ART

AFRICAN PERCEPTIONS OF A N ARGENTINE MASTERby Annick Sanjurjo CascieroTranslated by Kathy A. Ogle

For more than forty years, Argentineaitist. Eduardo Mac Entyre has been creat-ing a universe of curved lines, circles, andcircmiiferences. On a solid—usuallydark—background, Ibey nieel and sepa-rate, open and close, overlap, and moveaway from each other, or crash togetherwilh a sudden inipacl thai produces itsown movement and luminous energy. Thelines might grow in vokune or acquii'cmore curves, but they still glide over thesolid background, cross each other, andweave together, cai'rying a dynaniic alltheir own. Each composition is a universewhose energy needs are supplied by its0W71 orderly geometry. It is also a self-suffi-cient univf?rse in lenns of content, since itdoesn't attempt to imitate external reality,tell a stor>', or reproduce a scene fi'om reallife. It is a refiection of a kind of intellectualcontemplation that evokes and leads theway to spirituality.

Art conceived in this way is intelligentaction complemented by the sensitivity t>l'the artist. It is the search for beauty forheauty's sake, the search fur a new realitywith its own forms and colors. It "leaveslhe obseiver free to work actively withthese elements using his own imagination,"says Mac Enl,\Te, co-fouiuier in 1960 of the.'\rtf' Gcnerativo movement. "That's whenait, which is shaped with the beautifulpower of human freedom, together withour sensitivity and our intelligence, can—with a power that is similar to that ofnature itself—give birth to manifestationsof life, vihration, heauty and harmony,power and energ;y, siniply by coriibiningthe most .simple—and therefore thepurest—forms."

Annick Scmjurjo Casciero is the cmthorof numerous publication's mid audio-visual preseyilatians on the art andartists of Latin, America. She is a pastcontributor to Americas. All pfwtographsare from the exhibition catalog AfricaiiInsights, Centro Cultural Borges, BuenosAires, Argentina.

Fertilidad marka,1999, acrylic oncanvas, right,captures thesjn'ritual essenceof the Markamarionette, anonarticulatedwoodenfmnatetorso from Mali,below, that isadhered to a stickand manipnlatedby puppeteersduring rituals

Adhering to these basic artistic princi-ples, Mac Entyre iias responded to a chal-lenge to enter a world very different fromhis own, the worki of black African ances-tral culture. He does this by transferring tohis paintings the images that flow frompieces of his lich collection of African art—masks, ritual statuettes, male and femalefigures, fetishes, doors, and other objects."What interested me was their form," saysMac Ent.yre, who has managed to capturetheii' most essential elements. But it wasn'tjust a matter of extracting fomis; he alsohad to penetrate their mystery and under-stand theii' reason for being, their essence.

In Iliis way he began lo build aworld thatwas different, but intimately connected to,that of tlie figures before hitti. Faithful tohis style of pure and sim]>le abstract geom-etry, he didn't reproduce the figure—afetish, mask, or statuette—^just as it was;he gave it another dimension. He didn'tcreate t.he visible; he created the invisi-ble—the spell, the magic that was s^ inboli-caily attributed to it in its original culture.

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h) Imageries urbanas Ndebele, acrylic oncanvas, 2000, the artist demonstrates hisability to transmit the essence of ancienttribal objects to the geometric patterns oftoday's urban world

Fertilidadtitarka (MarkaFertility), for exam-ple, is made wilh thosesame generative curvesthat are now the artist'strademai'k. Sometimes ihey arefine lines and sometimes they arethick ones. Located symnietricaUy int he upper center of the picture, the linesextend asymmetrically both to the nght.and to left at the bottom of the canvas.Naturally, this composition can be inter-preted in different ways, but one explana-tion could be that energy is emanatingfrom a swaying objet-t. Tlie actual mari-onette fi'om Mali's Marka people is awoniaiVs torso on a stick. Puppeteers makeher move from right to left in ritual cere-monies (jr theater scenes. Mac Entyi-e hasmade an abstraction of the fonn, giving itthe dynamic that, is generated when themarionette is used in dances or tribal rep-resentations. In tliis way, he creates anotherdimension as he represents the motioiilessstatue. He also infuses her with red andsensual forms that stand out over the darkhrown hackground. Fine light-bluish-gi'eenisii cuning linos are placed as if toindicate that the nourishing gift of thetorso's full aiid roundefi breast,s, heav>'with the seeds of fertility, is falling uponthe eaitli. No matter how the work is inter-preted, it. is clear that the artist has beenable to capture the hidden symbolism ofthe marionette. He lias done so in his ownlanguage, bnt he has also adopted a colorhe hasn't used before—a deep dark brownthat is clearly African.

Mac Entyre goes even further into hisrepresentati(]n of the invisible when hegives expression to tJie sjiiritual symbolism

nos igbo (IgboFeminine Spells). The

funeral masks of thisNigerian group depict tlie

face of a young woman who hasdied. They are decorated with elab-

orate lieaddresses^antelope horns intliis particular case—that highlight, the

physical beauty of tlie young woniiin v\'liilealso containing a profound spiritual mean-ing. For Mac Entyre, the most relevantpart of the mask is its spiritual message,and it. is precisely this that he manages tocapture once again through movement andcolor. The face of the mask is a largeinverted triangle, drawn with slightlyrounded lines, in the lower center of thecanvas. From there, oval forms impelled bythe soft suggestion of an ascending spiralmove upwar'ds until they disappear. It.'s asif a spiritual halo were wrapped around,and interwoven with, the honisof theheaddress. The foniis are maintained, butthey have lost their rigidity, becomingethereal forms that create their own space.

With its ascendingpurple spirals,Hechizos femeninosigbo, far right,reflects thelanguage of

that is captured inthis maiden spiritmask of the Igbo inNigeria, right. Theelegant while musk.symbolises thephysical andmental beauty oftiie deceased

Mac Ent^Te rommunicates this t.o us inanother color that is new for liim: violet,whose softened tones contrast, witli thebrightness of the canvas, forming shapes thatsuggest great serenity' or a profoiuid spiritualstate as they lise in different planes.

The apparent ease with which MacEntyre manages to transmit the essence ofthese ancient tribal objects t.o the modemand rapidly changing worki of geometricsuggestions should not deceive us. Tomake this transposition, he had to reinventhiinself and reinvent the profotmdly reli-gious force behind the beliefs that operat-ed in generally agrictiltitral societies. Andhe had to make sure that neithei" the artistnor those societies lost their identity alongthe way. He had to look at each objec t withan analytical eye. suppress Ifie superflu-ous, and pull out its iiidden meaning.

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"1 had toclean all of theobjects," heconfesses. "I hadto remove thenails and othersuch things andleave just theessential.... Iwould be lookingat these imagesand suddenly 1would understaiKl what one of theni wastelling me. . . . It's not about showing realityas it is, but rather to capture, for example,some lines, a color, a texture, and to startfrom there to creat.e a new work." Sincethis meant he had to reijwent liiinselfas apainter, he started to rummage ttiroughold drawers and Dies to rediscover tecrh-niques that he had used iri his early yearsas an artist.

This is, for example, howMa/jixi delfetiche cov/jo (Magic of the Congo Fetish)came to be. The actual 7ikisi nkortdifetish that was thr inspiration for thisacrylic was ritualiy pierced with nails andother metals in order to release a magicsubstance that could be used to britigaboul reconciliation and ot.her good things.In Magia delfeticlie C07igo, Mac Ent.yredoes not use thin curved lines or romidedforms that "generate power and energy."On the contrary, to preserve the meaninginherent in the fetish, he resorted to thestraight line, which is more aggressive thanthe curve and creates the tension neces-saiy to release the beneficent power con-

tained in the statuette. In the acri-'lic, theitems that pierce are represented by small,fine, white triangles that are sharp likedarts. The darts do not pierce, mutUate, orpenetrate, but they are cliarged with avelocity and energy that—like a magicwand—breaks a body or a substance intoniult.iple rectangles that are then set freeand are able to realize their conciliatory orbealing action. These dark red rectangles,distributed apparently at random over adark background, create different, planes,moved by Ihe impact of the long white tri-angles. The painting suggests the preciseluonieiit in wliich the niagic substance isactivated to produce the desired change.For this work, Mac Entyre's palette alsowent through some changes. His colors,which before were light, brilliant, and lunii-

Inspired hy the nkisi nkondi/rom tfieCongo, far left, the artist uses sharp whitetriangular darts lo release thf magicsubstance that brings about change inMagia del fetiche congo, acrylic on canvas,mi, left

nous, were deepened to more iiitensely(iark tones with a rich texture. Mac Entyrehas used a new conipositiona! element, thestraight line, and colors that are new forhim as well, but he has still given liis workan inner power capable of transforming thestilhiess of tbe fetish into energy. Andwlule the "action" develops mtliin a har-monic cadence, this does not negate theincisive force that has brougtit it about.

"It is aU generativo art," the artistexplains. "Art. generates, just like life gen-erates. My work hasn't changed; I continueto generate things, situations, questions; Icontinue to generate moods. Art, like life,is not static; it generates new forms, newc{Dnsiderations, new colors, and everytliingyou do enriches the language of art.."

During this entire process of re-creation,Mac Entyre did everytliing he could to sur-round himself with things related to blackAfrica. "I was looking at other work, con-sulting books," he says, "and I found inter-esting things there: a new spectrum, dark-er, n\ore intense tilings. I added a blue or aviolet to some, even when it wasn't thereat first. I let myself be moved by what I wasseeing, and at the same time I was creat-ing Tbese pieces interested me. I liked

them a lot, so I got in deeper. I was evenlisteiung to African music.... I got intoeverything; Afric:an images, with their col-ors. The palette was a whole new range ofcolors for me. It was beautiful! So I startedto use that palette, colors I hadn't usedbefore."

Mac Entyre's various st.utlies of the Bwamask from Burkina Faso show once agaiJihow he successfully combines African pat-tems with his own creativity. The actualmask is a buffaio head with prominent eyespainted in black, white, and red concentriccircles. His Mascara Bwa (Bwa Mask)serigraph depicts those eyes with a verysimple geomel rir abstrarl ion of the sameform and color, but it highlights them evenfurther by cormec-ting tliern to tliick blackvertical lines that, frame the face on eachside over a completely white background.Ii\ tMs serigraph, the eyes ajjpear to beever-alert guardians of ;ui entire culture.Al other times, however—as in MiradaBwa (Bwa Portrait) -dndAbstraccian Bwa

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(Bwa Abstraction)—they are blended intoa strictly geometric pattern of straight liiiesand a few curves, wliich product' a strongkinetic effect when they meet at closeangles. Merged in this way, they suggestconstantly ^-igilant, but liicklen, eyes that liein w;iil for the presence of any threat thaialight endanger the ones that they protect.The placement of these lines creates a self-contained movement tliat both grows tinddies witliin. It suggests intensity, a constantstate of alert.

Bwa masks like this head of a buffalo, top left,were tradilioiialli/ carved hy masters in remotemilages iifllir l-pixr Volla and itsed in fertilityrituals. In Mascara Bwa, 1999, Herigrajih, aboveleft., Mac Entyre captures the power of themask's eyes in geometric abstraction; inAbstrarrinii ^vi^,2(K)0, serigraph, above, andMiradaBwa,,2(W/, acrylic and oil, top, straightlines and curves blend with kivMieforce

If wo don't recognizeIhe "generative" MacEntyre ij\ some of theseworks, the artist will bequick to correct us: "Inmy African work, I gofrom tiie figurative, whichis what attracted me, tothe abstract,, I'm quiteliappy to cross that line, Idon't have limits. I havediscovered new colors,and I have rediscovered auumbor Df techniques Iused when 1 was twentyyi^ars uld. It was very nat-ural to take them upagain and put them touse in these works,"

It is evident that MacEntyre's experience withAfrican culture didn'tmean renouncing Ids ownprinciples. On the con-

trar>', each new pictorial experienceseems to reaffirm Iiis deep-seatedconfidence in generative art.: "Westarted from this little spot, or tliissmall straight line and we gave itmovemeni. We have generatedmovement.,,, We have made themmove from one place to another,\il>ratf!, spin, , , , We have identifiedthem more with the presetit and thefuture, , , , They take on a new kindof life and a new identity in space,"

For Mac Entyre, the word stylemeans much more than the adop-tion of a certain kind of expression,whatever that may be, "Slyle is not acalligrapiiic affectation. It's a spiritu-al slate. It is the humati being andoveiything the human being does.Wliat. intereslj) me is to be constantlyin a state of fermentation,Everytiiing I do is going to wearmy personal seal, because thisthing called style is in the spirit, inthe ideas, in the feelings, and in allthe senses. Everything one does

enriches the language of art, but one has tolie sufficiently perceptive to be able togi-asp what reality is offering us,"

In this case, reality is a modem worldthat may be forgetting magic and the spellof its own mystery and spiiituality.Ediiardo Mac Ent>Te is recovering themeaning of things. He is infusing them witlinew life without distorting them. In fact,he has nsed existing elements to create anew world. •

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