This exhibition review was published on Widewalls Magazine on August 2, 2022.
Life as an invitation
Yoan Capote solo exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery
Requiem (Tears), 2021-2022 (Detail). Oil, goldleaf, nails, and fishhooks on canvas mounted on panel in two parts. 89 3/4 x 111 x 5 1/8 inches overall.
Deification of tools, consciously or subconsciously, brings out tremendous cultural affiliations. Chopsticks are preferred in Eastern countries very much related to the desired quality of indirectness and modesty. Firearms are difficult to be limited in the United States possibly due to its demonstration of American directness, individualism and an absolute display of power. In a nation where its 500 years of history is precariously affiliated with the word “affiliation” itself, fishhook might just be the perfect representative. Ever since its discovery, Cuba has been a nation of affliction, first to the Spaniards, briefly to the US and later to the Soviets. In understanding Cuban artists, rather than superficially treating this relationship as a subordinate one, it is essential to value affiliation as the very subject of Cuba’s core culture itself. The unique identity coming out of a culture that is originated and nurtured by a sense of affiliation is as indigenous, original and cherishable as any cultures that had reached out as the dominators. Thanks to this, for example, we are finally seeing the great Cuban artists such as Wifredo Lam recognized and understood individually, out of the shadow of Pablo Picasso.
Yoan Capote is a stand-out Cuban contemporary artist who shows profound understanding of his culture as well as how it can be vitalized into true international artistic narratives. His two-part solo exhibition “Requiem” and “Purification” at Jack Shainman’s two gallery spaces demonstrates with full power that the most important cultural heritage to be preserved in the process of translating local identities to the international contemporary art landscape is not “how the locals appear”, but “how the locals think”.
Yoan Capote, Purificación (Desplazados), 2022. Plaster, wires and recycled metal elements on jute panel mounted on plywood. 37.4 x 37.4 x 1.97 inches (95 x 95 x 5 cm). © Yoan Capote. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Fishhooks
The artistic value of fishhooks, one of the oldest tools invented by mankind, lies in the fact that it is ultimately an invitation. Despite the obvious consequences of risk, pain and death, the invitation is deemed irresistible. It is more humble than a spear, an arrow or a cannon when the end goal is to penetrate and destroy - a hook has its rounded end facing out which doesn’t present an immediate threat. Its goal is more complicated as it asks to be attached and retrieved. This presents an interesting epistemological interpretation where arguably a fishhook is a visual representation of how we obtain knowledge - we attach and then we merge. Capote has always been a “concept before medium” artist since his Instituto Superior de Arte times. In poignantly identifying the substantial cultural and philosophical association with fishhook, he developed both the “Requiem” and “Purification” series and proposes: Each fishhook represent each individual and each line of thought in our society.
Installation view, Yoan Capote, Purification, 2022. Jack Shainman Gallery, 524 W 24th Street, New York. © Yoan Capote. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo: Dan Bradica.
The “One” and the “Mass”
The theme of Capote’s practice has always centered around the relationship between the “one” and the “mass”. The display of both the “Requiem” and “Purification” series at the gallery’s two locations adequately demonstrate this relationship in a Mise-en-scène fashion, with each single fishhook as one player, actor or basic element. In the examples of “Purificación (Cortina de Hierro)” and “Purificación (Peso de Conciencia)”, each individual first congregates into a cluster, depicted as separate “waves” and “clouds”, but ultimately merge into the “ocean” and the “sky”, very much reminiscent of how our society functions. Sometimes the hooks would aim towards one direction, indicating a social routine of humankind or an agreement in certain political views, while sometimes they aim towards two completely opposite directions, disagreeing with one another. Some hooks are bigger and more robust compared to the others, showing the nature of inequality in how voices are heard.
Requiem (Tears), 2021-2022 (Detail). Oil, goldleaf, nails, and fishhooks on canvas mounted on panel in two parts. 89 3/4 x 111 x 5 1/8 inches overall. © Yoan Capote. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Fishhooks Outreaching
How Capote treats the edges is particularly interesting as most of the works have a decent amount of hooks spilling over to the outside of the base board. Mid-air and weakly supported, these hooks on the edges don’t quite gel with the rest of the society as do their peers, but they seem to be the most adventurous of their kind. Compared to the ones that are sitting comfortably at the center of the work among hundreds of others doing the exact same thing, these are the outlaws, the groundbreakers, and the opinionated advocates. “Requiem (Tears)” is the strongest in this sense where the two panels are only inches apart where the hooks from the edges of each panel fight for a stronger invitation for the other side to compromise. The shape of the two panels configure a gap that only comes further apart towards the bottom. What is also intriguing about this diptyque as well as a few non-rectangularly shaped works such as “Requiem (Aura)” is that the shapes of these panels are artificially round or angled, making the uncontrolled edges appear very much in control when looked at from afar. Perhaps the most adventurous explorers and ground-breakers are inevitably subject to social disciplines.
Installation view, Yoan Capote, Purification, 2022. Jack Shainman Gallery, 524 W 24th Street, New York. © Yoan Capote. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo: Dan Bradica.
New Altars
Inspired by middle ages altar paintings, Yoan Capote incorporated 24k gold leaves into his most recent “Equirem” series. In these works, we see a visual dichotomy of gold and black, although the proportion of the two are distinct in each piece. At a glance, replacing skyscapes with gold, a visual proximity to the color of dawn and dusk seems to be a dundane idea despite an uptick in holiness. However, upon further inspection, Capote’s deep understanding towards the relationship between the “one” and the “mass” reveals itself with this updated method of division: Previously, the hooks playing skyscapes and the ones playing seascapes were divided in a similar manner. Here, however, the equal application of gold leaves in the upper part of the panels suggests an alternative of how the “mass” can re-congregate more seamlessly into a true “one”. On the other hand, when these works are to be compared with true historical altar pieces in a religious setting, biblical stories are now replaced with an ocean of fishhooks. Capote vigorously pronounces that it is the humans and human thoughts, via the objectification of fishhooks, that is to be made divine and celebrated, regardless of how insufferable the human lives are and how dark the human thoughts can be. If the concept of the Divine Trinity is one of our first attempts in breaking the conceptual barriers surrounding the “one” and the “three” on the god’s level, then Capote’s “Requiem” series endows this very right for the “one” and “mass” to cross over into each other on the human level. In Capote’s mind, the assemblage of a Catholic mass might only be made possible by the “mass” of the people to begin with.
Purificación (still), single channel digital video with sound, 11 minutes. © Yoan Capote. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Purificación (still), single channel digital video with sound, 11 minutes. © Yoan Capote. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Humans as Medium
While “24k gold leaf”, “fishhook”, and “canvas” are his professionally listed medium(s), Capote’s true medium has always been “human” and “human labor”. Compared to many artists who go to assistants’ labor only for efficiency, it is almost essential for Capote’s works for them to be made not just by himself, but by an assemblage of workers. They ARE the fishhooks. Every single fishhook joins together to form a Platonic “Fishhook”. Albeit body type, tech-savviness, artsiness and handiness, each worker comes together to form the “Yoan Capote”. The gallery shows great understanding towards this by displaying the video “Purificación” at both its locations with sound on, documenting how the pieces in the show were made. Throughout the 11-minute video, the faces of the workers are almost entirely absent. This is not because their individual identity is unimportant; this is because what joint identity can represent is all that matters.
Installation view, Yoan Capote, Requiem, 2022. Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 W 20th Street, New York. © Yoan Capote. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Invitation to Exit
If I am to identify one true altarpiece from all Capote’s altarpieces in the show, it is “Requiem (Altarpiece)” which is placed at the very rear of the main gallery space. With 25 feet in length and a real-sized door half-opened in the middle, it is more of a set design than an actual collectible. Throughout the entire exhibition, viewers are challenged to alter between the minuteness of the fishhooks on a micro level and the depiction of Cuban seascapes on a macro level. However, the exhibition comes to a finale here when one is invited to enter the door, or if you may, dive into the ocean. A destination has presented itself. The invitation extended by each little fishhook now comes together as a grand invitation which is perfectly human-sized. By the end of the day, what is behind this door is not important, because it is by itself the biggest hook in the ocean.