Roberto Cortázar : A Retrospective

27.10.2011

Roberto Cortázar .

Presented by Puerta Roja, the double exhibition showcases both Roberto Cortazar’s most recent series of works and a 20 year retrospective of some of the Mexican painter’s iconic works. These include large format paintings lent by private collections not seen in public since their museum exhibition. The show will mark the launch of his new series “Kinetic” ahead of his 2012 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.

The Retrospective part of the show sets the context of the artists discourse to introduce his new series of works. It includes some of the works Cortázar  made over 5 years where he committed himself to major projects for three of the most important museums in Latin America. “Saturn and the Parricides”, presented by the Museo Amparo and the Museum of Contemporary Art, was inspired in Greek mythology and variations on the theme of Goya’s “Saturn Devouring his Son”. In 2009, he was the first living artist invited by the Mexican National Museum of Art, MUNAL, to exhibit by rendering a reinterpretation of one of Mexico’s greatest Masters: Orozco. For many critics and academics, Cortázar rooted himself within the history of Mexico’s best artists, by rediscovering one of the greatest known muralists amidst a post-modern world.

“Kinetic” is an ambitious series of work that fuses Cortázar’s characteristic two-dimensional classical paintings of the human figure with a three-dimensional postmodernist approach that creates a sense of unstoppable motion and abstract spatiality. Adriana Alvarez-Nichol, curator of the exhibition and founder of Puerta Roja, the first dealer in Hong Kong dedicated to Latin art, comments: “It is very relevant to have Roberto Cortázar in this unprecedented solo show for a Mexican artist in Hong Kong. He has uncompromising academic rigour and dexterity but remains approachable.. I believe he brings a truly different discourse to the art scene in Hong Kong”.

Edward M. Gomez, internationally recognized art critic contributor to Art News and The New York Times and avid follower of the artist, comments: “Cortázar, whose art is rooted in Mexico’s long, rich tradition of figurative image-making (a tradition that stretches back to its ancient civilizations), has never primarily been motivated by any theory or any aesthetic doctrines. Instead, the art-making language… has evolved out of his technical experiments as a painter and draftsman, and out of his investigation and assimilation of a variety of influences, from the economical, expressive lines of such modern masters as Picasso and Matisse to the figure altering techniques of Francis Bacon. Cortázar approaches and handles his materials in a way that is both elegant and visceral”.

Mexico’s Consul General to Hong Kong, Alicia Buenrostro Massieu, stated “Roberto Cortázar is one of Mexico’s most prominent artists. We are delighted that Hong Kong’s standing in the international art market is attracting exhibitions of this calibre and are happy to contribute to the richness and diversity of its art scene”.

Click here to learn more about Roberto’s work.