By Jenny Dunn
In the Gutstein Gallery, people waited for the lecture. They gathered in small groups and contributed to the buzz of conversations. Occasionally, a loud peal of laughter separated itself the shuffle of voices.
The artist, Alexandre Arrechea, paced back and forth along the windows of the gallery. He sported a blue and white button-down shirt, a soul patch and mounds of black hair. He is even better looking than in his photos.
The chairs for the lecture were black with metal rungs, two blocks of ten across. Unlike the chairs featured in Arrechea’s solo art, these chairs are designed for sitting.
The artist’s solo show, “The Rules of PLAY” closed April 30 with the artist explaining his work.
You cannot sit in his chairs or stadiums. You cannot enter his buildings, play his pianos or pound his punching bags. There is possibility inherent in his vision—it is a vision apart from function, but within the realm of conceptual purpose.
His lecture, part of SCAD Style, explained the themes and issues that motivate his art as well as the results of his choice to leave the artist collective, Los Carpinteros, which he co-founded in 2003.
“It was an amazing experience to work with them,” he began his lecture, referring to Los Carpinteros. He left only because he wished to “carefully start to grow.”
“To start a work as a solo is a huge challenge,” Arrechea said. “There are new negotiations now, I’m worried about what happens in the house, in the neighborhood.”
He works in several mediums, from video to watercolor, magnetic chip drawings, on site installations and sculpture.
He constantly questions: “What happens?” “What’s going on?” What’s going to be next?” He expresses his curiosity, humanity and his doubts through his work.
Arrechea’s art stems from “moments in his life,” something all artists can relate to.
His solo career traveled from an interior world of self-reflection to larger exterior issues with interrelated “temporal links.” He traced a “new situation of self” and graduated to visual commentary on society and the art world.
He’s been concerned with solving something and striving to capture the fragility of objects that “contain memory of the places” he’s been. His art, life and memory are a “map that is easily destroyed.”
While speaking of his exhibits in Havana, he said, “I like to create a dialogue with the place I exhibit my work.”
Arrechea’s confessed obsession is the idea of control, surveillance and the relationship of power.
His art subjugates the viewer with images of trees, wrecking balls, punching bags, basketballs, pianos and chairs.
He forces objects out of context, displaying chairs no one can sit on, and pianos that cannot be played.
He creates atmosphere where you are unable to control or contribute to the game around you. He plays with what we see, where we cannot go, and the optical chaos that plays on loop in his art.
“Looking at ‘Pregon,’” he explained, gesturing to the piece in the gallery, “you are losing the pianist, losing the crowd. What you have after that is nothing.”
His exhibits are his mind, and his mind is clever, conceptual and curious.
“I hope you were not bored.” He smiled at us.
Far from it.
