Ricardo Alcaide: Una Forma De Desorden Invasivo

Ricardo Alcaide: Una Forma De Desorden Invasivo
August 9 – September 7, 2013
Lucia de la Puente Gallery
Lima, Peru

In this first solo exhibition in Galeria Lucia de la Puente, Alcaide presents a combined selection of his three last series, where he ponders through photography, painting, sculpture and installation, about the contrast between precarious architecture and the presence of modern architecture and some of the possible problems based on everyday experiences in the city of Sao Paulo, where he lives.

On one hand, small format paintings of “A Place To Hide” series, still under development, which are abstract formal studies created from temporary precarious architectural structures. On the other, “Vernacular Prototype”, which appear with fragmented planes compositions present in the sculptures and installations in the exhibition room, suggesting incomplete shapes referring to similar profiles of modern architecture, but they arise from discarded objects from the streets. Both series operate as a preamble to his latest show, “Intrusions”, centerpiece of this exhibition.

The selection of photographs taken over with acrylic paint of “Intrusions” are iconic images of Latin America’s modern architecture, in the case of Venezuela, where Alcaide was born and raised, and Brazil where lives and works. The works of the architect Oscar Niemeyer (Panalto Palace and The Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia), Lina Bo Bardi (Glass House in Sao Paulo), Gio Ponti (Villa Planchart in Caracas) and Carlos Raúl Villanueva (University City of Caracas).

“Intrusions” bring to these constructions of fine and delicate lines different masses of color. His main concern is to interrupt, pictorial and symbolic, inside specific architectural spaces, recognizable and impeccable, as a foreign and external element to the self-image and to the space itself. As objects that appear and disappear messily in the urban spaces, a sort of lost shapes, as to be objects abandoned and discarded or confusingly used to form a small temporary structure for shelter to the homeless.

In “intrusions”, Alcaide conceptualizes aesthetics that refer to vernacular and modernist architecture, along with the geometric abstraction that marked his academic background. In this group of over painted images of Modern mid century interiors, the geometrical shapes subtly deconstruct the carefully designed romos. These incidental openings, thickly painted planes of colours, alter the dynamics of the interiors, invading the space and creating a new reality. Alcaide attempts to hinder the pictorial and symbolic reality of these immaculately designed spaces with a foreign and striking element which appears to be floating in the space like an abandoned shelter.

This contrast appears in his works to compose a more complex approach to the topic of past modernism and his relationship with the harsh reality in modern times. The artist’s approach is to address a so complex social issue, from an ambiguous and ironic point of view, as presenting these ideal scenarios formally occupied by geometric objects and attractive compositions, and yet represent a form of invasive disorder.