Resident of the month
Juan Santiago Martinez
Published the 8 July 2024
I am Juan Santiago Martínez, curator and writer, born in 1995 in San Salvador, El Salvador. I completed my primary and secondary studies at the French Lyceum of San Salvador, while I completed my Bachelor’s Degree in Humanities and the Master’s Degree in Curatorial Studies at the University of Navarra, between 2015 and 2021.
During my stay in Pamplona, in 2020, I began to collaborate with the Museo
Forma in my country; however, it was after my return to El Salvador that I was appointed curator and advisor of the Museum, serving as such until 2022. Since then I have been dedicated to independent curating, including curatorial projects at the Museo de Arte de El Salvador and Art History classes at the Alianza Francesa.
In addition to my role as a curator, I have pursued a career as a writer.
I have currently published two collections of poetry (4.7.6 in 2019; Alejandría in 2022). In addition to this, I have begun to develop a facet as an art critic. Since April 2022, on a monthly basis, I write opinion columns in La Prensa Gráfica on cultural topics.
“(…) I believe that art should once again satisfy the highest need of the spirit, that is, return to the path of aesthetics, to achieve concrete communication and pluralize its contents. It is true that art has evolved, but thinking of it as a personal intellectual satisfaction, a boring opinion or simple entertainment causes people to become discouraged and bored, to not understand it and, therefore, not consume it.”
I´ll be updating this space with my texts, projects, ideas...a little bit of everything!
The eternal agony of a hopeless Romanticism
No, it is not the title of a song by some snob band, nor of a poem of questionable skill: it is the reality of current art.
There is a snake that we call Art History that has presented us with a binary structure that we can simplify between the Classical Stage and the Romantic Stage. And within this simplified and Eurocentric structure of art, we understand the movements in the following way: archaic, full (or classical) and late.
The first cluster, that of the Classics, we have the Greco-Latin, Renaissance and Neoclassical aesthetics. This group is characterized by the predominance of an immaculate and precise aesthetic, the rigidity of the line ruthlessly subjecting color and the compositional structure that seeks to replicate human vision.
In the second cluster, the medieval, the baroque and the romantic. They, on the other hand, seek the predominance of the senses, the freedom of forms over drawing and the protagonism of colors as an entity of psychological, intellectual or religious pleasure.
When a movement perishes (due to opposition or starvation), it is normal to return to an aesthetic similar to the previous stage. Let us take the example of Greco-Latin art that dies due to starvation in the face of the aesthetic ideals of Christianity, thus giving birth to medieval aesthetics, which in turn dies due to opposition to the Renaissance, which is a return to the Classical Stage.
Now let us focus on the present. We remain stuck, since the 19th century, in Romanticism. This movement is currently in a difficult and slowed-down late Romanticism.
Of course, in a detailed view of 20th century art this seems absurd, mainly because we are used to seeing an unprecedented succession of short artistic movements.
However, let us agree that the temporal proximity has forced us to study only the
detail, the same detail that we ignore, for example, in the Middle Ages.
If we maintain this understanding of the basic structure of Romanticism (archaic-full-late), we will find that what we call “Romanticism” (which we will treat from now on as archaic Romanticism) is only the archaic period of Romanticism (c. 1800 – present). The full period would be the impressionist-abstract-cubist transition towards the simplification of forms and we conclude with a late period that is situated, precisely, in Postmodernism.
Let us take Turner as a reference: his obsession with light brings him closer to the Abstract. If Friedrich functions as a Giotto or a Manet (in the sense of the hinge artist) for archaic Romanticism, we realize that the real discoveries of Romanticism are located in Turner.
Later, comes the figurative disintegration—Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, the experiments of Symbolism in Čiurlionis, the presence of post-impressionism with Cézanne at the head, Expressionism and the New German Objectivity—which denotes a paved path towards romantic obsession: to demolish, as if it were a Hegelian system, the postulates (thesis) of the Classical and thus take it to its ultimate consequences: Abstraction and specifically, Malevich.
With the dead end of the experiments on canvas, conceived in full Romanticism, and its iconic, paradigmatic, enthusiastic and allegorical intention of burning the Louvre (Pissarro), there remains the disintegration, no longer of the figuration, but of the matter. It is born
as an icon of Late Romanticism (Postmodern Art): conceptual art and all its functionalities that eat away at the idea that art is the raw material of historiography, that is, its material dissolution.
And here we are, in that presence of the death of Romanticism, which does not die and acts like the Dog in the Manger: it does not innovate, nor does it allow innovation. But, we must add one more link: the presence of mannerisms. And there we have how Greek art dies with its histrionic intention of Hellenism; Medieval with the failed International Gothic, Renaissance with Mannerism per se, Baroque with Rococo, Neoclassicism with Neo-Greek and finally Romanticism with the art of today.
It just so happens that all these mannerisms act under the baton of the exaggeration of what they once were. Therefore, in this mechanism, it is congruent that so many “neo-” and “post-” appear in our aesthetic and theoretical faculties.
Romanticism is suffering an iconic decline, as there is an atmosphere of pessimism in the great museums of contemporary art and it seems that all the artists of the beginning of the 21st century repeat themselves: just as Monet tried to carry through to the end an impressionism that had died and he refused to accept it.
It is curious that in times of virality, only Cattelan made something truly viral related to the art world and we are talking about an event that is five years old. This invites us to think that the Pandemic played an important role, because the paradigm of cultural consumption changed (like the Black Death that took with it scholasticism, feudalism and therefore medieval art).
There is the feeling, therefore, that we are being lulled into a new artistic movement. We are in a moment between late Romanticism and a new mannerist expression, which, by chance, generates rejection among social spheres. And this is a palpable reality: today’s art bores with all the letters of the alphabet and generates mockery in banal conversations on social networks.
In this painful transition, new expressions born from the Internet have appeared, let’s take as an exemplary pillar the aesthetics of Vaporwave that carries with it elements that recall classical elements, such as Greco-Latin sculptures or columns. So, it is quite conclusive that we are heading towards the birth of a movement close to the Classical Stage (not by opposition, but by a forceful starvation) and a revival of classical aspects. This happens, or, ultimately, in the purest Fukuyama style, we are heading inevitably and at 400 km/h towards the “End of Art and the last work”.
OPINION: REFLECTIONS ON LATIN AMERICAN ART
The current state of Latin American art, from a superficial and certainly conglomerated perspective, is understood more as a style than as a section in some boring art history book. Latin American artistic production is seen as revolutionary, hot, full of dissidence and full of resistance.
From the representation of the revolutionary peasant to the indigenous person eager for freedom. From the struggle to achieve the most characteristic coloring of the area to the unjustified abusive use of folkloric and traditional iconography. From incorruptible social criticism to political pessimism. Thus, Latin art today traces its convergence and its undulating journey through international museums far from the periphery.
This idea makes me wonder: is there coherence between discourse and reality? Let’s go back to independent artistic production, which is usually placed in Mexico in the 1930s. Previously, during 19th century art, Realism, Eurocentric Academicism and Romanticism (as we conceived it in the previous column) took the reins. It is normal, being a newly independent space, that Latin American artists forged their way through European paths.
The Vanguards allowed Latin aesthetics and its artistic voice to rise with those who went to the Old Continent and had contact with vanguard artists. There was born the first “movement” in Latin America: Muralism led in Mexico by Vasconcelos and his three greats: (Rivera, Siqueiros, Orozco) and in a large part of South America, rescuing, for example, Guayasamín. A movement closely linked to the Latin vein, so much so, that it continues today.
Then came the string of artists absent from movements; becoming a reality for Latin art (and for the 21st century in general): artists do not belong to exact movements, but each one proposes a different and original aesthetic. Figuration, conceived as such, became an inexhaustible source of opportunities for the imaginary inherited from artists such as Tamayo, Botero, Kahlo, Cuevas, Lam or Matta.
Likewise, on the one hand, European Surrealism marked an important pattern in the creation of symbolism and the new figuration proposed by Latin America. On the other hand, the rescue of the captivating magic of precolonial, past and legendary history involved and united artists from this continent.
Later times (1960 onwards) came hand in hand with postmodernity and, therefore, conceptual elements. The Cold War caused havoc on the continent and the absence of decent human guarantees pushed artists to leave and grow in Europe. Cruz-Diez and Soto were the ones who surprised us with innovative proposals, showing that artists with experimental priorities were born in conservative Latin America.
And so it is today. A current situation that sings with too much grandiloquence that “Latin America resists.” According to the great museums, we are rebels, revolutionaries, unruly, champions of resilience and we are congregated in dissident groups. Latin Art is, metaphorically, a Che Guevara in New York.
Let me go deeper: I consider that there is a clear disconnect between what is exhibited abroad and the Latin American reality. I am uncomfortable with the constant display of political problems, disguised as visibility, when we are not capable of reversing them. And let us be clear: art does not change the political course of a continent that grows and shrinks with the hesitation of a cardiogram. Art can help to awaken intellectually and create internal awareness. But, this supposed revolutionary eagerness and its interest in creating awareness, unfortunately, does not work outside the periphery. What could a gallery owner, curator or buyer who has not experienced Latin experiences do, beyond feeling deep pity and an almost stinging condescension?
Let us understand that real changes at the political level are made from the front line, that is, from the country. Art has the duty, in turn, to promote the creation of awareness among fellow citizens. If art is to be a political motivation, it must have as its goal the intellectual struggle from the intricacies of the problem.
Let us conclude, therefore, that the fascination of Latin American art as constant Resistance has more to do with the exotic nature of the idea of the Latin revolts of the 20th century, than with a palpable reality. It is the duty of exiles, migrants and those who have a voice abroad and cannot return to the country, to carry out their criticism from abroad through art and ensure that their voice is heard in the country, that their brothers hear it.
Because critical art that serves only to embellish, but is limited to arousing feelings of sadness and condescension, cannot be part of the political resistance board supported by those who offer their lives for a better future.