\/p>\n Dentro de este nuevo escenario que permite m\u00faltiples accesos, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria se ha consolidado en los \u00faltimos a\u00f1os como uno de los creadores m\u00e1s s\u00f3lidos de la pintura actual. La calidad de su trabajo pl\u00e1stico y la sagacidad de su propuesta te\u00f3rica han sido las herramientas con las que ha edificado su enorme prestigio en Espa\u00f1a y ha logrado activar una imparable trayectoria internacional.<\/p>\n A finales del a\u00f1o 2005 el artista decidi\u00f3 instalarse en Nueva York para repensar su pintura, lo que le llevar\u00e1 a alterar aquellos valores que tanto \u00e9xito le hab\u00edan proporcionado en la d\u00e9cada anterior y a plantear rotundos giros que nos impedir\u00e1n, una vez m\u00e1s, clasificar su obra de manera taxativa. Pero debemos hacer notar que esta reivindicaci\u00f3n del riesgo ha sido una constante a lo largo de toda la trayectoria del artista: en permanente tensi\u00f3n con su propio trabajo, Ciria siempre ha quebrado la posibilidad de un hilo conductor lineal en su trayectoria; m\u00e1s bien, su obra ha planteado una revisi\u00f3n c\u00edclica de determinados conceptos, de modo que factores que en un sistema visual anterior estaban subordinados ser\u00e1n luego dominantes, y viceversa: mancha, geometr\u00eda, soporte e iconograf\u00eda, en disposiciones variables determinadas por la combinatoria, hab\u00edan funcionado como ejemplar base formal y te\u00f3rica de su Abstracci\u00f3n Deconstructiva Autom\u00e1tica (A.D.A.), estrategia conceptual que apoyar\u00e1 una vigorosa abstracci\u00f3n desarrollada a lo largo de la d\u00e9cada de los noventa y que se ver\u00e1 interrumpida por su nueva etapa en Nueva York.<\/p>\n Dentro del plural panorama de la pintura abstracta de aquellos momentos, la adjetivaci\u00f3n m\u00e1s pr\u00f3xima a la pl\u00e1stica desarrollada por Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria ser\u00e1 la otorgada por Mercedes Replinger y Antonio Garc\u00eda Berrio en su excelente libro de estudio cr\u00edtico A.D.A. Una ret\u00f3rica de la abstracci\u00f3n contempor\u00e1nea: \u201cautomatismo radical con base sicol\u00f3gica surrealista y modelo deconstructivo de la imagen\u201d(28). Lo espec\u00edfico de tal definici\u00f3n pretend\u00eda, por un lado, destacar el desligamiento del pintor de cualquiera de las tendencias de la abstracci\u00f3n contempor\u00e1nea y, por otro lado, mostrar de forma precisa el esqueleto de las claves conceptuales de tan compleja elaboraci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n Tales claves tendr\u00e1n su origen en 1990, a\u00f1o en el que Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria comienza a elaborar sobre el papel la base de un pensamiento que anude los distintos intereses que impulsan su pintura en un momento de profunda crisis creativa para el artista. Tras una primera etapa de raigambre neoexpresionista, el artista inicia un viraje hacia la pl\u00e1stica del signo y algunos de los cuadros que conformaron la serie \u201cHombres, manos, formas org\u00e1nicas y signos\u201d de 1989-1990, especialmente los vinculados a los dos \u00faltimos subgrupos, significar\u00e1n el inicio de un trayecto que pronto se ver\u00e1 complementado, como ha se\u00f1alado el propio Ciria(29), por una plataforma te\u00f3rica que comenzar\u00e1 a desarrollar a modo de Cuaderno de notas(30).<\/p>\n Estas anotaciones, apuntes y bosquejos evidenciar\u00e1n el af\u00e1n del artista por precisar los rasgos fundamentales del sistema visual que en aquel momento comenzar\u00e1 a construir con \u00edmpetu. No es casual que sea en este espacio temporal cuando el artista descubre el pensamiento te\u00f3rico de Kandinsky, Clement Greenberg y Walter Benjam\u00edn, la filosof\u00eda del lenguaje y la teor\u00eda sem\u00e1ntica, desde Wittgenstein a Chomsky, y procesa de manera personal las aportaciones de artistas tan diversos como Malevich o Beuys. Un periodo donde asume estas distintas perspectivas de pensamiento para poner los cimientos de un nuevo estadio en su producci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n A trav\u00e9s de este cuaderno, Ciria reflexionar\u00e1 sobre las principales cuestiones te\u00f3rico-experimentales que quiere llevar a cabo, y que tendr\u00e1n un primer hito en la compartimentaci\u00f3n geom\u00e9trica. Valorada como la estructura emblem\u00e1tica de la modernidad por Rosalind Krauss, la cuadr\u00edcula ser\u00e1 diseccionada por Ciria y resuelta con m\u00faltiples variaciones y niveles de presencia pict\u00f3rica; de este modo, la rigidez inflexible de la ret\u00edcula formalista se desintegrar\u00e1 para iniciar la b\u00fasqueda de una nueva dicci\u00f3n. El l\u00edmite que impone la red geom\u00e9trica(31) inherente a su construcci\u00f3n, va a ser alterado por el artista durante su f\u00e9rrea b\u00fasqueda de nuevos caminos de fuga; de este modo, \u201ccon sus ejercicios sobre el lenguaje recibido y la dinamitaci\u00f3n de la l\u00f3gica geom\u00e9trica, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria a principios de los a\u00f1os noventa, estaba planteando para el futuro su no resignaci\u00f3n ante la repetici\u00f3n hist\u00e9rica y mani\u00e1tica del legado vanguardista y su capacidad para pensar unas formas de la abstracci\u00f3n que de nuevo tuvieran, m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de un repertorio vac\u00edo de formas, un cuerpo donde encarnarse\u201d(32).<\/p>\n A partir de su exhaustivo an\u00e1lisis de las posibilidades de la organizaci\u00f3n geom\u00e9trica, el artista estabilizar\u00e1 m\u00faltiples variables para su resoluci\u00f3n dispositiva. Ante la certeza de que, estructuralmente, la ret\u00edcula s\u00f3lo puede ser repetida(33), Ciria opta por asumir tal axioma como punto de partida para la invenci\u00f3n. \u00bfOrden, autosemejanza y constructo regularizado para un escenario polimorfo? Tal paradoja puede ser abordable desde el territorio inesperado de la desviaci\u00f3n que otorga la interrelaci\u00f3n \u2013di\u00e1logo o litigio, seg\u00fan composiciones\u2013 de las estructuras puras de la geometr\u00eda con \u201clas nociones de \u00aberror\u00bb y, m\u00e1s tarde, de \u00abherida\u00bb\u201d(34), as\u00ed como con el car\u00e1cter libre, plural e inestable de la mancha.<\/p>\n El propio artista ha expuesto con detenimiento su teor\u00eda de las compartimentaciones(35), para establecer una relaci\u00f3n de las diferentes familias de obras que genera la compartimentaci\u00f3n formal y material: Composici\u00f3n acompartimentada (CA1); color apoyado sobre estructuras o compartimentaciones geom\u00e9tricas dibujadas, variaci\u00f3n de color y tema (CDvct2); color apoyado sobre estructuras o compartimentaciones geom\u00e9tricas construidas, variaci\u00f3n color y tema (CCvct3); color sobrepuesto a estructuras o compartimentaciones geom\u00e9tricas construidas, apoyado sobre compartimentaciones dibujadas, variaci\u00f3n color y tema (CCDvct4); composici\u00f3n acompartimentada manipulada con color apoyado sobre estructuras o compartimentaciones geom\u00e9tricas construidas, variaci\u00f3n de color y tema (CACCvct5); color sobrepuesto a estructuras o compartimentaciones geom\u00e9tricas construidas (CCcA6)(36).<\/p>\n Este deseo de catalogar y poseer todos los paisajes posibles, nos revela la lucidez del artista a la hora de organizar su pensamiento conceptual. Por otro lado, lejos de la rigidez que pueda imponer cualquier clasificaci\u00f3n, el artista enumera los c\u00f3digos visuales como punto de partida para el cambio de su condici\u00f3n material a trav\u00e9s de la interrelaci\u00f3n con los siguientes cuatro ejes de su teorizaci\u00f3n pr\u00e1ctico-conceptual. En un primero momento, estas compartimentaciones geom\u00e9tricas y racionales aparecer\u00e1n condicionadas por la modulaci\u00f3n imprevisible \u2013no racional\u2013 que otorgan las t\u00e9cnicas de azar controlado herederas de la tradici\u00f3n surrealista. Tal cruce de temperaturas se ira acentuando a trav\u00e9s de diversas estrategias a lo largo de su producci\u00f3n de la d\u00e9cada de los noventa como una herramienta para desmontar la geometr\u00eda y para descubrir lo vulnerable dentro de lo normativo.<\/p>\n La b\u00fasqueda del accidente ser\u00e1 una de las principales v\u00edas de exploraci\u00f3n desarrolladas por Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria a partir de su modo de trabajo A.D.A. El empleo de t\u00e9cnicas como la decalcoman\u00eda, el frotagge, el grattage, el chorreo, las salpicaduras, las pulverizaciones, le permitir\u00e1n provocar campos texturales inesperados. La mezcla incombinable de aceites, \u00e1cido y agua, as\u00ed como la incorporaci\u00f3n de diversos ingredientes qu\u00edmicos, activar\u00e1 el car\u00e1cter espont\u00e1neo de una mancha que, en ocasiones, acabar\u00e1 \u201cpint\u00e1ndose\u201d \u2013es decir, desarroll\u00e1ndose sobre el soporte\u2013 por s\u00ed sola y generando su propio espacio y tiempo. La mano del creador deja de estar reflejada por metonimia en la mancha ya que de ella s\u00f3lo descubrimos un eco tamizado por la irrupci\u00f3n de los procesos autom\u00e1ticos. Al fluctuar por el soporte, la materia se pliega y se tuerce, abre caminos y en ocasiones impone su propio l\u00edmite expansivo.<\/p>\n Pero el arte es siempre, en mayor o menor medida, un acto controlado. De ah\u00ed que en la pintura de Ciria este azar fluya bajo el impulso \u2013que no la limitaci\u00f3n\u2013 de una estrategia de control que finalmente coadyuva a generar la propuesta que el pintor desea construir. De este modo, Ciria reclama \u201cuna revisi\u00f3n del concepto de automatismo, que abarque no s\u00f3lo las definiciones can\u00f3nicas instauradas por el Surrealismo de entreguerras, sino tambi\u00e9n las nuevas necesidades que contemplan tanto lo fluido como su detenci\u00f3n, la elaboraci\u00f3n directamente elocutiva y su residuo, el proceso y la construcci\u00f3n\u201d(37).<\/p>\n La aplicaci\u00f3n de los registros autom\u00e1ticos se ver\u00e1 tambi\u00e9n determinada por la intervenci\u00f3n del artista como hito mediador del resultado pl\u00e1stico. Y si bien esta estrategia de correcci\u00f3n nunca buscar\u00e1 ocultar la ra\u00edz autom\u00e1tica como herramienta clave de la construcci\u00f3n del cuadro (la mancha en la producci\u00f3n de Ciria es azarosa y autorreferencial) s\u00ed querr\u00e1 establecer un espacio l\u00e1bil y enga\u00f1oso en la definici\u00f3n de los t\u00e9rminos azar y control. A trav\u00e9s de esta dial\u00e9ctica, las t\u00e9cnicas de azar controlado le permitir\u00e1n \u201cparalizar en un instante un proceso potencialmente infinito, nunca la concreci\u00f3n de un deber ser esencial impuesto de antemano. Es, por tanto, necesaria la detenci\u00f3n azarosa, autom\u00e1tica, de unas formas sorprendidas en pleno proceso de encubrimiento o despojamiento. Quiz\u00e1 el orden y el azar, al fin y al cabo, no sean sino puntos de vista, interpretaciones de una misma realidad cuyo libre juego borra sus diferencias\u201d(38).<\/p>\n La utilizaci\u00f3n de la materia en expansi\u00f3n libre y de la ret\u00edcula restrictiva significa la redefinici\u00f3n cr\u00edtica de dos herramientas fundamentales de la pr\u00e1ctica est\u00e9tica moderna, las dos principales v\u00edas recorridas por las tendencias abstractas de las heroicovanguardias; sin embargo, la reflexi\u00f3n sobre esta herencia no buscar\u00e1 la cita directa sino la inmanencia de dos conceptos visuales (la disposici\u00f3n cuadricular versus la irrupci\u00f3n accidentada de la mancha) encadenados por las conclusiones de la combinatoria dispositiva.<\/p>\n En esta breve aproximaci\u00f3n para el estudio de las bases conceptuales de la producci\u00f3n de Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria entre 1991 y 2005 no podemos atender a todas las variables que marcan el rico devenir de su producci\u00f3n. Ahora bien, creemos que es necesario se\u00f1alar, por las consecuencias que determinar\u00e1 en su obra, una de las principales alteraciones del orden relacional entre mancha y ret\u00edcula que el artista iniciar\u00e1 en 1994 a ra\u00edz de su amplia serie \u201cM\u00e1scaras de la mirada\u201d. Culmina en este momento una ascensi\u00f3n de la mancha, hasta entonces estrato inferior, para flotar sobre aquella estructura geom\u00e9trica que anteriormente hab\u00eda sido proyectada como estrat\u00e9gico \u00e1mbito situado entre el gesto y el observador. Surge un nuevo entrecruzamiento entre emoci\u00f3n y raz\u00f3n que definir\u00e1 desde ahora la aventura del artista (con notables excepciones, como la serie \u201cIntersticios\u201d, realizada en 2002, donde la segmentaci\u00f3n geom\u00e9trica del soporte se acent\u00faa y la mancha se somete a ella) y que, a la postre, consolidar\u00e1 una f\u00f3rmula liberadora del gesto.<\/p>\n Racionalidad y libertad ser\u00e1n dos par\u00e1metros que encontrar\u00e1n su espacio de actuaci\u00f3n sobre el soporte. Este \u00faltimo elemento va a constituir la tercera parada de este programa te\u00f3rico-conceptual bajo el ep\u00edgrafe niveles pict\u00f3ricos, y que el pintor subdivide en tres grupos: el lienzo cl\u00e1sico, virgen; el soporte encontrado; y, a medio camino entre ambas posibilidades, el soporte encontrado que ya recoge una memoria temporal a trav\u00e9s de manchas, pisadas o residuos propios de un proceso natural o provocado de envejecimiento. Pero m\u00e1s all\u00e1 a\u00fan de esta posible lectura tales huellas literales sugieren siempre huellas simb\u00f3licas, conjurando lo que queda como un recuerdo ambiguo cuyos estratos podemos describir pero sin llegar a identificar su sentido y causa \u00faltima.<\/p>\n El a\u00f1o 1992 puede establecerse como un hito en el desarrollo temprano de estas investigaciones con el descubrimiento del que a partir de ahora ser\u00e1 el soporte privilegiado de su obra: la lona pl\u00e1stica. Este uso nace, como ha se\u00f1alado Fernando Huici, \u201cde su \u00f3ptimo potencial de respuesta frente a los factores aleatorios que determinan una parte sustancial del m\u00e9todo de trabajo desarrollado por Ciria (\u2026). Por su impermeabilidad y el car\u00e1cter deslizante de la superficie, permite fluir con entera y continuada libertad el flujo de materia pict\u00f3rica que el pintor despliega sobre la lona extendida horizontalmente\u201d(39).<\/p>\n Efectivamente, el matiz tembloroso del \u00f3leo, su fluir accidental y corregido, es potenciado por la impermeabilidad de un soporte que incorpora su propia memoria temporal, las se\u00f1ales de uso de una actividad an\u00f3nima que es conservada como una reliquia por el propio artista. Hasta mediados de la d\u00e9cada de los noventa, Ciria mantiene en su obra muchos vestigios de la propia lona, como las rozaduras de grasa incrustadas y que incluso llegar\u00e1n a configurar un orden geom\u00e9trico que el artista integrar\u00e1 en el proceso pict\u00f3rico. Mantener el paso del tiempo, trabajar con \u00e9l, activar la mirada del espectador y resaltar su historia durante los cap\u00edtulos anteriores del propio proceso creativo, revela una t\u00e1ctica clave desarrollada por el artista: asimilar parte de aquello que ha vivido el soporte antes de su valoraci\u00f3n como tal. Esta especie de casualidad, de hallazgo, impugna la convenci\u00f3n del artista como \u00fanico art\u00edfice de la obra a partir de la reutilizaci\u00f3n creativa del objeto encontrado, formulaci\u00f3n heredera de una l\u00ednea de investigaci\u00f3n que surge al comp\u00e1s de las primeras vanguardias hist\u00f3ricas, y que nuestro artista vincula directamente con los principales ejes tem\u00e1ticos de su obra: el tiempo y la memoria.<\/p>\n El juego entre lo controlado y lo huidizo encuentra nuevas latitudes en la articulaci\u00f3n de la representaci\u00f3n dentro del campo pict\u00f3rico, independientemente o no de una actitud referencial(40), esto es lo que el artista ha denominado registros iconogr\u00e1ficos, que encuentran una primera clasificaci\u00f3n a partir de tres modelos dispositivos: la forma cl\u00e1sica de la iconograf\u00eda (pintura-mancha), la incorporaci\u00f3n de una imagen preexistente (fotograf\u00edas o dibujos) y la anexi\u00f3n en el campo pict\u00f3rico de un objeto encontrado. De la flexibilidad con la que Ciria plantea estas tres variantes y de la especial interrelaci\u00f3n que se da entre ellas parecen depender algunas de las caracter\u00edsticas m\u00e1s relevantes de su obra en lo relativo a la problem\u00e1tica del significado. Pero para Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria la dimensi\u00f3n significativa, por un lado, se sit\u00faa fuera del terreno de la iconicidad, y por otro, no existe nunca de manera un\u00edvoca: \u201cNo hay nada semejante a un significado literal, si por significado uno entiende una concepci\u00f3n clara, transparente, sin que importe el contexto ni lo que hay en la mente del artista o del espectador, un significado que pueda servir de l\u00edmite a la interpretaci\u00f3n por ser anterior a \u00e9sta, un significado fuera de significaci\u00f3n. La interpretaci\u00f3n no existe sin la obra y jam\u00e1s produce frutos, exceptuando los puramente anal\u00edticos\u201d(41). M\u00e1s que el significado, cuya b\u00fasqueda valora l\u00edcita, a Ciria le interesa el concepto que se une al significante \u201cpara constituir un signo ling\u00fc\u00edstico o un complejo significativo que se asocia con las diversas combinaciones de significantes ling\u00fc\u00edsticos\u201d(42). A trav\u00e9s de las diversas cualidades operativas que plantean los tres modelos b\u00e1sicos de registros iconogr\u00e1ficos el artista les convoca como actores del acontecimiento pl\u00e1stico, donde la narraci\u00f3n se colapsa y la representaci\u00f3n se somete a un sentido polis\u00e9mico.<\/p>\n De las cinco principales l\u00edneas de investigaci\u00f3n que hasta ahora hemos se\u00f1alado, la \u00faltima de ellas parece alzarse como simple bisagra para el orden y anexi\u00f3n de las otras cuatro, si bien de su acci\u00f3n depende el desarrollo final de la imagen abstracta: la combinatoria. Todos estos elementos integrar\u00e1n un sistema visual destinado no a ser visto y entendido por el espectador como tal sistema, sino a ser una tabla de trabajo basada en unidades conceptuales, divisibles a su vez en otras unidades, y susceptibles de ser combinadas como m\u00e9todo de construcci\u00f3n visual. Para Chomsky, la infinitud del lenguaje resulta \u00fanicamente de la combinatoria de sus elementos, y Ciria se propone sacar el m\u00e1ximo partido posible a las cinco \u00e1reas vertebrales de su pintura que hemos venido definiendo.<\/p>\n La progresiva (re)configuraci\u00f3n de este m\u00e9todo de construcci\u00f3n visual se\u00f1ala una b\u00fasqueda de la evoluci\u00f3n constante y un af\u00e1n por desarrollar de manera coherente una defensa de la permanencia y pertinencia del medio pict\u00f3rico. Este compromiso reflexivo y anal\u00edtico es tambi\u00e9n lo que determinar\u00e1 la progresiva maduraci\u00f3n de un artista l\u00facido que siempre busca ofrecer en su trabajo m\u00faltiples registros. Las aristas de su discurso quiebran por tanto cualquier intento de reducci\u00f3n que queramos imponer para favorecer un an\u00e1lisis cerrado de una trayectoria tan intensa, a\u00fan en los momentos de mayor uniformidad estil\u00edstica.<\/p>\n A lo largo de su investigaci\u00f3n en torno a la imagen abstracta Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria ha trabajado habitualmente a trav\u00e9s de series sobre las que ha consolidado diferentes v\u00edas de reflexi\u00f3n a partir de la combinatoria de sus intereses conceptuales. Y hablamos de consolidaci\u00f3n porque sus obras \u2013como suger\u00eda Guillermo Solana en 1997\u2013 nunca se muestran como ensayos sino como \u201cespl\u00e9ndidos hallazgos\u201d(43), pues es en el espacio de su taller donde Ciria indaga en las vertientes que elaboran el concepto, consolidando teoremas e hip\u00f3tesis para, finalmente, mostrar el \u00e9xito de su resoluci\u00f3n sobre el soporte.<\/p>\n Rare paintings<\/p>\n La nueva etapa que Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria inicia en Nueva York a finales del a\u00f1o 2005 significa una inflexi\u00f3n dram\u00e1tica en su producci\u00f3n, fuertemente escorada ahora hacia la recuperaci\u00f3n de la l\u00ednea. En un primer momento, la consecuencia m\u00e1s llamativa en la que se precipita su investigaci\u00f3n parece ser la de asumir los motivos referenciales que hab\u00eda dejado de lado con el desarrollo de su obra abstracta.<\/p>\n Sus primeras experiencias a este respecto conformar\u00e1n la serie denominada \u201cPost-Suprem\u00e1tica\u201d, homenaje al personal retorno a la figuraci\u00f3n que Malevich emprender\u00e1 a partir de la segunda mitad de los a\u00f1os veinte; desde este referente Ciria profundizar\u00e1 en la iconograf\u00eda de un cuerpo hier\u00e1tico, carente de rostro, y sometido a un armaz\u00f3n regulador. Pero antes de su concreci\u00f3n como serie nuestro artista emprende una intensa investigaci\u00f3n sobre esta etapa del creador ruso: devora textos, recopila im\u00e1genes y empieza a plantear la posibilidad de restituir la compleja rotundidad de estas creaciones a partir de elementos de su propio vocabulario pl\u00e1stico. En cualquier caso, y como tendremos ocasi\u00f3n de analizar, no se trata de otra cosa que de un trampol\u00edn hist\u00f3rico extra\u00eddo de las vanguardias sobre el que Ciria se impulsa para elaborar su propia redefinici\u00f3n(44), nace as\u00ed la primera generaci\u00f3n de aut\u00f3matas andr\u00f3ginos malevicheanos.<\/p>\n La asimilaci\u00f3n del estilo compositivo de Malevich hab\u00eda sido motivo de reflexi\u00f3n recurrente en la producci\u00f3n abstracta de Jos\u00e9 Manuel Ciria; su inter\u00e9s por la compartimentaci\u00f3n geom\u00e9trica hab\u00eda encontrado en los modos del suprematismo un lenguaje pl\u00e1stico basado en la no-objetividad y en la supremac\u00eda del sentimiento puro en el arte. Pero en este momento gira su mirada hacia el nuevo repertorio de tem\u00e1tica social y estilo figurativo de sus creaciones finales. En aquellas obras de Malevich el paisaje aparece apenas apuntado con una l\u00ednea de horizonte, delante del cual se erige la presencia de figuras de rasgos sumarios, verdaderos aut\u00f3matas deshumanizados cuya inquietante morfolog\u00eda desvela una afilada visi\u00f3n del terror estalinista: \u201cLa intenci\u00f3n que subyace bajo estas obras en ning\u00fan caso puede tacharse de \u00abnaive\u00bb, al contrario, supone una cr\u00edtica enorme a la colectivizaci\u00f3n impuesta por el estado a todo el campesinado ruso expropiado de sus tierras y obligado a trabajar para el \u00abpueblo\u00bb. Pinta campesinos, s\u00ed, pero su cr\u00edtica es tambi\u00e9n personal y realizada de forma sutil. \u00c9l es el \u00abcampesino\u00bb expulsado de la universidad y obligado a abandonar la mayor parte de su obra en Alemania ante la incertidumbre de c\u00f3mo pudiera acabar en aquella Rusia dictatorial\u201d(45).<\/p>\n Una vez analizado el contexto que forz\u00f3 la creaci\u00f3n de estas obras, Ciria emprender\u00e1 un riguroso estudio anal\u00edtico que no culminar\u00e1 en la apropiaci\u00f3n directa y tampoco en la r\u00e9plica de lo observado; nuestro artista es un innovador que reivindica la posibilidad de destruir la herencia de la vanguardia heroica para seleccionar de ella los pliegos que le son v\u00e1lidos. En su aproximaci\u00f3n a Malevich el artista no merodea, sino que busca la confrontaci\u00f3n directa como inicio de su trabajo de laboratorio. Sus figuras no pertenecen ya a un mundo concreto y su exploraci\u00f3n de un territorio fronterizo entre figuraci\u00f3n y abstracci\u00f3n se lleva a cabo despose\u00eddo de los tintes espec\u00edficamente dram\u00e1ticos de esta etapa de Malevich. El pintor retirar\u00e1 todos estos condicionantes antes de emprender la deconstrucci\u00f3n de la estructura interna de la imagen malevicheana para alcanzar la g\u00e9nesis de su propia configuraci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cat\u00e1logo exposici\u00f3n Fundaci\u00f3n Carlos Amberes, Madrid. Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM), Santo Domingo. National Gallery, Kingston. Museo del Canal Interoce\u00e1nico, Panam\u00e1. Museo de Arte (MARTE) San Salvador. Museo Antropo\u00f3logico y Arte Contempor\u00e1neo (MAAC), Guayaquil. Museo de Arte Contempor\u00e1neo (MAC), Santiago de Chile. Museo de Arte…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/joseciria.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8730"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/joseciria.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/joseciria.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joseciria.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joseciria.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8730"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/joseciria.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11272,"href":"http:\/\/joseciria.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8730\/revisions\/11272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/joseciria.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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