Simply an Illusion, or the infallible parody of the real
by Amable López Meléndez
Rosario Rivera-Bond articulates a visual grammar based on reactive veils and textural games. Her work depicts “contaminated” spaces, broken lines, fluid strokes and liquid colors. Frenetic rhythms, at once harmonious and discontinuous, blend with ruptures and conceptual dissolutions that project auras, saying farewell to stylistic rigidity and the account of the formal picture. In her ardent and reactive universe, she displays fantasy saturated by humor, irony and visual cues that project a dialogue of contemporary pictorial practice within an artistic context that is emphatically banal.
Of the artist’s recent production, Curator Dr. Milagros Bello states, “Her works, composed of thick layers of oil and resin, show dislocated beings mixed with industrial materials and recycled feminine objects. A variegated and delirious composition dominates her work. Characters, at times flamboyant and playful, mix with improbable objects and materials. Bond proposes common threads within her work – the allusion to the feminine world, fashion, the demands of beauty, the perfection of a woman’s body, and the unstoppable consumerism and social demands of today.”
The artist herself gives us a precise and clear reading of her latest execution: “In my work, I try to deconstruct the American Dream of beauty and the perfect life. We are being bombarded by advertisements and propaganda depicting what should be the perfect feminine prototype, whether it is through photos, magazines, movies, television, or any other media. I can’t help but laugh and yet be concerned with the situation. Let’s be realistic; we are all products of this brainwashing. I’m interested in the world of the real woman, and the roles that define and guide her. I’m interested in the cultural predicaments that constrain her or determine her path, such as the power of beauty, fashion, and sex, all elements that either elevate or destroy her by creating highly demanding and competitive situations among herself and her peers.” “Simply an Illusion” is Rosario Rivera-Bond’s current and as-of-yet most complete solo exhibition, curated with great care by Dr. Milagros Bello and organized by the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo, with patronage from the Cultural Ministry of the Dominican Republic and the group Asociación Amigos of the MAM.
The speculative efficiency of the artist’s works that composes “Simply an Illusion”, operates from the fact that they are extractions from series of pictorial works, installations and sculptures that, from my point of view, result in certain basic elements in the multifaceted productions of Rivera-Bond over the last 10 years.
I’m referring to paintings that are extraordinary, chromatically vital, and expressively liberating such as Stroll Through Life (2008), The King and I (2008), Shopping Spree (2008), All My Friends Series V (2009), The Public Speaker (2009), Wishful Thinking (2009), Caperucita Roja (Little Red Riding Hood) (2011), In the Sky with Diamonds (2011), and Crazy About You, (2011). The last two pertain to a series still in progress entitled Diary of a Shopaholic, about which Dr. Bello lucidly writes “The large format canvas depicts an immense palimpsest of feminine objects and images of women cut out from magazines. The artist incorporates perfumes, lipstick, necklaces, and intimate objects in this work, satirically recreating the world of the modern woman and her insatiable search for beauty and physical perfection”.
Along with these axial paintings, various sculptural reactions from the artist’s Beautiful Trash and Golden Trash series successfully excite the reflexes of the spectator regarding the issue of femininity within the media and the chaos of our everyday post-metropolis. This gives the viewer a vantage point from which to observe an exquisite hallucinatory sarcasm and irony.
From the Beautiful Trash series, the body of work for “Simply an Illusion” integrates the sculptures Adam (2010), Eve (2010), The Finalist (2010), and Beautiful Trash IV (2009). From Rivera-Bond’s Golden Trash series, works on view include Woman with No Voice, Sunday Supper, Golden Water, La gallina de los huevos de oro (The Chicken with the Golden Eggs), De cabeza (Headfirst), and La caída de Superman (The Fall of Superman), all completed in 2010.
In the construction of these unhinged sculptural reactions, Rosario Rivera-Bond uses recycling in a genius way, and achieves brilliant results. She materializes each piece as a type of metaphorical accumulation, unmistakably affiliated with post-Dadaism. The artist combines and manipulates materials and objects such as wood, metallic fabrics, leather, resin, and synthetic fibers with other items such as vegetables, flowers, roses, and artificial fruits. Also found in her work are textiles, mirrors, feathers, brass, pearls, precious stones, and costume jewelry such as rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets. Bond also incorporates wrapping paper, sunglasses, photos of top models and celebrities, wigs, lingerie, combs, crowns, and a surprising amount of natural feminine cosmetic gadgets within her pieces.
If in the work from Beautiful Trash, Rosario Rivera-Bond emphasizes a dark palette, sooty patina similar to oil residue, and a type of contaminated mist characterized by a singed atmosphere that is part of a corrosive process and devastating reality, in the sculptures and installations from the Golden Trash Series, the artist establishes the golden, fictitious reality of a kingdom–splendid, wonderful, and even more fantastic.
The latter materializes in Woman with No Voice. A crowned figure in silhouette is seen reclining in her elevated, golden throne and surrounded by objects, jewelry, wrapping paper and feminine toys. Everything seems perfect, but after a confrontation the silenced, silhouetted figure manifests a disequilibrium and restless gesture. Likewise, in the case of La gallina de los huevos de oro (The Chicken with the golden eggs), the column-pedestal element seems to melt and allude to an invasive, natural oxidation process- a product of the devouring actions of a sudden blaze that shoots out rays and electrifying elements.
The infallible parody of appearances and what is a real, caustic theatricality of splendor and misery, which includes an explosion of the ephemeral, the absurd, and fascination in the wake of delirium, is found within the work of Rosario Rivera-Bond. Other common elements include codes, signs, and folkloric symbols of post-modernity. Metaphoric rites of passage, games, collisions, and everyday mythologies of super-reality, scenes, subjectivity and a time of human impudence are also seen in her paintings and sculptures. Rivera-Bond addresses these issues by being bold and satirical, resolute and attractive over the social, economic, political and cultural powers that be within the globalized world. The feminine condition, stardom, the art world, and its mutant spectrums of taste, pleasure, and desire are all players in Rivera-Bond’s visual landscape.
In these metaphorical sculptural reactions, the result is an effective, overwhelming, and multi-layered symbolism. Rosario Rivera-Bond brilliantly materializes her excellent social sensibility, her profound humane and ethical convictions, her vast visual culture, and her unconquerable critical rebellion and irony, all without losing her imaginative, splendid, and delicious humor. There is no doubt that with this series of sculptures, Rosario Rivera-Bond reaffirms the purification and corporeal coherence of a symbolic production full of beauty and vitality, and simultaneously deepens a radical departure from her original creative path.
Text created for the exhibition “Simply an Illusion”. Museo de Arte Moderno. Santo Domingo, 2011.