BLACK, RED, AND WHITE DRAPERY

© Argel Calcines. 2005

Villa Manuela Gallery welcomes an exhibit of Rubén Rodríguez charmly entitled Paños negros, paños rojos, paños blancos (Black, Red and White Drapery, a name which invites to enjoy fine erotic art.

SA chromatic succession which evokes that Lorca of Romancero Gitano, this title could also refer to the letter of the year, to Elegguá attributes…. But, certainly, it is only an underlying pretext to be amused by the artist once again.

This exhibition continuous and enriches the previous ones Reflejos (Reflexes I and II), as well as the most recent, Proverbios e iniciaciones (Proverbs and Initiations); all linked together by a common denominator: the sexed condition of pictorial representation.

Pleasure is shared with the spectator through Rubén ́s repetition or reiteration of these silhouettes that, raising their genitals, finish in zoomorphic allusions. There is a hidden, latent sense… of pleasure enjoyed by those who feel attracted to the magnetism of his work: explicitly erotic, but always enigmatic, deep, turgid…

It might sound redundant to say that the essence of Rubén ́s art beauty does not deserve prudish comments, not even from the academic stand point. Again I should quote art psychoanalyst, David Freedberg and his studies on history and the theory of answer, “possession of what has been represented is the erotic basis of a real understanding”.

One could imagine that, by exhibiting Ruben art, Villa Manuela Gallery has turned – for just a moment – into one of those Pompeian houses where Eros was shared together as so was air; or into a cavern where men painted on walls – together with bison, wolves, wild pigs and other beasts – the erection of his sex with identical curiosity of firing a torch.