ESTEBAN VICENTE
Collage and drawings
May 30 – January 5, 2014.
This new display of the permanent collection focuses the attention on Esteban Vicente’scollages accompanied in this occasion by a reduced number of drawings. The collages are the most abstract works by Esteban Vicente, performed with total freedom, far away from the imitation of nature. They are improvised color compositions in which texture and form are gently performed. Collages were understood by Vicente as a different way of painting using new elements such as drawing, recycled, manufactured or hand-painted paper – the paper was the equivalent to color, displayed in the way of brushstrokes on the canvas.
In Vicente’s collages we find both, that language derived from the Abstract Expressionism and the collage of the creators of Cubism. Thomas B. Hesse attributed to Vicente and the New York School the relocation of the collage technique within the legacy of Picasso and Matisse. Those collages show the importance and influence of Cubism on Vicente’s work.
The first collages dated 49 -50 coincide with the discovery of Vicente’s own language as a painter and his recognition as an artist, being selected by Meyer Schapiro and Clement Greenberg to participate in the show Talent 1950. From that moment on his work played an important role in the development of the New York School.
The different techniques used in the production of Vicente’s works were understood by the artist as different ways of painting. Everything was painting. Vicente considered drawing as a way for research in nature, being line and trace structural elements of the form and the composition, both being an independent technique or part of a collage together with other materials. The drawings together with the collages in this exhibition have been selected in order to show this intention